Undercover investigation by China Labor Watch exposes low wages, hazardous chemicals and overtime beyond legal limits

That Mattel Hot Wheels toy you’re giving your child this Christmas, made by a Chinese worker for as little as one dollar an hour and working up to 80 hours a week? Plus, the worker being exposed to toxic chemicals while making the toy?

Welcome to the concept of free trade.

It allows corporations to pay for, in essence, slave labor, to bypass safety regulations, and to put all this savings in their own pockets. Their argument is that you get the toys cheaper than if they were manufactured in the United States.

And why do we care that the toys are so cheap? Oh, yeah, that’s right… because we lost our jobs here in the US because we can’t compete with $1/hr wages.. and as such, we need the toys to be cheap otherwise we can’t afford them.

Sounds like a good deal, right?

Source: The grim truth of Chinese factories producing the west’s Christmas toys | Business | The Guardian