I was reading the news on raw story and came across this article of child labor practices in China.  It is a short but telling story how children are being exploited and used as cheap labor.

According to a contract exposed by an undercover reporter, a child is paid 3.5 yuan (.50)an hour and must work at least 300 hours a month.

more below the fold:

.... .... .... .... ....

I'm posting this as the fluffy bunny tale end of the diary I posted several hours ago but didn't have room for to include all I wanted so cut short. Please consider this a complementary companion diary to my earlier one:

Uncage the Chocolate Easter Bunny: Modern Child Slavery
by CSI Bentonville
Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 02:27:04 PM EDT

Bonus is that it's a non-can-did-ate diary to occupy those with insomnia overnight. :)

It takes
10 full
cacao
pods
to make
6 bars
of chocolate.

Those of us with school-aged children probably respond especially strongly to stories about child laborers around the world, children much like ours but without the protections of law or economic security against exploitation, abuse, and exhaustion.  My six-year-old daughter has terrific manual dexterity and loves sewing and crafts.  Right now she fits these pursuits into her limited free time between school and activities, comfortable regular meals and bedtimes.  Under other circumstances, she might be putting in 16-hour days making beaded clothing for a pittance.  It’s an unbearable thought.

I wanted to share a compelling article from the March 10 Forbes on child labor, mostly in agriculture, and in particular detailing the problems of the GE cottonseed industry, undertaken by Indian farmers contracted to companies like Monsanto and Syngenta.  According to the article, there are between 12 and 50 million children under the age of 14 working in India.

The Irony of Valentine's Day is that so much of what we give as gifts are awash in pain and suffering. It does not have to be that way.

THE TOPICS:
In this diary I'll talk about possible gifts for your Valentines as well as alternatives, providing much alternative and further reading at your discretion. Among the topics included are:

♥ Flowers
♥ Non-Sweets
♥ Chocolate
♥ Coffee
♥ Doing Without
♥ Dinner & a Show
♥ Jewelry
♥ Wine
♥ How to find "Love" and support kossoks too

Part of how I ended up at dKos was finding out how Republican the grocery store Safeway was. I already despised Wal-Mart (and more with each new thing I discovered about them) but was still to discover just how neck-deep in Neo-Con they are.

Essentially, I didn't want another damn dollar of mine going to support Bushco keeping them in power. As Dr. Phil would say:

Globalization is a beast fed by consumer-driven culture.  It is neither globally beneficial or environmentally sustainable.

Most of the wealth in America is concentrated in the hands of the very people benefiting the most from globalization.  Those who benefit the greatest from globalization sacrifice the least in helping other countries develop economically.  Globalists profit from shifting wealth from country to country in a neverending quest for cheap labor and resources.  Globalization is the new Southern plantation.  Instead of forcing people to the fields from the other side of the world, we move the entire fucking plantation.  

Cheap labor and maximized shareholder value is the endgame, not an altruistic need to give money to the poor.

The Observer has a story out how clothes destined for Americans malls just in time for the holidays are being made with child 'slave' labor in India.

Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant.

Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.

Yes, you read that right, unwaged work, these kids weren't even being paid!

There seem to be multiple reasons for a consumer boycott of Chinese goods. What do you think? A poll is attached.

crossposted from unbossed

US law has long forbidden child labor in the United States as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. US trade law also forbids importing products made by child labor or forced labor unless there is no US source for them. More specifically, Section 307 of the Tariff Act, bars importing goods made with forced or child labor unless sufficient amounts are not mined, produced, or manufactured here to satisfy "the consumptive demands of the United States."

This is obviously a moving target. The more companies move overseas, the less we have "mined, produced, or manufactured" here. The more we want to buy things, the less likely we are to find US products, so this loophole gives a free pass to buying goods made by child or forced labor. The more we buy cheaper goods made with forced labor or childe labor, the likely it is that companies will move work abroad, so the more likely it is . . .  

So, it is time to close the loophole and get out of this loop.

I had a paper route at age 12 and got paid $5 a week to schlep 40 lb arm-loads of newspapers up and down the stairwells of a large complex of three story apartment buildings. I worked 2 hours a day, 6 days a week and by age 13, I had chronic back problems.

The story I'm about to tell is all true, even the names of people involved because I'm only person that is still alive. It goes back quite a few years but it's an object lesson in how free enterprise is completely blind to justice and works in unexpected and often paradoxical ways.

You stupid fools.

Don't you get it?  Free trade is inevitable.  There is nothing we can do to stop it nor is there anything we should do.

Of course, this is what we hear time and time again from the supporters of what they like to call "free trade."  Many of them are are here, unintentially peddling their toxic brand of economic ruin under the guise of helping overseas workers.  Any attempt to challenge them when they spout their corporate dogma is met with cries of "luddite," "barbarian" or worst.

As we approach Labor Day, I wanted to continue with a look at a few events in the history of workers' struggle for respect and justice on the job. It's impossible to cover U.S. labor history in a few posts, and these just touch on a very small slice of a very rich history.

There are some images that in a single second, convey an entire era, silently speaking volumes in a way words can never do.

Such is the case with the famous Louis Hine photo depicting a thin, drawn, 12-year-old girl standing by her cotton mill in Vermont. The photo has become synonymous with U.S. child labor at the turn of the 20th century and stands for one of the greatest fights we have faced in the union movement--abolishing the work of children.

[This is a crosspost from AFL-CIO Now where the image is posted.]

(To be sung as a round)

Hakuna Matata means nothing here.
When kids work in sweatshops,
And Live in fear.
Where they're told it's a treat,
Eating nine times a week,
And we just don't care.

They can't have a union,
Or health care plan.
And where they're workin'
Ain't Disneyland.
But don't Mickey look swank,
Dancin straight to the bank,
Cause he just don't care.

It's the Third World after all...

From the Boston Globe:

A group of children protesting Wal-Mart's alleged use of sweatshop labor was asked to leave the store property yesterday after trying to present a store manager with a letter detailing its concerns.

''Don't make me ask the police to make them leave," said a Wal-Mart employee, identified by her nametag as Donna, as the group stood outside the store entrance.

Radio Canada has found two Wal-Mart factories in Bangladesh that are even worse than the one Dateline NBC reported on in the same country a few months ago:

Radio-Canada journalists posed as buyers in the Canadian garment industry so they could videotape inside factories in Bangladesh with hidden cameras.

In one factory, typical of many in the country, children were busy with lower-skill tasks. In badly lit, dirty and overheated workshops, young boys were everywhere.

Today's New York Times highlights the latest evidence of political favoritism to yet another big corporate contributor: Wal-Mart.  The Bush Labor Department entered into an agreement with Wal-Mart to give them 15 days notice before they conduct inspections for child labor law violations--- after Wal-Mart was caught violating those laws eighty-five times.

Wal-Mart also got to help write the agreement, and the press release announcing it. Details of this outrage after the fold.