ACFTU Presses Foreign Companies to Accept Union Branches

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) began a campaign in March 2006 to establish union branches in foreign enterprises doing business in China, according to an April 1 Asia Times report.

ACFTU Vice Chairwoman Sun Chunlan announced on July 5 that "[The ACFTU] will promote the formation of unions within private enterprises during the second half of the year, particularly within foreign enterprises, in order to meet the goals of expanding the total number of unions to 1.3 million and establishing 120,000 new grassroots unions by the end of the year," according to a July 5 Xinhua article. Wang Zhaoguo, ACFTU Chairman and a Politburo member, proposed an amendment to the Trade Union Law on July 5 that would require foreign enterprises to establish ACFTU-affiliated branches, according to a July 5 Xinhua article.

The ACFTU, a Communist Party-led mass organization, is the only legal labor federation in China. It controls local union branches and aligns worker and union activity with government and Party policy. Chinese workers who attempt to form independent workers' organizations, or whom the government suspects of being leaders of such organizations, risk imprisonment. For more information, see Section III(c), on the Protection of Internationally Recognized Labor Rights, in the Commission’s 2005 Annual Report.

ACFTU officials have pressed foreign enterprises to establish ACFTU branches. ACFTU officials have said that 60 percent of the 500,000 foreign enterprises in China have not established ACFTU branches, according to a July 25 Voice of America (VOA) report. ACFTU Chairman Wang said that, "We started to push Wal-Mart to set up union branches two years ago, yet there is not a single one built so far . . . [but] we will continue to work on this," according to a July 6 Xinhua article. Wal-Mart publicly committed in 2004 to allowing its Chinese employees to establish unions if they requested the formation of one, but no such unions were formed until 2006. In July and August, however, ACFTU branches were rapidly established in 17 Wal-Mart stores in China, according to an August 15 China Labor Bulletin report, and a Wal-Mart spokesman said that the company anticipates "working collaboratively with leadership from the ACFTU and Union organizations at all levels to create a model working relationship," according to an August 9 Wall Street Journal article. The VOA report notes that other foreign enterprises, including McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Samsung, have also established ACFTU branches in recent months.

The ACFTU campaign to expand unions in foreign enterprises doing business in China follows a March directive issued by top Party leaders ordering the establishment of Party organizations and trade unions in foreign enterprises as a means to counter social unrest, according to an August 15 China Labor Bulletin translation of a Beijing News article. The Hong Kong Liaison Office of the international trade union movement noted in a March analysis that the ACFTU’s 2006 efforts to expand the number of ACFTU branches is an effort to respond to declining ACFTU membership, increasing labor protests, efforts by Chinese workers to organize independent unions, and an increase in the percentage of the workforce composed of non-unionized migrant workers. The Xinhua article noted that only 13.8 percent of migrant workers currently belong to an ACFTU union, and that the ACFTU aims to recruit 6.5 million new migrant workers to join ACFTU branches by the end of 2006.