By Teamsters General President James P. http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1244
While walking along a Detroit sidewalk last month, a friend’s 6-year-old son picked up a small, unremarkable golden locket. He chipped away dirt clumps before reading, “Made in China.”
He offered me the locket. I told him I didn’t see the words. “Where do you see that?” I asked. He grinned, then exploded with laughter—he was fooling me.
Like the best jokes, it contained a nugget of truth. My friend’s son had been reading for only a year or two, but he’d come across “made in China” enough to know that the phrase is on countless items. The phrase has become a part of American life.
Lately, a steady pulse of negative news about poisoned pet food and toothpaste and abysmal working conditions in China has made more of us wary of the phrase. The Boy Scouts recalled more than a million badges tainted with lead paint and the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled another 550,000 products.Since August, more than 21 million Chinese-made products — including toys from Dora the Explorer, Thomas & Friends and Baby Einstein lines — have been recalled. Three children have been killed in defective playpens, and pets have been poisoned from tainted food. Factor in rampant environmental problems and, increasingly, we’re seeking products made anywhere but China.
Misplaced trade priorities are at the heart of these problems. As corporations have outsourced American manufacturing jobs, our government has sold short the system that protects against unsafe products, allowing workers to be exploited in ruthless pursuit of low-cost cheap goods. We must drastically improve this dangerous arrangement.
In August, China Labor Watch, a U.S.-based workers’ rights group, issued a report detailing labor violations and brutal conditions.
http://www.teamster.org/07news/hn_070912_2.asp