[Sixstrings]

"We are like prisoners... We do not have a life. Only work."
-Teenaged Microsoft Worker

Over the past three years, unprecedented photographs of exhausted teenaged workers, toiling and slumping asleep on their assembly line during break time, have been smuggled out of the KYE factory.

KYE recruits hundreds-even up to 1,000-"work study students" 16 and 17 years of age, who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week. In 2007 and 2008, dozens of the work study students were reported to be just 14 and 15 years old. A typical shift is from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m.

Along with the work study students-most of whom stay at the factory three months, though some remain six months or longer-KYE prefers to hire women 18 to 25 years of age, since they are easier to discipline and control.

In 2007 and 2008, before the worldwide recession, workers were at the factory 97 hours a week while working 80 ½ hours. In 2009, workers report being at the factory 83 hours a week, while working 68 hours.

Workers are paid 65 cents an hour, which falls to a take-home wage of 52 cents after deductions for factory food.

Workers are prohibited from talking, listening to music or using the bathroom during working hours. As punishment, workers who make mistakes are made to clean the bathrooms.

Security guards sexually harass the young women.

Fourteen workers share each primitive dorm room, sleeping on narrow double-level bunk beds. To "shower," workers fetch hot water in a small plastic bucket to take a sponge bath. Workers describe factory food as awful.

Not only are the hours long, but the work pace is grueling as workers race frantically to complete their mandatory goal of 2,000 Microsoft mice per shift. During the long summer months when factory temperatures routinely reach 86 degrees, workers are drenched in sweat.

There is no freedom of movement and workers can only leave the factory compound during regulated hours.

The workers have no rights, as every single labor law in China is violated. Microsoft's and other companies' codes of conduct have zero impact.
http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0034&t=1

The above is just an excerpt from a much longer report.

This is what the American worker is up against folks, conditions that amount to prison labor and 65 cent per hour wages.

[Ludi]

There's the free market for you.

Or is it communism?

[timmac]

The problem with reports like these is that it will fall on deaf ears, very little will be done and now what are the workers going to go thru to find out who shot these pics, once they force them to speak out against that worker who knows what China will do with him/her, hopefully just fired not shot in the back of the head like they do there.

Face it folks big corporations LOVE China's cheap labor force that can't complain, .63 cents per hr and still charge them for the rice, it will never change...

[Sixstrings]

now what are the workers going to go thru to find out who shot these pics

Well they shouldn't be surprised pics have been taken, these workers make Microsoft webcams after all. This is one of their products:

http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0034&t=1

Some other gems from the report:

Workers who do not follow the instructions of the foreman will be fined 40 RMB ($7.02), which amounts to the loss of 11 hours' pay.

Workers are also docked nearly three days' wages, 100 RMB ($14.67), for losing their time cards, which are worth only 5 RMB (73 cents U.S.).

Workers can be fined up to 200 RMB ($29.26), or more than 5 ½ days' wages, for missing a day of work.

Fined for losing a finger: A worker from Shanxi Province had his index finger chopped off while operating a hole punch press machine while working on an internet camera. Management did rush him to the hospital for emergency treatment.

However, after an investigation, management determined that the worker had disobeyed regulations related to operating the punch press machine, so the worker was fined 200 RMB ($29.26) and fired!
http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0034&t=1

Before we sent all these jobs to China, I guess these teenagers would have been working on farms. I don't see how this kind of life is any better, at least on a farm you're outside and moving around more (really, can you imagine making webcams 90 hours per week, not enough breaks or time to sleep, and when you do sleep it's right there in the factory?

The problem with reports like these is that it will fall on deaf ears

Maybe not. This is the #5 top story on digg.com right now, and that means someone at Micro$oft will find out about it. Hopefully they'll be concerned about the bad PR of this and will do something about it. That won't bring any jobs back to the US of course, but if the Chinese are going to have these jobs they may as well be treated more humanely.

[SeaGypsy]

These conditions are not limited to China.
With the exceptions of Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, most factory workers in Asia expect this kind of treatment.
The example here is the worst I have heard of only in terms of length of working hours, all the other conditions are quite the norm in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Wages in this part of the world have doubled in 5 years to reach the illustrious level of 65c per hour.
Rural wages are less than half this amount, even in prime farming areas.
Whle there is an obvious moral question here, more serious for the west are the long term implications of 2 billion Asians working for less than 1/10th minimum wage.
One should not assume these are uneducated factory fodder straight from the farm. Often the family have gone into debt to send youngsters to college so they can qualify for these 65c jobs.

