Summary: Workers in Redmond -- not just in China -- are fed up with the way Microsoft treats them

LAST YEAR (and in later months of 2008) when Microsoft was laying off a lot of staff there were several protests waged by Microsoft employees, who claimed to have been exploited or mistreated by Microsoft. It is happening again while Microsoft is throwing private parties for very wealthy people who come to visit:

Microsoft janitors to protest during CEO Summit

Janitors at the Microsoft campus in Redmond will be protesting their working conditions Wednesday evening during the company's annual CEO Summit. But they're not mobilizing against Microsoft.

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In a news release, Service Employees International Union Local 6 explained why its workers have mobilized two other times since November:

SBM Site Services has decreased their workforce since winning the janitorial contract for the Microsoft Campus in Redmond a little over a year ago. Layoffs have led to unmanageable workload increases for the janitors that clean the over 100 buildings at the Redmond campus.

While Microsoft is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world and has invested incredible resources into local and global communities, SBM Site Services workers at the campus have faced unsafe and unmanageable working conditions.

As Microsoft's prepares for their annual Global CEO Summit in Redmond, janitors at the Microsoft campus are mobilizing to send a strong message to their employer SBM Site Services: Stop the greed, stop the layoffs, and support reasonable working conditions for janitors.

So now we know that Microsoft employees in Redmond -- not just in China -- are treated like tools. Last month we wrote about Microsoft sweatshops and there is a new article about them:

Teenage Microsoft Sweatshop

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Over the course of a three-year investigation of the KYE factory in Dongguan, China, unprecedented photos were smuggled out of the factory of exhausted teenagers, seen slumping over asleep on their assembly line during break time.

“We are like prisoners… We do not have a life. Only work." according to one teenage worker making products for Microsoft.

KYE recruits hundreds (up to 1,000) “work-study” students 16 and 17 years of age, who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week making webcams, mice and other computer peripherals. Some of the workers appear to be just 14 or 15 years old. A typical shift is from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. Most of the students work for three months, but some stay longer.

This article is from last week. Microsoft never said if the problem had been resolved at all. We just assumed that Microsoft said it was 'investigating' for PR purposes (damage control). ⬆

"Long live the liberation of the workers off all countries from the infernal chasm of war, exploitation and slavery!"

--Karl Liebknecht