China Labor News Translations

The trade unions in Chinese Wal-Mart stores are often dismissed as hollow shells set up by the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) without workers’ involvement. But through monitoring Chinese media and online blog discussions among Chinese Wal-Mart employees, CLNT has found workers who take an active interest in their store union, and at least in one case, of an elected rank and file trade union chair using the trade union platform to actively defend workers’ interests. While most – if not all – of the trade union branches are heavily dominated by Wal-Mart management or local governments, some workers have seized this union-building exercise and try to turn the unions into a body that they identify as their own to protect and to use in their struggle against Wal-Mart management.

CLNT has just secured a report from a production line worker, Worker Ye (a pseudonym) at the Shunda factory which was the subject of CLNT’s August 2007 posting, “Democratic Trade Union Election in Reebok Supplier Factory: Five Year Update”. Ye reports that the Shunda union re-election took place in October 2007 and that it was rigged. Candidates running for the union committee were overwhelmingly supervisors and managers, and the positions of trade union chair, deputy chair and the union office administrator (the only three full-time trade union positions) were not opened for contested re-election. The three officials therefore are able to continue to sit on the trade union committee and do nothing for the workers.

Chinese New Year has just passed. Before New Year millions of migrant workers hope to take their income and return to their hometown for reunions with their families after one year’s hard work. However, many of them have had to struggle for unpaid wages before they go home. In this issue, CLNT has chosen three articles focused on the chronic social problem of owed wages in China.