Fair Trade... Electronics?

With a focus on electronics and technology, I have tried to take a closer look at the true cost of our stuff in this blog. This has been somewhat difficult as there isn't much information focusing directly on this specific of a topic. I have however managed to muddy the waters some, and bring to light some important issues facing the production of our technology.

With so much information and focus on fair trade products such as chocolate, coffee, and clothing people often forget about the technology we have become dependent on. It is also very easy to miss this recent development in fair trade products because there are still very few companies striving for this certification.

One company in particular, United Pepper, is striving to produce electronics that are fair trade and environmentally friendly. United Pepper only uses partners to produce their products who adhere to fair trade criteria including no child labor, fair wages, direct trade (no middlemen), and companies which allow for their workers to have access to job education regarding their rights as employees. This seems like the perfect plan; we can continue to purchase electronics and feel good about how we are fairly supporting the workers who made them. However, "United Pepper will always work with suppliers that respect Fair Trade principles. However, Fair Trade certification of technology products is still in its infancy at this stage, and in some countries and for some components we trust our partners to comply to Fair Trade principles." As states by United Pepper even with a mission to work with only fair trade partners it seems this is not always successful.

With this clip from United Pepper's mission statement on fair trade, they hint that even though they say their products are "fair trade" it is not always possible for the products to be produced fairly. This is, in turn, very similar to what I have discussed on previous posts regarding Apple and their mission to work with partners and manufacturers who follow a very similar set of rules.

As discussed in class, the idea of fair trade is a good step towards solving an issue. This is not to say that slavery and oppression will ever be a thing of the past, because as we have learned slavery has been a part of humanities history and continues to this day. We must look at fair trade more closely, be cause in a way we are trying to solve the inequalities of capitalism with capitalism.

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