I hope Manpower’s Jeffrey Joerres is a man of his word. Because he’s got power when it comes to China’s workers and labor market.

Joerres, CEO of the Milwaukee-based staffing giant, just told Workforce Management’s Gina Ruiz that his company would stick to high employment standards as it becomes China’s first foreign temporary staffing firm.

“I wouldn’t place anybody in a situation where I wouldn’t want to be in,” Joerres says.

On October 10, Manpower announced that it had gained government approval to become the first non-Chinese temporary staffing agency.

Although China’s capitalistic push over the past three decades has created great wealth in the country, it also has come with widespread labor abuses. Many of these are associated with small factories, which often supply items to major Western corporations in areas such as electronics, apparel and toys.

Even though Western businesses have stepped up efforts to enforce decent labor practices, abuses have continued. Last year, BusinessWeek showed how factories have gotten better at concealing problems, with the help of a new type of consultant that helps plants evade audits.

It strikes me that if Western firms were really serious about curbing abuses in China, they would stop tapping these questionably run suppliers and get more involved—either through joint ventures or by owning their factories outright.

Of course, reining in the outsourcing probably means higher costs and less flexibility. Companies typically hate both of those results.

That’s what makes Manpower’s China news intriguing. Manpower gives organizations—Western or Chinese—the option of outsourcing some of their workforce needs. Manpower’s offer promises companies not only flexibility, but expertise in assessing worker skills for optimal performance.

At the same time, Manpower could be a force against labor abuses. Multinational firms may choose Manpower over a shady domestic supplier to safeguard their reputations. In turn, domestic staffing firms seeking to compete with Manpower could set a higher bar for their labor practices.

Of course, this potential for a virtuous circle turns on the integrity of Joerres and his company.

Joerres told Ruiz that Manpower may turn down business if employers won’t adopt higher standards.

“We understand that our way of doing business is not going to appeal to everybody,” he says. “That’s just part of the territory and we accept it.”

I wish Joerres the best. And I look forward to seeing if he lives up to his promise.

In America, the concept of government playing a major role in guiding the economy is usually scoffed at. Industrial policy is thought to be a distasteful, counterproductive thing without a place in the free enterprise system. Except that the U.S. government does in fact support various industries, most famously the agricultural sector. And as globalization proceeds and more high-paying U.S. jobs are threatened by overseas competition, there’s an argument to be made for a stronger government presence in “picking winners and losers.”

Helping some sectors succeed through research funds, training programs and possibly even temporary tariffs isn’t just an approach that may appeal to citizens and workers keen for good jobs and a measure of economic security. Businesses, too, can benefit in the form of early access to new technologies and skilled employees.

Various agencies devoted to regional economic development do some of this already in the United States. But our efforts seem to pale in comparison to what a number of other countries have done. Consider South Korea’s treatment of the animation industry. A recent New York Times story about a new SpongeBob SquarePants episode noted that much of the animation for the cartoon was done in South Korea:

“In the 1980s animation began to migrate overseas because the labor was less expensive and because animated shows were not selling well in the United States. The labor is still somewhat cheaper, Nickelodeon executives said, but South Korea dominates in animation because the country has built an infrastructure for the practice while in the United States there is little formal training for animators.”

Indeed, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has named animation as one of Seoul’s “strategic industries.” The government-funded Seoul Animation Center  was founded in 1999, and its activities include “the operation of various educational programs in order to produce capable human resources, support for new talents and productions, organization of events and exhibitions including animation film festivals, and the operation of an efficient information center.”

In a recent blog item Salon.com senior writer Andrew Leonard ties the SpongeBob show to the way industrial policy has promoted economic growth in East Asia.

“Chinese and Indian animation studios are now undercutting the historical Korean price advantage in cartoon production,” Leonard writes. “But cheap labor isn’t the only key to surviving in the global economy. So is finding your niche. Why are SpongeBob cartoons made in Korea, even at this late date in the evolution of Korean economy? At least in part, because the government made it a priority.”

Cartoons may not be the right niche for America at this point. But certainly there are other possibilities, including various “green technologies.” It may be time for Americans—and American businesses—to take the idea of industrial policy seriously.

Seven workers died in Dubai this week in what may be a window into the seamy underside of global capitalism.

The workers were killed and 19 others were injured when a wall collapsed on a bridge construction project, according to Gulf News, a publication based in the United Arab Emirates. The U.A.E. is the federal government for Dubai and six other emirates. In an Associated Press story about the accident, the head of safety at a nearby construction site said workers on the bridge project were not properly equipped to ensure their safety because they did not have helmets, gloves, proper shoes or harnesses.

An official with the firm that employed the killed workers, Wade Adams Group, disputed those charges.

But it wouldn’t be surprising if the allegations of inadequate safety equipment are true, given Dubai’s dubious labor rights record.

Labor unions are illegal in Dubai, according to Agence France-Presse. The oil-rich, fast-growing city-state relies heavily on South Asian migrant workers, and advocacy groups have criticized Dubai for its labor rules and practices.

Despite strikes being outlawed, migrant workers at construction sites in Dubai—including the world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai—have been striking for better wages, according to Agence France-Presse. The news service reported on November 7 that the U.A.E. said it would “urgently” review wages of workers in the construction sector following the wave of strikes.

Such government intervention would be something of a reversal for Dubai. The government’s official Web site boasts that “Dubai’s economy has been kept open and free to attract investors and business. Government control and regulation of private sector activities has been kept to a minimum.”

Meanwhile, Gulf News reported that the families of the seven dead workers—all Indians—will get 10 years’ salary in compensation. According to the AP, a Wade Adams Group official estimated the workers each earned an average of $2,615 a year, for a total of $26,142 over 10 years.

I wonder whether the family members consider that “fair trade” in action.

A clear picture is emerging: Art works when it comes to creating a healthy workforce.

In the latest evidence that the world of art can play a vital role in fostering successful workers and a healthy economy, consultant Robert Fritz reports on a Swedish training program. Fritz, a composer and filmmaker as well as a business advisor, writes in his November newsletter that the program took troubled young people and gave them opportunities to write, direct, produce, shoot and act in their own original films.

Because shooting a film requires a sense of the overall outcome, it helped program participants develop a long-term mind-set, Fritz argues. The project also encouraged teamwork and objective, critical thinking, he says.

“Very few approaches have worked with this population,” Fritz writes. “A success rate of even 25% is considered remarkable. Yet, through involving these people in the creative process through filmmaking, over 70 percent of those who participated in the course ended up with jobs or went back to school to get degrees to further their ambitions.”

The filmmaking training program echoes the thinking of author Daniel Pink, whose 2005 book A Whole New Mind argues that artistic, holistic abilities are becoming crucial for success in today’s world. Then there’s scholar Richard Florida, who has made the case that artists are part of a new “creative class” of people with a profound effect on society.

Despite all the data showing that drawing, dancing, drumming and the like are key today, the arts still get short shrift. The impressive program in Sweden, for example, got axed this year, Fritz reports.

“It is hard for most politicians to understand the power of the creative process and how, through learning its principles, some of the most disadvantaged members of society can be transformed into productive contributors,” he writes.

Let’s hope more leaders see the big picture of how the arts fit into the economy.