DONGGUAN CITY, China, April 14 (UPI) -- The typical workweek for teenagers at the KYE factory in China, a Microsoft Corp. supplier, is 90 to 105 hours, a National Labor Committee report said.
The plant recruits "hundreds -- even up to 1,000" workers defined as "work study students," as young as 16 years old, who typically work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. In the past, "dozens" of workers ages 14 and 15 were found working at the plant, the report released Tuesday said.
The report said overtime hours, even if calculated at 80.5 hours a week, exceed the legal limit in China by 388 percent.
After deductions for food, which workers described as "awful," the wage falls to 52 cents an hour.
Living arrangements include workers sleeping 14 to a room on narrow bunk beds and taking sponge baths out of small, plastic pails. Working conditions included severe overcrowding in rooms that "routinely reach 86 degrees" in the summer months.
Workers are not allowed to talk during work hours.
Four KYE factories in Dongguan City, China, produce keyboards, computer mice, digital cameras and other electronic devices for Hewlett Packard, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn and other companies. Microsoft, a consistent customer, is responsible for 30 percent of KYE's orders, the report said.
