America’s children are safer today because of the enactment four years ago of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which was supported by a United Steelworkers (USW) drive to ban lead in imported children’s toys.
 
“Consumers have the right to know that the toys they give their children aren’t going to harm them,’’ USW International President Leo W. Gerard said in marking today’s fourth anniversary of the act’s passage in 2008.
 
“Regulatory oversight like the Consumer Product Act protects families from corporations that make profits producing and importing unsafe products,” Gerard added.
 
The USW was part of a broad coalition that rallied behind the landmark legislation that protects consumers by limiting lead levels in children’s products and creating a consumer complaint database.
 
USW members lobbied lawmakers, participated in protests and conducted home lead tests on toys to draw attention to the flawed trade deals that allowed the importation of toxic products for children...more