Edit to give a typical Asian Job advert example:

JANITOR WANTED:

FEMALE

20-25 YEARS OLD.

COLLEGE EDUCATED.

PLEASING PERSONALITY (???)

RELIABLE/ PUNCTUAL.

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POLICE CLEARANCE.

It is not unusual for a job ad like this to attract hundreds of applicants.

[PrestonSturges]

90 hour work weeks for a dollar an hour?

Sounds like grad school.

[Livewire713]

can you imagine making webcams 90 hours per week, not enough breaks or time to sleep, and when you do sleep it's right there in the factory?

I guess we know why a lot of items made in China are defective or of pour quality. If this is the life style that middle class America has to look forward to then just put a bullet in the back of my head and turn me into dogfood.

[Sixstrings]

Well apparently someone at the Daily Mail reads digg.com:

The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake, the Chinese workers earning just 34p an hour

Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see.
Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks.
For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company.

(snip)

Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the NLC, said: 'It sounded like torture - the frantic pace on the assembly line, same motion over and over for the 12 hours or more of work they did.'

Microsoft said it was committed to the 'fair treatment and safety of workers'. A spokesman added: 'We are aware of the NLC report and we have commenced an investigation.

'We take these claims seriously and we will take appropriate remedial measures in regard to any findings of misconduct.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html

So see, sometimes people complaining on internet forums does make a difference. This story was voted up on Digg to like #5, that's how I noticed it, and either the Daily Mail saw it there or the reporter saw it on a forum somewhere.

And now the Daily Mail story is on Drudge, so you have the full viral cycle here. I guess after Drudge, it's on to CNN. And it's a good thing too, shame on Microsoft.

[drgoodword]

Thanks for this info. I've sent an email of complaint to MS. One email isn't much, but consumers have to speak up when presented with information like this.

[manu]

So this is how Bill Gates gets his $$$.
Maybe he should sign up his daughter for some training over there. I doubt if he will lose any sleep over this however.

[2cher]

I am guessing none of you have worked in factories here in the US.

Not quite as bad, and the pay is better. But honestly, I have worked for factories in the US who pull the same stunts. I use to have a job that I was required to work 16 hours a day 6 days a week and somehow or another they didn't have to pay time + 1/2

Pulling giant rims off an assembly line, that traveled down the assembly line at around 20mph, you had to catch them with a giant hook, and get them stacked. While I worked there, 6 different guys lost fingers and they were all fired and blamed for not "following instructions"

We didn't have air conditioning, and there were days the temps would exceed 100 degrees.

[Keith_McClary]

Meanwhile, BP gets actual prisoners to clean up its mess.

Community service: Prisoners march in to New Orleans to help clean up oil-hit wildlife.

[pablonite]

There's the free market for you.

Or is it communism?

Seriously, I think the correct term is communitarianism. There is nothing in history to compare it to, it's global. Guess it needs a name and that's close, even global fascism is better than that. I know you like to pretend a "New World Order" doesn't exist Ludi but even Bill is in on at least one secret get together every year. The only question remaining about him is "Was he manufactured and groomed for it?" What about Googles founders? Know much about them? Even if they were could you prove it if they weren't even aware of it?

Face it folks big corporations LOVE China's cheap labor force that can't complain, .63 cents per hr and still charge them for the rice, it will never change...

It always changes, your missing the point big time. It thrives on change, any change. How old are you? I suggest you check out Marx and his use of the Hegelian dialect.

I dunno about sending emails though? I have one of those mice, in fact I can count the number of hardware items I own on one hand that say Made in America or Made in Canada at this point. I remember I was about 7 and started noticing the Made in China stamp on all my toys. So long ago...

[americandream]

For a communal order ideologically based on needs as opposed to wants to make the sort of u-turn China did in engaging with capitalist imperialism would be the equivalent of a woman's refuge appointing male abusers to manage their safe houses. That's how far off the radar China has moved.

It should come as no surprise given the top down nature of the Chinese Revolution.

There's the free market for you.

Or is it communism?