The opening of trade union branches in many Wal-Mart stores on the mainland this summer was highly significant for two reasons. It was the first time that the traditionally anti-union US retail giant had been forced to permit a significant union presence in its stores anywhere in the world. Also, it was probably the first time since 1949 that the country's sole legal trade union - the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) - had actually mobilised or organised workers to take an active part in forming union branches.
The second reason may seem paradoxical, given that the ACFTU is the world's largest national body claiming to represent workers. But the explanation is clear enough: before the inception of the mainland's 'socialist market economy', ACFTU cadres needed virtually none of the grass-roots organising skills vital to trade union organisations elsewhere. Since independent union organising of any kind was - and still remains - strictly illegal on the mainland, the ACFTU faced no competition.
Until the mid-1980s, when most of the nation's economy was still under state or collective ownership, the ACFTU had automatic right of entry into all workplaces. The Party Committee gave it office space, and all workers were enrolled as union members. Since private ownership was abolished after 1949, there were officially no 'capitalist contradictions' between workers and employers - and the ACFTU's assigned role was simply to act as a 'transmission belt for party policy' to the workforce.
All this changed with a vengeance after the explosion of the private economy in the early 1990s. Domestic and foreign-invested enterprises quickly began to rival the state-owned sector in economic efficiency and productivity. Tens of millions of migrant workers flocked from the countryside to provide the raw muscle driving the new economy. And the ACFTU's vast 'union organising' division soon ran into a brick wall. Private capitalists and their investors had no intention of allowing trade unions on their premises, and union officials were unceremoniously shown the door.
Even today, only a small minority of private enterprises on the mainland have been unionised. This is despite the fact that factory owners are routinely offered major, and often unlawful, concessions to gain their co-operation. Company bosses who consent are usually allowed to nominate the members of the trade union committees. In many cases, the factory owner and trade union chairman are one and the same person.
But China's Trade Union Law stipulates that union branches must be set up in companies if the workers ask for them. Further, in any workplace with 25 or more employees, the workers can initiate the process of electing representatives and establishing a union branch. So why should the factory owner's permission be in any way necessary?
This is where party doctrine comes in: the ACFTU's role is actually to act as the 'neutral mediator' on the country's labour-relations scene. For which read: it's the enforcer of labour discipline on behalf of management.
