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Does Microsoft have an obligation to TELL their Chinese business partner to treat their workers decently ? Or is this under the auspices of Chinese law ?

I dunno. Do you tell the owners of the stores where you buy stuff that they must treat their workers the way you say?

(Rant: Not necessarily directed at you)

Microsoft is a customer to the Chinese. If they don't like the way the workers are treated in China, they don't have to use that supplier. If an end user doesn't like it, they don't have to buy the products.

But it's naive and simplistic to presume that workers in a 2nd-World country should be instantly treated as though they were modern-day, union-represented Americans. If they were living the same lifestyle as Americans and working in the same conditions, then there would be no cost benefit to manufacturing there, and they would have no job at all!

So, is it evil to employ them in the conditions they're already used to, at what are considered decent wages there? ...or to not employ them at all?

Well, personally (since some think the picture is fake, or white guilt inducing BS, or funny chinese men chasing chica) I would have a problem with a company that outsourced to another company that was doing this. They may be Chinese, but they are human. Is the story true? I don't know, but I've been to Dubai and realized that while I stayed in some of the most beautifularchitecture there was an underworld of ridiculous suffering. Thus, I do not think China is far above Dubai. Anyways, fake or true MS should investigate. If true then they should either change companies, or force it to treat its workers better. They can do it. We're not talking about buying them Bentleys - just some basic human decency.

Then again, I'm sure those workers were just being lazy after running away from men all shift /s