Chinese Girls' Toil Brings Pain, Not Riches By JOSEPH KAHN

While multinational corporations like Motorola and Intel pay employees middle-class wages to work in world-class factories in this country, the sizzling export sector still relies heavily on smaller operations, both locally and foreign-owned, that assemble toys, clothes, shoes, tools, electronics, decorative items and cosmetic goods. Many measure profits in pennies on the dollar and squeeze workers to make their margins.

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Court cases involving unpaid wages, illegal contracts and life-threatening working conditions are common even as China becomes richer, suggesting that cut-throat capitalism and sweatshop factories are as much a part of China's economic revolution today as they were the early days of industrialization in the West.

Note that multinationals are generally treating the workers better. It's also interesting that people trust the system enough to bring cases to court--or is that a measure of their desperation?