Senators (Incl. Hilary) Call For ‘Sweatshop-Free Barbie’
Titles like this one are ones that pretty much jump off the RSS feed as I I enjoy my Free Trade Starbucks Lattes in the morning. It was just days before that I had seen the well written piece American Imports, Chinese Deaths and the announcement that theInternational Labor Rights Forum Critiques Wal-Mart’s Sourcing Practices.. and the article of this title seemed to fit right in
What I came to understand is that 14 months ago, before the prduct recalls, several Senators (with 60 cosponsors) put forward an ammendment to a previous bill that banned the importation of “convict goods” (convict goods are those goods that are made by, you guessed it, convicts). to treat “sweat shop” goods as if they were “convict goods”.
Now, before I get into the specifics of the bill, I will say that the timing of this bill is interesting as I seem to remember a lot of trade rhetoric flying around.. and my impression is that some of the support for this bill was coming not from people really concerned about the rights of China’s labor …
In terms of the bill (full text here/ one page overview in PDF here) though, I must applaud the fact that congress is taking the half measure it is by mandating a ban on sweatshop conditions, and laying out the remedies for those cases…
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