An investigation by Business Week has confirmed what worker rights activists have long known: that sweatshop owners in China commit labor abuses despite codes of conduct that prohibit those abuses and despite widespread on-site monitoring of compliance.

In its November 27 article titled "Secrets, Lies, and Sweatshops," Business Week reports that many factories "have just gotten better at concealing abuses." The techniques they use, according to the magazine's field research and its review of industry documents, include:
• tutoring workers on the "right" answers to questions from outside auditors.
• keeping a second set of books with false data meeting the pay and overtime standards of China's laws and regulations.
• ordering underage workers to stay outside the factory and dormitory areas during monitoring periods.
The seven-page article is replete with concrete examples of how factories exporting to Wal-Mart, Nike, Target, and other U.S. retailers violate basic labor standards but still manage to beat various monitoring systems. In its review of 28 recent industry audits of factories serving U.S. customers, Business Week found that only a few "turned up clean...these facilities were the exceptions."

Advice on How to Cheat on $280,000,000,000 Worth of Exports to U.S.

On-site monitoring of labor conditions in China's factories "has mushroomed into a multibillion-dollar industry," the Business Week investigators, Dexter Roberts and Pete Endgardio, report. In reaction, "a new breed of Chinese consultants has sprung up to assist companies like Beifa [a Wal-Mart supplier] in evading audits."

Business Week explains that, in producing $280,000,000,000 worth of goods to ship to the United States this year, China's factories face contradictory pressures:
"American companies continually demand lower prices from their Chinese suppliers, allowing American consumers to enjoy inexpensive clothes, sneakers, and electronics. But factory managers in China complain in interviews that U.S. price pressures create a powerful incentive to cheat on labor standards that American companies promote as a badge of responsible capitalism."

The Business Week report confirms that labor codes of conduct and auditing procedures of multinational corporations don't clean up sweatshops. Is it any wonder that the public is reacting against globalization?

The Sick Persistence of Sweatshops

Sweatshops are a symbol of our failure to deal honestly with the ills of globalization. It's time we get over our gee-whiz attitude view of the wonders of globilization. Yes, it has many wonders, but they should not blind us to its enduring ills that are in desperate need of treatment.

Over the years, Human Rights for Workers has explored both the ills and the remedies. In fact, these writings of mine may be boring, even depressing, and may chase people away to more entertaining stuff. But I think I'll keep on exploring, since the big media outlets have not been doing so in a serious manner.

The United States now has a timely opportunity to discuss major reforms -- and, hopefully, to act on them -- because, at the end of June, the President's strong grip on U.S. trade and investment policy expires. Far more is at stake than most people realize. U.S. trade/investment policy has global repercussions -- it largely determines the shape of globalization, for good or ill.

The administration would love to simply extend the "Trade Promotion Authority" legislation that Congress enacted by a narrow margin at three o'clock one morning in July 2002. Reaching a decision on new trade/investment legislation that is fair will require a concentrated effort in early 2007. Don't trust the Democratic Party's elite, who bear partial responsibility for how globalization has gone wrong. Hopefully, some newcomers in the Senate, such as Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, will steer the Party, and the country, in a more promising direction.

In any case, as is evident from this issue, Human Rights for Workers will continue to harp on these issues, boring or not.