It's a leveling down of standards. The new global standard for the conditions a factory worker may expect is that they'll work 12 hour days, live in a barracks

It's a leveling down of standards. The new global standard for the conditions a factory worker may expect is that they'll work 12 hour days, live in a barracks, get paid every three months and suffer routine exposure to dangerous amounts of Benzene---to say nothing of the wages. And if you can't or won't work under these conditions then you're non-employable. So American worker gets thrown out because he's suddenly insufficiently downtrodden to be a competitive worker in his former line of work. And maybe the Benzene is worth it to the average Chinese worker. I can't speak for him. But I can say that if it's not, he'll lose his job like the American did and they'll find someone even cheaper somewhere else. PS: I guarantee you that there are no separate factories in China for export into the EU where workers receive EU-level protections. Don't be daft. The European markets are full of goods produced in horrible conditions.