NLA made a report about the working environment in Chinese company KYE which manufactures products for Microsoft: gamepads, mice, keyboards. Report shows facts about KYE’s employees treated there as slaves. The staff is working for 90 hours per week, receiving 52 cents per hour (about 200 dollars a month), they are forbidden to talk to each other, to go to the bathroom during working hours (which makes a 15-hour shift) and to leave the factory. They live in dormitories, 14 people in a room, they are beaten and female workers are very often sexually harassed by security guards and many more.
The employees say that they don’t have a life, they have only work. They sleep, get up very early, go to work, come back and go to sleep. And this circle never stops until they decide to leave the factory or to flee.
Photos from the report NLA:
There is not enough room inside the factories’ premises, in a workshop of 100 by 100 feet, can work about 1000 workers, air-conditioning is turned on only during visits to the superiors or customers.
“A partial list of KYE buyers”
According to the employees, Microsoft products are a big part of all that this factory produces. Normally, in such cases, the buyer representative is present there to control the quality. NLA intends to find out whether there is a company representative from Microsoft.
Officially, the majority of workers listed as “Work study” students are doing the training there. The youngest "students" are 14-15 years old.
Here’s the training card of one of the youngest KYE workers.
The workers say the food is terrible, and they should pay it from their pocket.
They can go outside but as they don’t have the right to wear KYE uniforms outside the factory they don’t have much time as well to change, go out, buy lunch, eat it and come back to work.
They have special “food cards” to pay for the factory food, if a worker buys a month card, he is “rewarded” with free treats two times a month. Usually, it is a fruit or a chicken leg.
A typical shift is from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m.
When workers make mistakes or drop products on the floor, they are punished. As punishment, they are humiliated in front of their friends and co-workers or forced to clean the bathrooms.
To "shower," workers use a small plastic bucket with hot water to have a sponge bath.
The lights are out at 11 p.m.
From NLA report:
Even when workers are on leave and not working,
factory management restricts their freedom of movement:
Workers can only leave the factory compound during regulated periods:
On weekdays, Monday through Saturday: 11:00 a.m. to 12 noon
On weekday evenings, Monday through Saturday: 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
On Sundays: 7:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
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If you give way to employees they fck you up.
Well done management.
Second: They produce ALSO for Microsoft. They make products for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn (apple), Acer, Logitech and Asus.
Now, think this way: You are Microsoft/Apple/Best Buy president, you want some hardware, what you do? you check a website, make some calls, go in some meetings in some expensive restaurants with few nice chinese/taiwanese/japanese. (I'm sure they arrive in a limo/helicopter/yacht/etc...), you talk about prices, features and tech stuff and you shake hands. They won't tell you how they treat their employee, they don't tell you what they eat,etc.
The way the TAIWAN Country pays the people is not apple/microsoft/etc problem and nor the way that the company that produces stuff treats his customers.
I work for marketing company that work for Peugeot. If my boss is yelling at me or if he don't pay me good, that don't means that peugeot is yelling at his employees or they don't pay well.
If somebody is responsible for that mess is:
- Country president: because they don't raise minimum wage and they don't set up some working rules.
- Company CEO: because they treat people in a non-human way.
- THE PEOPLE: they don't stand up for them self
I study jurnalism and i like the internet for being the place where you can write the truth and nobody can stop you. Yet, this 'NEWS' isn't truth and is more for BAD publicity and audience only.
I know the purpose of this website is to make audience by posting relevant/irelevant/extreme/funny/etc things on web, but this is un fair
Maybe in reality big companies are ignorant of these circumstances.
But by being the customers of such companies they encourage them to continue to produce cheap products that lead them in return to cut (in this case) all the liberties from their employers.
That’s why such giants don’t buy from American companies.
Therefore in my opinion they are not innocent. It's a huge side effect of the system.
cmon ppl.
markxxxx, has a point though, we can't blame Microsoft directly, but we can blame it as much as ourselves. You don't want this, ok, stop buying. It's the golden rule of the market. Mass consumption requires mass production... As simple as that.
And the fact that we use those products as we speak/write now shows the inevitability of these sights..
First of all, this is Taiwan company which is situated in China.
Second of all its name is KYE, it is even written on workers uniforms. You can see it on the 6th picture from below.
Then, this news is true, nlcnet made a report and you can find it in the source or if you are lazy to look up, here it is http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0034
So next time you say that something isn't true, check your information.
you are an idiot.
That is all.