Microsoft Mice Made in Chinese Youth Sweatshops? 481
An anonymous reader writes "The National Labor Committee offers an in-depth look into working conditions in Chinese sweatshops producing hardware (mice, etc.) for Microsoft, complete with pictures. Apparently, so called 'work study students,' 16 and 17 years of age, work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, for around 65 cents per hour. Microsoft said it is taking the claims seriously and has 'commenced an investigation.'"
More companies too (Score:5, Informative)
MS is probably the most catchy one, but the factory produces and packages hardware for a lot more USA companies too:
KYE factory in China, which manufactures computer mice and webcams for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Best Buy, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, ASUS and other US companies.
Earlier also Apple products were done by child labor [slashdot.org] at many factories.
These companies should move their factories to US or EU. But it's cheaper there and this is one of the reasons why. As long as it's cheaper, they don't care about ethics.
Re:66 cent compared to what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:66 cent compared to what? (Score:5, Informative)
In China you can eat a good meal for $0.50
In America you can barely afford a Candy Bar for $0.50
Sweatshop? Only by your standard (Score:5, Informative)
65 cents x 15 hours x 24 days (people work 6 days a week there) = US$234 ~= RMB1,614.00
The wage is much more than the average of the workers there. The starting salary of a factory worker is no more than US$100/mth, an experienced worker (>2 yrs exp) might not be able to ask for more than US$200/mth.
Also, from what I've seen in the article, the working environment is MUCH better than any other factories I've ever seen in China.
Still, I agree that the working hours are too long, but I'm sure the workers there are more than willing to work more than you'd ask for, given high-paid.
Re:Solution (Score:3, Informative)
Contrary to what most people believe the worldwide total of exploited people you can categorize under the label 'slave' is more than before the abolition of slavery... Slavery and human trade is booming business and an order or magnitude more widespread than in 'slavery times'.
Re:Child labour by western standards, perhaps (Score:5, Informative)
Reading the article, the main thrust of it doesn't seem to be the fact that they're using 16-year-olds, though there is a part about 14-15 year-olds as well. The problem is mostly the way the factory is being run.
The workers – mostly women aged 18 to 25 – work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. They eat horrid meals from the factory cafeterias. They have no bathroom breaks during their shifts, and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
They sleep in factory dormitories, 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28-inch-wide plywood boards. They "shower" with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they're young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC alleges.
?!??? Are you serious? WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
You do a currency conversion when you travel, too. Ever been to South America? Eastern Europe? The average American can live like a king. In some places on the globe you can get a hotel room and three meals a day for less than $5. Seriously, what are you smoking? Even within the U.S. prices vary wildly. I rent in New York for $1,250. My sister pays $400 for a place of similar size in Utah. Are you suggesting that if I just do the appropriate "currency conversion," i can save $850 a month?
Re:Sweatshop? Only by your standard (Score:2, Informative)
And the money probably stays within their economy. There is a similar situation in Alaska. The seafood industry hires workers for minimum wage. Those employees work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for four months straight. The majority of these employees are from the Philippines, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Ukraine. They are charged for room and board and airfare. The majority of the money they make goes back with them. They work through the most brutal aches and pains while ankle deep in fish guts with no heat because the money is worth it to them. They all go home for a month, most blow all their money and come back broke - year after year. In another light, a deck hand on a fishing vessel averages 0.018 cents a pound for salmon (due to different types of salmon and assuming a standard 10% share of the catch). The cannery sells it for around $3.85 a pound and they process 10,000 pounds or greater per hour. Now, how that turns into around $12.00 a pound at the grocery store is insane since transportation and frozen storage only count for a fraction of that price. It's like a big slap in the face - especially to the deck hand who takes the greatest risks and works for 18 hours a day. Anyway, that's the closest thing to a sweat shop I've seen in the U.S.. I'm interested to know more about the worst working conditions that you've seen in China - things like that don't seem to make it into the news. As for the main article, it seems like the author tried to jab China and Microsoft in a single blow. I am no fan of Microsoft either, but I am grateful for your contribution of clarity.
