This Seems More Than A Little Disturbing: KYE Factory in China

[6Foot2]

Link 1: China's Youth Meet Microsoft - The National Labor Committee

 

This is a long article: The equivalent in a Word document [A4: Microsoft default margins, default headers and footers: Office 2007: Appropriately 9000 words]

 

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

 

Some security guards sexually harass the young women, often using very provocative language. There is nothing the young women can do but to bear it in silence as there is no avenue in the factory for addressing such abuse.

 

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.

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4454190589_b2282c2d6f.jpg

 

Link 2: Microsoft factory "makes 14-year-olds work in silence" | News | PC Pro

 

In a statement sent to PC Pro, Microsoft said it was “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.”

 

Microsoft are aware of the alleged practices at the factory and are investigating.

 

Using a search engine and entering the terms:

 

KYE Factory China Microsoft

 

produces results which are overwhelmingly negative for Microsoft [even using Bing]

 

Perhaps this will change as more news emerges and the situation develops?

[srochford]

The fact that there are lots of versions of this story on the web just shows you how the web works - one person publishes the story, others pick it up and repeat it and within hours there are hundreds or thousands of versions - just looking quickly at the first dozen or so doesn't suggest that there are a dozen different reports, just a dozen versions of the same story.

 

This doesn't make it untrue - sadly, I suspect it is true. We live in a world where we want everything to be cheap and we don't often ask "how can XXX be so cheap?" (Look at the number of threads here which are asking/talking about low prices for products and compare that with the number talking about products sold at higher prices but produced in fair trade environments)

 

The current election typifies some of this - we have many politicians talking about cutting out waste and increasing "efficiency" - what that means is we're going to have people doing the same job for less money or doing more work for the same money neither of which is particularly good for the people concerned.