By Lauren Foster and Alexandra Harney

Factory managers in China are becoming increasingly sophisticated at

falsifying worker time cards and payroll documents to disguise

irregularities including underpayment, excessive hours and inadequate health

and safety provision. Auditors estimate that more than half of factories

they see in China are forging some of their records - meaning that many of

the international companies that source from China are learning less about

the actual working conditions in the factories they use, even as they step

By Maxine Frith, Social Affairs Correspondent

They are the global brands that have raked in multimillion-pound profits on the back of sweatshop labour in developing countries.

But after a decade of denying any wrongdoing, companies such as Nike and Gap are now admitting that their workers have been exploited and abused, and have pledged to improve the conditions of the millions of people who are paid a few pence a day to make their top-selling goods.

By David Bacon

Erasmo Flores, president of the Sindicato Nacional de Motoristas de Epuipo Pesado de Honduras (SINAMEQUIPH), the union for Honduras' port truckers, talks with truckers about their labor rights and conditions.

Mr. Coughlin Told Others Bogus Expenses Hid Plot Against Unions

Retailer Disputes His Claim

By James Bandler and Ann Zimmerman

Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

BENTONVILLE, Ark. – Last November, Thomas M. Coughlin, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s vice chairman, approached a lieutenant with an unusual request. He wanted Jared Bowen to approve around $2,000 in expense payments without any receipts.

Mr. Bowen, then a 31-year-old vice president, recalls that Mr. Coughlin briefly mentioned the money had been used for a "union project."