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I initially found this sourced over at HackThisSite.org. I went to read the full review that was originally on nlcnet.org and it had been removed from the site. Google had the page cached (thank you Google), so I placed the full report on the site before it is gone. Maybe they are just having site problems?
This is just disturbing, yet I do not find it hard to believe because I already knew of things like his happening. Even so, this is still just as shocking to me. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I realize the reality of something like this I really want to take action in some way. This report talks about their work conditions, the rules they have to obey, the payment that they get, the living conditions, the life they live, how they are brainwashed, how they are not treated fairly, and on and on.
The official report in PDF form can be found here.
From HackThisSite.org
An undercover investigation has revealed atrocious working conditions in the Meitai factory in southern China, which mass produces keyboards for American corporations such as IBM, Microsoft, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. The report is very comprehensive and includes pictures from within the facility. Some of the key points are:
- The workers are paid 1/50th of a cent for each operation.
- The assembly line never stops, and workers needing to use the bathroom must learn to hold it until there is a break.
- All overtime is mandatory, with 12-hour shifts seven days a week and an average of two days off a month. A worker daring to take a Sunday off; which is supposedly their weekly holiday will be docked 2½ days wages. Including unpaid overtime, workers are at the factory up to 87 hours a week. On average, they are at the factory 81 hours a week, while toiling 74 hours, including 34 hours of overtime, which exceeds China’s legal limit by 318 percent!
- The workers are paid a base wage of 64 cents an hour, which does not even come close to meeting subsistence level needs. After deductions for primitive room and board, the workers take-home wage drops to just 41 cents an hour. A worker toiling 75 hours a week will earn a take-home wage of $57.19, or 76 cents an hour including overtime and bonuses. The workers are routinely cheated of 14 to 19 percent of the wages legally due them.
- Ten to twelve workers share a crowded dorm room, sleeping on narrow metal bunk beds that line the walls. They drape old sheets over their cubicle openings for privacy. In the winter, workers have to walk down several flights of stairs to fetch hot water in a small plastic bucket, which they carry back to their rooms to take a sponge bath. In the summer, dorm temperatures reach into the high 90s.
- Workers are locked in the factory compound four days a week and are prohibited from even taking a walk.
- To symbolize their “improving lives” the workers are served a special treat on Fridays, a small chicken leg and foot. For breakfast, they are given watery rice gruel. The workers say the food has a bad taste and is “hard to swallow.”
- Workers are not inscribed in the mandatory work injury and health insurance and Social Security maternity leave program; this is another violation of Chinese labor laws.
- In the Molding department, due to the excessive heat, the workers suffer skin rashes on their faces and arms.
- One worker summed up the general feeling in the factory: “I feel like I am serving a prison sentence.”