China's entry into the global economy has contributed to driving down labor costs. Moreover, my yearly visits to export-oriented regions in China indicate that workers' real wages have actually decreased in the past three years. The playing field is not level. There is no way richer countries can compete with wages in the developing world. Somewhere the line has to be drawn for humanitarian reasons and for economic reasons.
Labor standards have to be upheld globally.
The International Labor Organization is the international forum where labor standards are defined, but the ILO has no enforcement powers. Thus individual countries and groups of countries must take a stand on these problems. This is not protectionism, it is about providing a less indecent standard of work and living conditions for vast numbers of laboring people in the world. Campaigning for labor rights and human rights does not preclude campaigning for the release of political dissidents, freedom of association and the freedom to organize autonomous trade unions. In December 1995 I was taken on a tour by a local labor union in the Shenzhen region to see some workers' dormitories built by the local government.