Official Union Set Up in China at Wal-Mart

[tannybogus]

Source: Washington Post

BEIJING, July 30 — Workers at Wal-Mart Stores have formed their first trade union in China, after demands from the government that the company allow organized labor in its stores, according to reports in the official news media over the weekend.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has long sought to bar unions from its stores, particularly in the United States. But the government-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions has campaigned to set up branches in China, where Wal-Mart employs 30,000 people at 60 outlets.

Any new union in China is unlikely to resemble its counterparts in the West. Labor activists often accuse the tightly controlled All-China Federation of siding with management rather than workers. The union, founded in 1925 during the era of Chinese Nationalist rule, says on its Web site that it has 134 million members.

Harley Shaiken, a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley, said that China’s state-backed unions were known for supporting, rather than challenging, foreign corporations.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/business/worldbusiness/31walmart.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[FreakinDJ]

1. Great - now Walmart will import Chinese unions to the US

"Get on your knees"

[ohio2007]

2. How much of the 'union due' goes directly into the pockets of the Chinese leadership ?

all of it.

[MichiganVote]

3. Democrats in China?

[pattmarty]

4. Wal-Mart unionized in China; something about that sounds unreal .....

....sitting here in the US not 3 miles from a "Super center".

[WilyWondr]

5. Where am I?

"Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has long sought to bar unions from its stores, particularly in the United States."

How is that? Are there some secret unions at Wallyword that the workers do not know about?

Unions have sought to unionize Wallyworld. Wallyword has prevented unions from forming.
They have not sought to bar unions, they have actually barred them.

June 10, 2004
Staying union free is a full-time commitment. Unless union prevention is a goal equal to other objectives within an organization, the goal will usually not be attained. The commitment to stay union free must exist at all levels of management--from the Chairperson of the "Board" down to the front-line manager. Therefore, no one in management is immune to carrying his or her "own weight" in the union prevention effort. The entire management staff should fully comprehend and appreciate exactly what is expected of their individual efforts to meet the union free objective.... Unless each member of management is willing to spend the necessary time, effort, energy, and money, it will not be accomplished. The time involved is...365 days per year....

This admonition comes from a handbook Wal-Mart distributes to managers, and gives an idea of the passion and vision behind Wal-Mart's unionbusting project.

[HopeHoops]

6. Irony knows no limits

[robcon]

7. Calling the federation a union is an insult to unions.

Unions in China are like unions in Poland before Solidarity. Their primary purpose is to uncover and expose sedition or disloyalty against the state.

[David__77]

8. The union is playing a more important role in recent times.

Indeed, wages are higher at unionized workplaces in China in the similar, non-unionized workplaces. The union does certainly act a an arm of the Communist Party in terms of popularizing party policies, but it also has a separate, distinct role unlike, say, unions in the former Soviet Union.