Actually, the solution lies with the WTO. At the expense of labor, as we see here, the WTO has put "free trade" on a pedestal as a golden cow to worship.
This is a problem. No "government", international or otherwise, can be based on ONLY laissez-faire economics. We tried that in the USA -- and found ourselves hiring 8 year old children to clamber around textile machines cleaning them and getting their arms ripped off.
The solution? Simple. The WTO mantra is "our mandate is free trade and free trade only." Either the WTO needs to be able to consider other things than free trade, or other international "agencies" need to be created, with the same enforcement power as the WTO, to regulate these other concerns.
Labor and the environment are the 2 big holes in the WTO most often cited. Well, why not health? I'll tell you why: the side agreement on Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) ALLOWS for tariffs and trade restrictions where scientifically-sound HEALTH concerns are at issue. The SPS agreement was created by "ballooning" and better-defining one paragraph in Article XX of the WTO/GATT agreement (entitled: EXCEPTIONS).
So, why not have side agreements on labor and the environment?? Thus, a nation could fairly tarriff imports from another nation to make up for the difference in pay -- it IS after all an unfair advantage in production costs, just as it is an unfair cost advantage to build you belching facility in some country that does not care if you spill methyl-ethyl-death everywhere. Allowing these to be reasonable factors in pricing and, consequently, the placing of industrial centers, only encourages a "race to the bottom" that we first world nations have prohibited at home.
Look, USA workers may be lazy and fat, but bitching about that DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Even if USA workers were quite industrious, like me (points to feet on desk
), there would still be one very simple issue causing the problem to linger: life COSTS MORE here, thus wages must be higher here. So, the lazy USA worker is a side issue, related but not the same. Oh, and we're fat because of an increased standard of living and a decreased food cost (relative to other goods) -- it's inevitable. Look at the wealthy women as opposed to the poor women in Rennaissance paintings and statues. I hate fat, and I work to avoid it, but there is a reasonable explanation for why the USA population is the way it is.