There seems to exist a tendency to move sweatshops to countries with less effective work(er) protection laws rather than automating jobs (eg: from China to Vietnam and so on).
Free labour is one of the things which led to the fall of the Roman empire. Nobody needs technology when you have slaves. And there are a lot of slaves in the world, just read the latest UN report on it.
One big problem with it is that it's such a cheap target for PR. It's cheaper to build an "artisan trademark" that people associate with quality in other ways than to actually sell high quality products. And even if you do manage it the hard way, your trademark would become a very valuable acquisition target, with obvious consequences.