When Kathie Gifford's face was splashed across the newspapers in 1996 after her lucrative

line of Wal mart clothing was exposed as the work of underpaid laborers in New York City's Chinatown, the Department of Labor and the White House teamed up to condemn such practices. With much fanfare, President Clinton's administration launched the "No Sweat" campaign, which pressured retailers and manufacturers to submit to periodic independent inspection of their workplace conditions.

This campaign urged manufacturers to sign the Workplace Code of Con duct, a promise to serf-regulate that has since been adopted by a handful of retailers and many of the nation's largest manufacturers, including Nike and L.L. Bean. However, the Department of Defense, which has a $1 billion garment business that would make it the country's 14th largest retail apparel outlet, has not signed the Code of Conduct. In addition, it has not agreed to demand that its contractors submit to periodic inspections. Because the Department of Defense has not agreed to adhere to the cede, the job of stopping public sector sweatshops falls to the Department of Labor. Federal contractors that persist in violating wage laws or safety and health codes can lose their lucrative taxpayer financed contracts. But Suzanne Seiden, a deputy administrator at the Department of Labor, says that to her knowledge, the department has never applied that rule to government apparel manufacturers. "I just assume that they are adhering to safety and health requirements," she says. According to records obtained by Mother Jones, through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Lion 32 times for safety and health violations in the past 12 years.

What is this passage mainly concerned with？

A．The functions of the Department of Labor in America.

B．A serious problem threatening American economy.

C．The successful attempt of regulating sweatshops in America.

D．The seriousness of the problem of sweatshops in America.