Exploited labor is always wrong, even when it's 6,000 miles away. Pennsylvania workers are keeping a close eye on how the Bush administration deals with workers' rights violations in China and how those violations contribute to job loss in the United States.

The fact is that China is violating international trade law, and our nation is doing nothing about it.

		Richard L. Trumka is secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. William M. George is president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

Many of China's workers toil under inhumane conditions for as a little as 15 to 50 cents an hour. Wages are up to 60 percent below the government's own minimum wage standards and up to 85 percent below what workers would make if China followed all of the fundamental workers' rights set forth in international trade law. Workers work 10-, 12- or even 18-hour days, often seven days a week, and are typically not paid overtime wages as required by law. Workers can do little to break free from this life of misery. If they protest, they're often beaten or put in jail. Conditions are so bad that many impoverished workers are now refusing to work in the factories.

It's been more than two years since the AFL-CIO called on the Bush administration to investigate China for "unreasonable trade practices" as compelled by Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The official "petition" filed under trade law challenged how China keeps labor costs artificially low through a government-condoned and corporate-engineered labor exploitation on a scale that is unmatched anywhere in the global economy.

The Bush administration rejected the petition, saying that it had a better way to deal with the problem. In fact, it did nothing.

This month the AFL-CIO filed a second petition with the U.S. trade representative calling on the Bush administration, once again, to enforce our trade laws by taking action against China to help bring an end to that government's brutal repression of workers' rights.

The petition states that the situation in China has gotten even worse. While workers in China suffer, multinational corporations are reaping huge profits by exploiting the Chinese labor force and taking advantage of the Chinese government's lax enforcement of labor laws. The suffering in China has a direct impact on workers here in the United States. The corporate profits squeezed out of every vulnerable laborer in China make it all the easier for corporations to ship good American jobs overseas.

The violations of workers' rights in China have contributed to the loss of 930,000 manufacturing jobs and 1,235,000 total jobs nationwide, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Here in Pennsylvania, we've lost 183,100 manufacturing jobs since 2001, and many of those were to China.

The administration has also refused to address currency manipulation by China that reduces the costs of their imports to the United States and increases the costs of our exports to China by up to 40 percent. The exploitation of China's workers coupled with the undervalued yuan has led to a record $202 billion trade deficit with China, a deficit that will continue to grow unless we change course.

Each day the administration waits to address these issues, matters get worse. In the two years the administration failed to act on currency manipulation or workers' rights, our trade deficit with China has risen an astonishing $80 billion.

China is rapidly emerging as a formidable trading partner while it carries out a pervasive and well-documented system of abuse. It's imperative, both morally and economically, for the administration to take action now.

The president must implement a program of economic incentives for China to improve its record on labor rights and be prepared to impose the necessary remedies if the Chinese government refuses to comply with internationally recognized workers' rights standards. At the same time, the president must implement a system for verifying that the Chinese government and corporations are improving conditions for workers.

And Pennsylvania's congressional delegation -- including Sen. Rick Santorum, who has supported unfair trade laws every step of the way-- should call on the Bush administration to take action against China's trade law violations today.

It's 6,806 miles from Pittsburgh to Beijing, but for Pennsylvania workers, China's way of doing business is right around the corner. Exploitation of human beings through repression of fundamental rights for economic gain is both morally repugnant and economically dangerous. Americans won't tolerate it. Our government shouldn't, either.