The Financial Times interviewed one technician who is now on his 21st one-month contract. Redundancy pay-offs, when they are made, are on the basis of the last contract, not on the totality of their work for a company.



These interviews support the findings of a report published today by Cafod, the UK-based Catholic development charity. It highlights the harsh and often humiliating experiences of workers who make personal computers, printers, monitors and components in Mexico and China for big producers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.



The technology industry has, until recently, escaped the supply-chain scrutiny that has damaged the reputations of big brands in the footwear and clothing industries. But interest in what happens at the lowly end of high technology is growing, just as the industry shows signs of recovery from its 2001 slump.


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Applicants are first screened for basics. If they have ever been involved with a union, have relatives who are politicians or lawyers, or have spent time in the US, their chances end there. These all indicate ambition, and the potential to cause trouble, Ms Juárez says. Different companies have different standards on the acceptable quantities of tattoos and body-piercing, while candidates are also questioned closely on drug use.



After that, the process is designed to recruit the least ambitious and imaginative candidates. After a day of tests, fewer than a third are accepted. "Things like your skills come second," says Ms Juárez. "What's most important is that you cause no trouble."



Hundreds apply every day to the agencies, which sometimes operate out of kiosks in street markets.



Workers told the Financial Times that agencies often went recruiting in outlying villages, where agricultural jobs have been lost and where many try to migrate. Women, who account for between 60 and 70 per cent of applicants, generally account for 80-90 per cent of those accepted. "The ones they like best are single mothers," says one technician, because they are least able to protest.



Psychometric tests ensure that creative and imaginative minds do not get through. Ms Juárez details how she would ask candidates to draw a tree. Those who drew a small stick tree, unadorned, were likely to be accepted. Those who drew trees with big root systems, coloured in the leaves and put fruit on the branches, betrayed too much ambition and imagination.



Those candidates who passed the psychological evaluation would move on to the plant. Women generally have to give urine and blood samples and take a pregnancy test.



A woman named Monica told Cafod of her medical examination before working on a production line making components ultimately destined for HP. Her medical involved stripping naked so that she could be checked for tattoos. Then she was ordered into the bathroom to take a pregnancy test.



She described the experience as "humiliating" and "completely degrading", but did not complain as everybody else was receiving the same treatment.



Workers who talked to Cafod also believed themselves to be subject to reprisals. Ramona, employed by the Caspem agency, made hard discs for IBM for four years, on one- month contracts. She first had to prove that she was not pregnant. Her pay was deducted for taking two days to be at her father's death-bed. After she talked to Cafod, she was questioned about her decision to spend time talking to English people and her contract was not renewed.



She now works in one of Guadalajara's few surviving shoe factories (that industry largely went to Asia several years ago), on less money.



Isis, a British asset management firm, last week warned that technology companies could face lawsuits, attacks by pressure groups and higher costs unless they did more to manage risks in both their supply and disposal chains.

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