Companies in the U.S. and Canada are now importing more than 1.3 billion garments a year from China, which is about four garments for every man, woman and child in the two countries. They are sold for nearly $9 billion. Annual imports of footwear, toys and sporting goods from China total about $15 billion.

The vast majority of the four million apparel workers in China are young women; rural migrants who are unaware of their legal rights and have never heard of U.S. or Canadian corporate codes of conduct. Workers can be fired for even talking about factory conditions and there are no independent human rights or labour organizations to protect them.

Conditions in Chinese factories producing garments and other goods for export to North America include forced overtime, 60-to-96-hour work weeks, 16-to-18-hour shifts, six to seven days a week, for wages of 13 to 28 cents an hour without benefits. Migrant workers are housed in cramped dorms and fed a thin rice gruel. These are the conditions under which many thousands of young Chinese workers (mostly female) were forced to produce toys - including the popular Firby doll - for children in the U.S. and Canada last Christmas.

Well-known labels on garments manufactured in China under these working conditions include Ralph Lauren (12-to-15-hour shifts, 23 cents an hour). Kathie Lee/Wal-Mart (12 hour shifts, seven days a week, 13 cents an hour), Liz Claiborne (66 hours a week, 25 cents an hour), K-Mart (70 hours a week, 28 cents an hour), Ann Taylor (7 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, 14 cents an hour), and The Esprit Group (7:30 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, 13 cents an hour).

The major apparel producers in China include Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Liz Claiborne, Dayton-Hudson, May Co., Federated and The Limited.