Microsoft: Child Labour ‘Prisoners’

The National Labor Committee uses this photo at the top of a report accusing Chinese factories of cruel child labour.

After a report allegedly claimed the KYE factory in China, producing hardware for Microsoft, employed many teenagers working under subhumane conditions, Microsoft have launched an official investigation into the factory’s labour practices.

A report from the National Labour Committee details that the KYE facility in Dongguan City, Guangdong, China, has employed a vast number of underage workers, working in harsh, strict conditions for less than minimum wage.

“We are like prisoners. It seems like we live only to work,” said one teen to the NLC, “We do not work to live. We do not live a life, [we] only work.”

From the NLC’s Flickr:

These teenagers work for the KYE factory in China, which manufactures computer mice and webcams for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Best Buy, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and other US companies. The factory violates every labor law in China, with grueling, long hours at an exhausting work pace. KYE recruits hundreds of “work study students” 16 and 17 years of age, who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week.

An entire list of problems with the Factory are listed by the NLC below:

• 

  Mice produced by the factory at a rate of '2000 per shift'.

  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.

Teenage boy building mice, with a forced output of 2,000 per shift.

“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 vendor misconduct.” claims Microsoft.

Not only is this kind of disgusting, inhumane treatment wrong to persons of any age, the little amount of money they earn (read: $50/week), and the fact they are so young is messed up, a lot. With reports claiming the guards sexually harass the teenage women, and the awful conditions they live in, it almost makes me feel guilty for wanting cheaper technology, or even wary of purchasing things from China in general.

Microsoft do claim that they were completely unaware of the disgraceful conditions Chinese youth worked under, but it is heavily reminiscent of not so long ago – the Foxconn Employee Suicide for a lost iPhone prototype. Companies with products being produced in China should review the conditions the workers live in, work under, and how much they get paid.

Extortion of humans like this is just wrong.

Image © National Labour Committee