Word: labors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Senate Commerce Committee has not yet introduced a bill, but last week it held a hearing on U.S.-China trade, where labor leaders and corporate chiefs aired their grievances about China's unfair trade practices - from its unwillingness to enforce a minimum wage to its negligent enforcement of intellectual property law. James Hoffa, President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, fresh from his recent tour of Chinese cities, told the committee that China's "first priority is economic progress. It second priority is people." Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, blasted China for breaking the rules...
...came from. To date, China's economic engagement with the outside world has largely come via exports (it sent $969 billion worth of goods to the rest of the world last year) and by attracting huge amounts of foreign direct investment, mostly from manufacturers taking advantage of its low labor costs. That is now changing rapidly. A month ago, Beijing's State Investment Company bought a $3 billion stake in the Blackstone Group just before the American private-equity giant went public (an investment that is so far more than $300 million underwater). This and the CDB stake in Barclays...
...Still, being China's middleman can be both a blessing and a curse. The current low prices for pearls may also be a product of cheap labor. Japan's pearl farmers are organized into an umbrella association that sets prices and offers welfare to those who fall on hard times. By contrast, the Chinese producers are more vulnerable to exploitation: "Chinese farmers might as well be selling fruit or cattle," Cheng says. "Their only hope is to cover expenses. They have no idea how valuable their product can be and don't ask for higher prices...
...despair, many Republican faithful, from the grass roots to the Capitol, have concluded that Fred Thompson, the preternaturally avuncular actor and former Senator from Tennessee, is the cure-all for their party's ills. Thompson has yet to enter the presidential race. He has, in fact, postponed until after Labor Day an official announcement that was supposed to be made in July. And yet Thompson already shares front-runner status with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in some national polls of G.O.P. voters. "People are not inspired; everyone's flat-lining," says Ken Duberstein, former chief of staff...
...Meanwhile, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee on Wednesday is scheduled to report out Senator Ted Kennedy's latest attempt at regulating tobacco products - he has tried and failed to pass similar bills four years running. This year's measure - which actually enjoys the support of Phillip Morris, the producer of Marlboro and the largest U.S. cigarette manufacturer - adds a controversial clause that would permit the use of cloves as a cigarette additive. Phillip Morris, a division of Altria, spent $5 billion in 2005 to buy a controlling stake in Sampoerna of Indonesia, a large maker of clove...