Wal-Mart versus the ACFTU.

Building the union

Wal-Mart has been taken on by unionism, Chinese style, explains Chris White.

At the high-rise Beijing headquarters of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) on 30 January 2007, I asked Ms Guo Chen from their Grass-Roots Organization and Capacity Building Department to go through their steps of unionising Wal-Mart.

Why? The retailer Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world and actively anti-union. The China union breakthrough is a significant achievement. The ACFTU reputation was that it unionised top-down with management approval. But arguably Wal-Mart was different, bottom up.

Does this herald a shift from the unique Chinese servicing model to an organising model of unionism? Can the ACFTU be an effective collective bargaining voice for Chinese workers? How do Australian labour movement activists engage with the ACFTU?

First, what happened with Wal-Mart?

I asked about the organising steps. Ms Guo Chen in the Department organising in non-public enterprises, with a focus on western corporations, made her report. This is my version of what she said. She knew the process, as she was involved since Wal-Mart China set up in 1996.

For years, the regional ACFTU's reported back to central Beijing that Wal-Mart managers opposed unions. Local union organisers were concerned about how local Wal-Mart management always rebuffed them, repeating, 'our workers do not want to join. We are reluctant to have our Chinese workers in the union.' Other multi-national corporations used the Wal-Mart line.

The 2003 ACFTU Congress resolved to set up unions among Wal-Mart workers. In 2004, unionising foreign multi-nationals was publicly debated. A National People's Congress (NPC) committee in a nationwide inspection reported on the enforcement of China's Trade Union Law. There is a legal right for 25 workers to start a local union committee in an enterprise, and join as part of the ACFTU.

Afterwards, the ACFTU at the national and local level held meetings to unionise Wal-Mart. In 2005, again the request was made to each regional city union organisation and to local trade union cadres in branches to talk to the local management in Wal-Mart stores and ask them to allow their workers to be in the union. This was done, but again rebuffs. In Nanjing the Trade Union Council was rebuffed 28 times.

Wal-Mart China Head Office is in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, and was targeted, but the management did not change. In the consultation process, all the store heads rejected the ACFTU approach, saying they were under instructions from Head Office China. Their workers did not want to join. The ACFTU's usual top-down attempts did not succeed.

In 2005, the ACFTU strategy turned to the workers, strengthening their resolve into 2006. Normally the ACFTU did not organise from the bottom up, as happens elsewhere where unions face hostile management. But elsewhere, unions had not succeeded in Wal-Mart. By 2006, Wal-Mart was expanding its 60 chain stores in 30 cities with more workers employed. Wal-Mart's headquarters was rebuffing the ACFTU headquarters. An article of concern came to the attention of the ACFTU in the Chinese business news: 'Is Wal-Mart or Chinese ACFTU the more powerful?'

The ACFTU leadership put pressure on the Grass Roots Organising Department to focus again on Wal-Mart. There were debates inside on resourcing. In July 2006, the ACFTU Vice Chairman, Xu Deming, gathered together the trade union heads and all of the organisers for a large meeting that, after debate, resolved to:

1. mobilise all workers in Wal-Mart into the union;
2. give planning attention to a public campaign in the mass media, TV and extensive leafleting and pamphlets etc;
3. increase the investment materially and manpower for unionisation;
4. enforce the legal provision that any management cannot prevent workers from joining and hindering or limiting is illegal - business investing in China must abide by local Chinese laws;
5. increase investment in dealing with those workers who have been punished unfairly or mistreated by management; improve low wages and conditions.

The local union cadres then went out to do this with various means. In front of Wal-Mart exits, organisers were active handing out of flyers and leaflets urging joining. Union pamphlets showed the benefits of joining with special offers for a range of services. Local cadres met workers in restaurants and in their dormitories and homes at night.

Reports came in that young women were too scared to join, as management would discriminate against them. Trade union cadres complained to management pointing out the law allowing workers to join. Management said their workers did not want to join. The union locally discussed how to go forward. Wal-Mart's rude and arrogant attitude was put in the newspapers. Journalists reported the contest, leading to public outcry.

Then on 29 July 2006, the first trade union committee in the world was formed in Wal-Mart's Jinjiang Store in Quanzhou City, China's coastal province of Fujian. This was in secret, at night to include night and day shifts. Executive members of the union committee elected, with Ke Yunlong, a young 29 year old meat-packer, the leader and chair, and thumbprints were taken to record their union oath. Their names were kept secret at the local level so as to not give information to management.

With the first 30 joining, the feeling was that it was historic. There was celebration, the singing of the Internationale, and photos and speeches from Ke Yunlong that it was 'the most meaningful achievement of our lives' (more detail in Anita Chan's account). Vice Chairman Xu Deming attended.

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