The following article taken from the Workers Daily uses two recent examples to show the lack of enforcement and knowledge about the Trade Union law in China – both by workers and more worryingly by the trade union officials themselves. The article reveals the fundamental problems in the current implementation of the labour law and the ability of workers to fully exercise their rights of freedom of expression and association.

The Law of Trade Union should be strictly enforced: Two incidents in Sichuan

Workers Daily, 28 February 2003
Ding Jiang & Zeng Xiaoning

"The Law of Trade Union has been in place for nearly half century as a set of basic laws of the country. In October 2001, it was revised and after more than a year’s implementation, certain problems have been raised. Recently there are cases, such as that of a “temporary employee not allowed to join the Trade Union”, and the [not] “open recruitment of trade union chairman” happening in the province of Sichuan. These two incidents indicated that there is still a long way to go in the promotion, learning and exercise of the law.

Xu Shuyu had been working as a temporary worker for 25 years in the Weiyuan County House Property Administrative Bureau [HPAB], in the Sichuan Province. Her daily tasks included guarding the bureau’s main gate, sending and receiving mail and cleaning the 7-storey office building of the bureau. In the summer of 2001, Xu had conflicts with the HPAB over her social insurance and finally needed the involvement of judicial procedure to solve the problem. In September of 2001, provided with the reason that Xu was too old for her job, she was asked to rest at home. “However, then the leader of HPAB told me my membership of the trade union had been canceled, they wouldn’t deduct RMB 10 per month from my salary for the membership fee anymore. Later on, HPAB didn’t even recognize me as a trade union member and said that temporary workers aren’t allowed to join the trade union.’ Xu said in low spirits. ‘The bureau often issues welfare through the trade union. I won’t receive any birthday allowance, presents and bonus, all in all, it is not a small amount.’ she told the reporters.

Concerning Xu’s complaint, the trade union chairman, who is also the assistant director of the Weiyuan County HPAB stated that ‘Xu Shuyu was a temporary worker and how could a temporary worker join the trade union? She was definitely not a member. It was just that she had worked here for quite a long time so we invited her to join the functions the trade union held and also presented her with a share of birthday allowance, presents and souvenirs. We didn’t know that she would think she was a trade union member.’

Regardless of the validity of Xu’s trade union membership, the statement of “temporary worker is not allowed to join the trade union” is in no doubt a violation of the law. According to the Sichuan Province’s Enforcement Regulations of the Trade Union Law of Peoples’ Republic of China, it is clearly written in Article 2 “Any individual who works in this administrative district, in enterprise, unit, bureau or other organization for the return of wages or non-labour force return, as the main source of living, is entitled the right to join the trade union lawfully, regardless his/her ethnicity, nationality, sex, occupation, religion or educational level. No organization or individual, with any means or reason to stop or restrict that individual’s right in joining the trade union is allowed.”

In fact the national labour law also states that any worker has the right to join a trade union with the same provisions as the provincial regulation. It is also interesting to note that the Chairman of the local union at the office was at the same time a high ranking manager there. This is extremely common and once again reveals the huge potential for conflict of interest between the union, if asked to defend the workers in a particular office or factory if the union is at the same time led by factory officials with an obvious interest in defending factory interests. In many of the protests and conflicts between workers and factory management that CLB monitors, the officials in the local trade union branch of the ACFTU are also factory officials or factory managers.

The other striking thing in this case is the inconsistency between the statement by the union chairman that Xu was not a member of the union and yet the apparent regular deductions of union dues from her wages.

Another incident happened on 12 February 2003 at a recruitment exhibition held by an employment agency in Chengdu. A Hongkong-invested garment company placed an advertisement recruiting for the post of “trade union chairperson” in the exhibition. A spokesperson explained that their company had established a trade union and a trade union chairperson had been elected. However that person was too young, without much working experience. The company wanted someone more experienced in trade union issues to handle the job and therefore it preferred to recruit someone who had got working experience in the trade union to be its chairperson. A retired worker from Seda County of Ganzi District was interested in this post. When he was told that according to the Trade Union Law, his job application would not be considered, he was puzzled and said “ I didn’t know before that chairperson of trade union couldn’t be picked at random[freely elected].”

In fact, if one reads even briefly the Trade Union Law, s/he should know that the chairperson and the vice-chairperson of a primary trade union should be elected either in the members’ meeting, members’ representatives meeting or through the primary trade union’s committee. Then it needs to the approval from the trade union in a higher level. Recruiting a trade union chairperson is completely wrong in the procedure.

The two incidents reported above seem to have no linkage between them, yet they reflect that the public, including the trade union cadres had not a full understanding of the Law and its regulations. The establishment of trade union is meant to provide a good working condition for workers and to achieve this aim; there should be no delay in developing the education, promotion and enforcement of the Trade Union Law.

In fact, there are many cases where workers wishing to take part in union elections are rejected and hand picked candidates are selected. In some cases, the worker involved can be harassed or even detained for attempting to exercise his or her right to be elected or indeed to elect candidates of his or her own choosing. For example, Zhao Changqing was a teacher in a school affiliated with the Shaanxi Hanzhong Nuclear Industry Factory 813. In 1998 he was arrested and sentenced to three years imprisonment for “disturbing social order” after he had tried to stand for election as a factory representative to the National People’s Congress and criticized the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) for failing to defend workers interests.

19 March 2003