The dynamics of recent changes in the Chinese trade union movement

Abstract

The paper explores the reforms of Chinese trade unions during 2010–2013. Using publicly available data, the paper discusses changes to the three levels. The national All-China Federation of Trade Unions is making efforts to change its main goal from achieving social stability towards protecting worker rights and interests, in the process pursuing campaigns to expand union coverage and membership and advocating ‘democratic management’ within enterprises. The regional trade unions are increasingly encouraging workplace unions in winning wage increases and recognising non-union worker associations. The workplace unions are becoming more democratic and more actively protecting workers’ interests, promoting workers’ personal development and intervening in labour disputes. These reforms in union structure and strategy are explained by the changing context within which unions operate, which have resulted in an unusual combination of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ pressures. Evaluating the union initiatives, however, is more problematic. Whether they are the first steps in a new model of Chinese unionism or a re-adjustment of the traditional model remains a judgement that can only be made in the course of time and with more systematic empirical research.

Keywords:

• Chinese union movement
• collective bargaining
• trade union coverage and membership
• workplace unions

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge suggestions from Professor Zhenglin You. This work was supported by Shandong University, China [grant number IFW12057].

Notes

1. We choose to focus on ‘workplace’ or ‘enterprise’ unions as the lowest organisational unit of the ACFTU (Liu et al. 2011b: 294). This level, however, is sometimes referred to as ‘grass roots’, which has a slightly broader meaning that includes some local ‘industrial’ unions and trade unions in government departments and public institutions, such as schools and hospitals (see Taylor & Li 2007: 704; Zhu et al. 2011: 130).

2. New generation migrant workers refer to those who were born after 1980, are more than 16 years old, hold agriculture accounts and work in a place other than their hometown (ACFTU 2010).

3. According to Chinese labour contract law (2007) and ACFTU’s reports, the collective contracts can be classified into two types: general collective contracts, which contain labour remuneration, working hours, rest and vacations, occupational safety and health, insurance and welfare items; and special collective contracts, such as wages collective contracts (which focus on labour remuneration and welfare items) and occupational safety collective contracts (which focus on occupational safety and health).

4. There are two important points to note. First, from the data of the NBSC, the number of labour disputes in the whole country declined from 600,865 to 589,244 between 2010 and 2011, but rose to 1,512,000 in 2012. There is the same trend in the number of cases accepted by Labour Dispute Mediation Committees. Second, labour disputes in China usually occur in enterprises, seldom in institutions; so the number of cases accepted by Labour Dispute Mediation Committees is less than the number of units with Labour Dispute Mediation Committees.

5. According to Chinese ‘Regulation of Democratic Management in Enterprises’ of 2012, the important items of information to be provided to employees through Publishing Management Affairs include: (1) the basic operating situation, (2) the recruitment of employees and their labour contracts, (3) the collective contract and the contents of labour systems, (4) the situation of rewarding and punishing employees, unilateral releasing of labour contracts, the programme and results of layoffs and the conditions, quotas and results of selecting excellent employees, (5) occupational safety and health, and the situation and handling result of safety accidents, (6) the payment of social insurance and enterprise pensions, (7) employees’ education funds and employees’ training plan and (8) labour disputes and their outcomes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shaobo Sun

Shaobo Sun is Lecturer, School of Management, Shandong University, China, and Visiting Scholar, Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests include Human Resource Management and Employment Relations.

Mark Bray

Mark Bray is Professor, Newcastle Business School, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Newcastle, Australia. His research interests include Employment Relations, Human Resource Management, Labour Regulation and Multinational Corporations.