Since Wal-Mart began in 1962, it has grown to be become one of the largest, most grossing companies not only in American history, but in the world. Larger than Exxon Mobile, General Motors and General Electric, they sell over 244.5 billion dollars a year. Home Depot, the second largest retailer, sells in a year, what Wal-Mart does in three months. 'Save money. Live better. Wal-Mart.' This promise has kept them at the top, allowed for Wal-Mart to prevail over so many companies. But what consumers don't understand is there is another side. A side that has a different motto. 'Less money. Live worse. Overseas factories.'

To keep these prices low for consumers, major companies all over the world, like Wal-Mart, have been outsourcing jobs to other countries. Particularly China, where labor costs are low and inhumane working conditions are easy to hide. It's how Wal-Mart is able to continually, year after year, lower prices. Consumers are happy, and no one asks questions about how or where these low prices come from. And when somebody does, answers are hard to come by.

In 2000, the number one toy producer McDonald's, was accused and found guilty, of using child labor to produce vast number of their kids meal toys. This scandal has led many to look deeper into what is really going behind the walls of Chinese factories.

The Hong Kong Christian Institute began looking, and what they found was disturbing. When interviewing anonymous workers, they found that Chinese factory employees are overworked, underpaid, and with no other option than to let the companies control them. When asked about working hours, a young girl described going to work from 6:30 a.m. till midnight, then working overtime until four o' clock in the morning. Seven days a week. This is not uncommon, as numerous reports from inside factory walls have shown work hours that last all night, where employees had resorted to sleeping on their desks.

These long work hours are forced among the workers, as pressure for shipping and delivery dates are put upon the shoulders of the overseeing factory director. To make sure these deadlines are met, they force their employees to work extra hours. Willing or not, they are forced to work deep into the night.

These long hour days/weeks are accompanied with poor working and living conditions. Jail like corridors are where many people call home. Their concrete room, shared with seven other people is their only option because their minimal wages wouldn't last outside the factory walls. Work spaces in China are cramped, unsafe and miserable to be in. Summer time temperatures in the nineties are pushed into the hundreds with equipment producing material well over two hundred degrees. You can almost identify a worker, with their bruised and burned bodies from accidents in the work place. Medical problems are regular, and sometimes fatal.

One of the most prominent and well know accidents was the factory fire in 1993. A Thailand factory burst into flames around midnight, and with emergency exits blocked, and no escapes from from upstairs, hundreds of people died. Gaining world wide attention, pressure was put upon the companies to act. And they did. ' Codes of conduct' were made that improved some working conditions. As a result, factory check-ups were mandatory, and businesses began taking responsibility for problems within their factories. Problem solved. Case closed.

But when asked about these check-ups, workers have a much different story to tell. Anonymous reports recall their employers paying them to lie to the supervisors: about work conditions, their satisfaction with the factory, the wages they're paid and the hours they are forced to work. These accounts from the workers are then backed up again with false time sheets, that incorrectly tally wages and time worked. There is rarely anything found wrong, because there is nothing to find. Everything is covered up.

“If it is like this, is is disturbing, but I have never seen any thing like that. Then again, I have never asked if there are false reports,” Tomas Person commented. As the managing director of BRIO, Person is responsible of this, and making sure these conditions don't exist. But even when confronted with this issue, he hasn't taken initiative to find the validity of these reports. His attitude shows the disturbing issue that no change is going to be made without the influence of people from either the inside or outside, because the companies sure don't care.

But why do the workers go along with it? This is the biggest issue with controlling this problem. Not only are they paid to lie, but there are other factors that prevent them from complaining. They are threatened to be fired and/or the whole factory relocated. Many of the workers in China's factories are from far off providence's of China that are poor, and the small wages they receive for factory work is appealing. Being laid off would leave them helpless

Another issue is that work unions are discouraged in China as well. When asked about forming one, an anonymous employee stated, 'we would be fired.' They are scared for their families, and for themselves. There will be no complaining as long as they feel scared. Han Dongfang, a human right's activist in China, explained that, '[The companies] make sure workers don't know about Unions.' It's the lack of these unions that make the individual scared to act or speak out. Without confidence in numbers, their only option is to continue to work in current conditions.

The only way to change what is happening overseas is to raise the public awareness. To put pressure from the outside, so that the ones being affected on the inside feel comfortable complaining. Parry Leung, part of the Hong Kong Christian Institute reiterates this idea, 'At first people see it as good, because people are getting more jobs. But we have to ask, what kind of jobs are they? Do they do good for them? Or is it the only option they have?' As consumers, we must understand that what we do and what we buy affects others around us, whether they be down the street or on the the other side of the world. The people affected are trying to support a family, and don't know any better than to cooperate. We, who do know better, have to act. I'm not saying completely stop buying from wal-mart, I'm saying become vocal. Challenge the Chinese government, and the large companies as a whole. If the toys you buy at wal-mart goes up ten cents, know that another human being is able to provide for their family. Don't support outsourcing just because it's ten more cents out of your pocket, that ten more cents could be the difference in living inside a factory or of having food on the table at dinner time for another human being. And so I challenge you, to become vocal.