At a Catcher Technology[1] manufacturing complex in the Chinese industrial city of Suqian, about a six-hour drive from Shanghai, workers stand for up to 10 hours a day in hot workshops slicing and blasting iPhone[2] casings for Apple[3], handling noxious chemicals sometimes without proper gloves or masks.
These conditions -- some described in a report Tuesday by advocacy group China Labor Watch, others in Bloomberg News interviews with Catcher workers -- show the downside of a high-tech boom buoying the world's second-largest economy. Chinese recruiters play up the chance to build advanced consumer electronics to attract the millions of typically impoverished, uneducated labourers without whom the production of iPhones and other digital gadgets would be impossible.
Earplugs and goggles are not always available, a problem when some factory machines are noisy and spray tiny metallic particles or coolant, according to Bloomberg interviews with workers. CLW said the noise was about 80 decibels or more - roughly equivalent to an average factory or a garbage disposal, according to industrial noise-control specialist IAC Acoustics.
Hundreds of employees throng a workshop where the main door opens only about 12 inches. Off-duty, they return to debris-strewn dorms without showers or hot water. Many go without washing for days at a time, workers told Bloomberg.
"My hands turned bloodless white after a day of work," said one worker who makes a little over 4,000 yuan a month (just over $2 (Rs. 127) an hour) in her first job outside her home province of Henan. She turned to Catcher because her husband's home-decorating business was struggling. "I only tell good things to my family and keep the sufferings like this for myself."
All workers who spoke with Bloomberg asked not...