From the Gorgetown Journal:
There is an old Chinese proverb that holds there can not be two suns in the sky, so there can be only one source of power in the land. It is an idea the Chinese Communist Party has embraced fully, leaving it congenitally opposed to any leadership or organization in China other than itself. It is hardly surprising then that the Chinese government is not ready to allow independent trade unions to exist because of their potential for creating political instability.
Labor rights remain the last frontier of change in. China, and the Communist Party is growing resistance to labor reform indicates that conditions for Chinese workers are likely to become worse before they get any better. This is a grim prediction for a country where independent trade unions are already banned and millions of workers go to bed every night in over crowded dormitory rooms after having worked fifteen to eighteen hours a day in Dickensian factories where some workers are literally worked to death. This phenomenon has added a new word to the Mandarinvocabulary-guolaosi-death from over work. Global consumers have been shielded from knowing about the human cost of the Chinese products they purchase, as the press has been relatively tame in covering labor rights in China. [Full Text]