Categorize this under "Upsetting": An April 13 report by the National Labor Committee, a nonprofit NGO that seeks to draw attention to labor and human rights abuses, documents what it calls widespread abuses and terrible working conditions at the KYE factory in China, which produces a variety of Microsoft products.

"Over the past three years, unprecedented photographs of exhausted teenaged workers, toiling and slumping asleep on their assembly line during break time, have been smuggled out of the KYE factory," reads the beginning of the National Labor Committee's report. "Workers are paid 65 cents an hour, which falls to a take-home wage of 52 cents after deductions for factory food."

According to the report, workers are prevented from talking, listening to music or "using the bathroom during working hours." Harassment by security guards, "awful" factory food, a grinding work pace, lack of air conditioning during the summer months and restricted freedom of movement are apparently the norm.

Microsoft has been outsourcing fabrication to the factory since 2003, the report continues, and accounts for 30 percent of the goods produced (other clients allegedly include Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Best Buy). That includes the LifeCam VX-7000 and a selection of optical and wireless mice.

Descriptions of a typical workday, factory recruitment practices, overcrowded factory dorm rooms, and the apparent failure of state and corporate audits can be found here. Photos included. The shots of those dorm rooms, in particular, will make you feel all sorts of bad about humanity.

I've asked Microsoft for comment, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. A Microsoft spokesperson reportedly told Ars Technica: "We are aware of the NLC report and we have commenced an investigation. We take these claims seriously, and we will take appropriate remedial measures in regard to any findings of vendor misconduct."

That spokesperson also insisted to the Website that, "Microsoft has invested heavily in a vendor accountability program and robust independent third-party auditing program to ensure conformance to the Microsoft Vendor Code of Conduct."

Yeah, if the pictures in the report are accurate, then the "vendor accountability program" and all that auditing are really working out for those workers putting together PC cameras and other devices. But hey, whatever keeps the production costs down, huh?

Other tech companies, notably Apple, routinely audit their suppliers and manufacturers for potential human-rights and labor-law abuses. In its 2009 audit, Apple found 17 violations of its Code of Conduct, after a review of 102 manufacturers and suppliers; those included the employment of underage workers and the use of noncertified workers for hazardous waste disposal. Despite apparently stringent auditing, however, Apple has faced its share of controversy over subcontracted labor practices, for instance after an engineer at iPhone and iPod manufacturer Foxconn plunged to his death from an apartment-building roof after an iPhone prototype went missing.