This is how people used to work. Those people were our parents. Things used to change and they changed fast, but it was not in any way comparable to the crazy speed we move on today.
When industrialization began, we saw many of the same extremes we see now with the follies of globalized capitalism. Things changed slow enough to allow for adaption though. The abuse of workers was met by self-organization in the form of unions, and in many parts of the world a kind of social equilibrium was reached.
Globalization changes all that. Multi-national enterprises can evade all rules, the nation states are powerless to enforce what could guarantee welfare.
What do the nation states? They sign free-trade treaties that further codify their irrelevance and formally hand all power over to the multies.
What could the nation states do? They could use the power of international treaties - to reign in the power of globalized multi-nationals. After all, the power of globalized corporations is to blackmail the nation state by threatening to go elsewhere. That’s what treaties should really be about: making an end to corporate blackmail by ensuring that there is no “elsewhere”, that there are equal conditions everywhere.