Labor Conditions Improving?

Each of these companies has strong connections with the government, i.e., someone's son, daughter, brother, or they wouldn't have received the contract in the first place. I guess the government is taking no chances with Olympic headlines.

The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) said it was taking action against four factories producing Olympic merchandise following a month-long investigation into alleged labor violations, the Wall Street Journal reported. Le Kit Stationery, which BOCOG said was guilty of using child labor, will lose the right to manufacture Olympic merchandise. The three other companies involved - Mainland Headwear, Yue Wing Cheong Light Products and Eagle Leather Products - will be banned from designing Olympic products, but will still be able to make them if conditions improve. The companies were found to have made employees work excessively long hours. BOCOG's findings appear to support those made by Playfair 2008, an international group of trade unions and non-governmental organizations, in a report published in June.