Microsoft investigates as sweatshop spotlight shines on supplier.
The conditions at factories in China are known to be
particularly abysmal. A recent report by the National Labor Committee focuses on KYE Factory, which seems to be breaking every rule imaginable. According to worker estimates, Microsoft accounts for the largest proportion of production at KYE, at about 30 percent. Other major corporations outsourcing production to KYE include Hewlett Packard, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Wi/IFC/Logitech, and Asus-Rd. For its part, Microsoft says it is investigating the environment outlined in the report.
Life at KYE
The report says that the workers have virtually no rights, every single labor law in China is violated, and codes of conduct like those of Microsoft and HP have zero impact. Over the past three years, photographs showing exhausted teenaged workers have been smuggled out of the KYE factory, along with worker interviews and accounts. Smuggling was necessary because factory management prohibits anyone, including clients like Microsoft, from taking pictures inside the factory or in the workers' primitive and dirty dorm rooms.
KYE recruits hundreds of "work study students" as young as 16 or 17 years old (in 2007 and 2008, dozens of them were reported to be just 14 or 15). Management likes the high school students since they are easy to discipline and control. For the same reason, KYE prefers to hire women 18 to 25 years of age, who are often sexually harassed by security guards, according to NLC.
