Report: Sweatshop Workers Made Wal-Mart Ornaments [Bloomberg News via New York Sun]
The National Labor Committee based its allegations on smuggled videotapes, documents, and interviews with workers from the Guangzhou Huanya Gift Ltd. Co. in Guangdong province. The group said employees included children who were forced to work 16-hour shifts and were paid below the Chinese minimum wage. Wal-Mart monitors its suppliers and will investigate the allegations, a spokesman for the company, Richard Coyle, said in an e-mail.
Senator Says Wal-Mart Sells Products From Sweatshops [Reuters via New York Times]
A Democratic senator said Wednesday that Christmas tree ornaments sold at Wal-Mart Stores and other major retailers were made in a Chinese sweatshop employing workers as young as 12 and others who work more than 100 hours a week. "There is virtually no enforcement anywhere on these issues," Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota said at a news conference concerning the release of a study on Chinese sweatshops that provide cheap goods for the American market. "Our country needs to insist that our trading partners enforce their own labor laws and respect international labor standards."
Report Cites Holiday Abuse in Chinese Factory [ABC News]
"Wal-Mart is glorifying the virtue of buying cheap goods in its stores, claiming this is the real holiday spirit," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee at a press conference outside Rockefeller Center, near the famous Christmas tree. "But especially at this time of year, no American would knowingly purchase a product in Wal-Mart if they knew that bargain was based on the exploitation of children and teenagers forced to work grueling hours, seven days a week, who are stripped of their rights and paid pennies an hour," Kernaghan said. 

For more on the recent sweatshop report, read the Wal-Mart Watch Blog.