Labour & the High-Tech Industry – when health becomes confidential business

Taking the extensive research behind their installation The Cleanroom Paradox as a starting point, Lenz, Neubauer & Zwickl will analytically explore the systemic suppression of information on occupational and toxic hazards at high-tech production sites. Giving a glimpse into the historic dimensions of the high-tech industry’s latent practices the artists will discuss Silicon Valley’s colonialist beginnings, the disproportional effect of these practices on people of colour and women and the gradual externalisation of risks to lower-income and threshold countries. The lecture will attempt to deconstruct the strategies, tools and tactics the industry employs to exploit their workers, attenuate their sovereignty and impede union formation. The talk will close by jointly discussing counter-strategies to redistribute power hierarchies and finally put the people, not profit, at the centre of this highly competitive industry.

Admission free, in English, without translation