China's Communist Party-controlled union is ready to help Wal-Mart Stores Inc set up union branches at its Chinese stores "as soon as possible," the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
The 123-million-member All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) plans to push ahead with its demand that foreign enterprises such as Wal-Mart set up trade unions, Xinhua said, citing a union official who it said did not want to be named.
The comments followed an announcement by Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart earlier this week that it will allow the federation to set up branches in its stores on the mainland.
Criticized in North America for its strident and often controversial employee relations, it was the first time the 5,000-store chain has published its views on the issue.
"Wal-Mart China has shown a positive change of its long-standing non-union attitude in its statement and the ACFTU is planning to help foreign-funded companies, including Wal-Mart, in the country to establish trade unions as soon as possible," the Xinhua report said.
The Chinese union group had threatened to sue Wal-Mart and other companies based outside China if they fail to set up union branches in their China operations.
Wal-Mart had said it had no unions in China because its employees had not requested them. It defended its labor practices as fully complying with Chinese laws, noting it says unions are to be set up voluntarily by employees.
The unionization drive was the latest attempt by the union -- the sole body permitted to organize workers in China -- to penetrate the most dynamic sector of the economy, shore up its declining membership and boost its lowly political status.
Its union branches are usually toothless management-controlled bodies that work mostly to prevent conflict.
"Wal-Mart no longer holds the international practice of not building up trade unions as an excuse, indicating that its attitude toward the issue has changed positively," an ACFTU official told Xinhua news agency.
The ACFTU said it was planning to conduct questionnaires of employees working in foreign-funded companies within China, including Wal-Mart, to study their working situations and welfare system.
"If the foreign-funded companies still deny their workers' right to join the trade unions, the ACFTU will surely pursue litigation against them."
According to China's trade union law, all employees have the right to join the ACFTU, the country's sole trade union run by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
They are outlawed from forming independent unions or organizing collective bargaining activities outside the ACFTU.
Experts familiar with China's union laws say that the issue is one that periodically surfaces as the ACFTU pushes for better access to multinational corporations in the face of its declining influence.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique