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Article

1 Feb 2009

Author:
Natl. Labor Committee

High Tech Misery in China - The Dehumanization of Young Workers Producing Our Computer Keyboards

Two thousand workers, mostly young women, produce computer equipment including keyboards and printer cases for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft and IBM...[at Meitai Plastics & Electronics, Dongguan City]...Workers who hand out flyers or discuss factory conditions with outsiders are fired...The young workers sit on hard wooden stools twelve hours a day, seven days a week...The workers are paid a base wage of 64 cents an hour, which does not even come close to meeting subsistence level needs...One worker summed up the general feeling in the factory: “I feel like I am serving a prison sentence.”