Workplace Misery at Chinese Keyboard Factory

Sometimes I take things for granted and bitch about how bad it is at work when someone’s finished off my favourite Dark French roast; I especially hate it when we run of the 3-ply toilet paper in the bogs.

The Meitai keyboard factory in Dongguan City makes keyboards for companies like Lenovo, Microsoft, and HP, and its workers know all to well about bad working conditions. Underpaid, and overworked, they are subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied medical assistance when they’re injured. They are also required to “love the company like their home.” I suspect if anyone were to speak up against the tyranny management, they would get marched off to the next building where the company tests their experimental Meat-Mincer 6000.

Herewith an except from the Meitai factory’s Factory Regulations and Discipline, Chapter VII:

• Employees should actively monitor each other.
• Infractions punished with the loss of over two hours’ wages (approximately USD 1.44):
  • Being 1 to 5 minutes late to start a shift…
  • Wearing work shoes outside the work room after work.
  • Putting hands in pant pockets while inside the factory or workroom.
• Infractions punished with the loss of 4 ½ hours wages (approximately USD 2.88):
  • …answering a personal telephone call in the workroom.
  • Putting personal objects on the work desk.
  • Not diligently working or raising ones head to look around when guests or cadres come to visit.
• Infractions punished with the loss of nearly seven hours’ wages (approximately USD $4.32):
  • Switching beds without authorization.
  • Riding the elevator without permission.
  • Chatting at the workstation during work hours…
• Infractions punished with firing:
  • Not following the procedures spelled out by government regulations on stopping work, slowing work down, encouraging others to stop or slow down work.
  • Missing three days of work.
  • Disobeying China’s one-child policy.

Read more about the deplorable condititions these workers face at The National Labor Comittee – via Boing Boing.