Wal-Mart Workers in China Set Up Communist Party Branch (and unionize, too)

[Zenlitened]

We really need an emoticon for "heads spinning 'round and 'round and 'round..."

Political activism at Wal-Mart... on behalf of Communists. Unionization sweeping Wal-Mart shops... in China.

Buy Blue? Buy Red? I think we need a new color-code system. Maybe Homeland Security has some extra crayons it can lend us. :D

Wal-Mart Workers in China Set Up Communist Party Branch

By MEI FONG (Wall Street Journal)
December 18, 2006 8:11 a.m.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer and an icon of American capitalism, said local employees have established a branch of the Communist Party at its China headquarters.

The party branch was set up in the office in the southern city of Shenzhen where Wal-Mart runs its fast-growing China business, said Jonathan Dong, the company's spokesman in China. The latest branch, which was inaugurated Friday, follows the establishment of similar party organizations in five Wal-Mart stores across the country since August, Mr. Dong said.

Other multinational companies operating in China also have party branches, and analysts say they generally don't interfere with such companies' management. The party's constitution requires that any company with more than three party members among its employees set up a branch.

Still, Wal-Mart's acquiescence to the party cells – a decade after it opened its first store in China – reflects a stepped up effort to ingratiate itself with a country that it sees as increasingly vital to its future growth. The establishment of party branches follows a similar retreat for Wal-Mart in July, when the company – which has remained largely union-free elsewhere – caved to strong pressure from China's All-China Federation of Trade Unions to allow union branches in its stores. The government-sanctioned union has quickly spread to almost all Wal-Mart's Chinese stores.

More (subscription required):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116643170055253261.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

[htuttle]

1. "Arise, ye Associates from your slumbers, Arise, ye prisoners of Sam..."

:crazy:

[David__77]

2. This is a good thing.

It's a form of oversight. It may not be as strong as preferred, but it's more than the workers at US Walmart have.

[Betsy Ross]

3. Oh the irony.

It couldn't happen to a nice corp! Wouldn't need to.

[Deja Q]

4. So when will Walmart HQ sock it to them?

They won't let American branches unionize, so W.T.F.?

[Neshanic]

5. Wal Mart=Communists. Well that should play well with the red necks.

Remember the Communist threat? The RED menace?

Don't worry folks,they are friendly, and CHEAP!

Having anti-Communism drilled into my head like every other kid growing up during the 60's, it's amazing that the nation's largest employer is a Commie lover.

They are not are friends. They do not care about what we care about, just as the Commie-MART executives do not. One has a long range plan, the other would climb over their dead mother to make an extra buck.

You guess which is which.