Re:More companies too (Score:4, Informative)
You've never heard of the Smoot-Hawley act [wikipedia.org] have you?
Re:Work hours (Score:5, Informative)
Bad examples still.
Milk is not a commonly used foodstuff here, and bread as you're thinking of it is purchased only by foreigners living here.
I can buy all I can eat in a restaurant for six yuan, and can eat for a week for 30.
Re:Work hours (Score:3, Informative)
Expensive (by local standards) and low quality by western standards.
Which is why most low paying jobs include basic accommodation.
I'm paying 1500 yuan monthly for a small two room city-center apartment of high quality (by local standards). That's about $200 a month. It's a lot more than most Chinese people earn in a month, but as I said, it is city center, just off the main commercial district so my neighbors are a mix of moderately successful business owners and mistresses of even more successful rich types.
Re:not always (Score:2, Informative)
Well, I am a full time ag worker, so I can speak on that a little,(I also live OK on less than ten grand a year) and the first rule there is you can't generalize too much, as it is such a varied "job". I've worked from subtropical citrus harvesting to sub arctic almost dairy farming, and it can be really different.
As to some aspects being seasonal, sure, and yes, people used to travel to do them, and also, we used to have it that people who only cared or needed a part time job could do them. We used to get by OK with just domestic part time help, before wall street started raping the profits away and the farmers had to look to wherever they could to cut corners.
And for some reason, this last generation or two...they don't seem to need part time jobs as much (very generally speaking). I hate to be a cranky old curmudgeon, but "back in the day" all kids worked part time. I am racking me pea brane here trying to think of *any* of my friends who didn't work a lot growing up, starting in young teen years or even earlier (I started at nine years old working part time, I mowed lawns and harvested fruit) For example, growing up I always worked every summer harvesting/working, then back to school in the fall, with sometimes work after school and on weekends. Off summer/fall season was leaf raking and then snow shoveling in the winter. I used to hand shovel driveways before catching the bus to school. How many kids do stuff like that now? A lot of housewives with kids at school worked with us on the farms as well sometimes, they would show up a little later, leave a little earlier, but every season, they would be back, and they were grateful for the extra cash. College kids working the summer, etc.
It's doable, honest work, and it could pay better, with only very marginal cost increases. Here's an example, an increase at the store/retail level of only five cents per entire chicken, if the poultry farmer was to receive that, it would double our net, and get it back to being profitable, and really make it easier for the owners to pay much better wages. Just a nickle.
About 40-50 years ago, farmers received close to 40% of the retail food products dollar, now it is 5-10%, and the high end there is rare, it is usually much lower, which has really impacted some of our "flyover" states drastically, such as Mississippi. I feel sorry for them ,it is about exactly like an example of old time colonialism, pure exploitation, with dismal wages and a perpetual bad economy, despite some of the hardest work, useful and necessary work, in the nastiest climate there is. They get exploited badly, their labor almost stolen and returned at pennies on the dollar, and people rank them because they need economic help. Blaming the victime mentality, seen it a lot too in political debates "blue states versus red states" etc. Nuts, they would be better off if they could just keep somewhat more of what they produce.
Ag could pay, we would have to severely restrict speculators access and profits though, and skew the laws back more toward the actual producers and not the middlemen and big cartel operators. That would bring it back to being doable and desirable for a lot more people, even just part time, and we wouldn't need as many "guest" workers, and maybe they could stay home and make something of their own nation instead.
Guest workers come here because where they come from their fatcats are even *worse*-almost unimaginable but true- and screw them over terribly. They don't come here because they really want to, it is driven by refugee/necessity aspects, they are fleeing where they are rather than jumping for joy to come here (worked with hundreds of them, so asked them about it, that is more their stance than not, get away from the local corruption and violence and severe badness)(example: worked with some Guatemalan Indians who fled their nation, because their bogus corporate fatcat army there-the technofeudalist elites' mercenaries- used them as live fire