The companies will also have to stop requiring employees to work more than 60 hours per week. Plus, Kathie Lee and her sweatshop cronies will have to pay workers either the minimum wage mandated by local law or the industry standard - whichever is higher. If the companies accomplish all of these things, they can legally say that their clothes are not made in sweatshops. And we can continue leafing through our J. Crew catalogues with a clear conscience. Accordingly, each country's laws should not be the yardstick by which companies measure the acceptability of labor practices.
Every country has some set of minimum guidelines governing the operation of factories.
But many of these codes don't ensure fair treatment. Guess where all the shoe-making jobs are. It's not that the governments don't care about the welfare of their workers, but in the end, they've got to get jobs into the country somehow. Even nations such as Indonesia keep minimum wages and worker protections low in order to attract jobs into the country. No one expects developing countries to enjoy working conditions as good as ours - that'd be a little idealistic.