In June 2007, Lu Guorong, lost one of her fingers operating crude machinery at a small rural factory in Hebei.  Not only did the factory owner refuse to compensate her, he fired her two days after the accident because without her finger she could no longer operate the machinery.  Lu sought redress at the local labour bureau but in the arbitration hearing her official trade union representative appeared on behalf of the factory owner. 

To people outside China, it may seem perplexing that a trade union official should represent a boss against one of his workers, but as China Labour Bulletin's Cai Chongguo explains, the official All China Federation of Trade Unions has a very peculiar agenda.

Is is not really surprising that ACFTU trade union representatives should stand in open and direct opposition to workers in disputes between employers and their employees. This has been customary practice amongst trade unions for many years in China.  For example, the Xinhua News Agency reported on 16 November 2005 that when Ma Ruixing, an employee of the Dajianshan Forest Farm in Shanxi refused to accept an early retirement order, management cut his wages in half in a bid to force him to retire. Ma fought back and appealed to the local Labour Disputes Arbitration Committee but during the arbitration hearings the forest farm was represented by Ren Fuchang, the chairman of its trade union.

The explanation for this seemingly contradictory behaviour is bound up with China's political and trade union systems. The ACFTU constitution clearly stipulates that it is led by the Party and that if enterprises have party organisations, their leaders or bosses are either Party officials within the enterprise or local Party officials. It is perfectly normal for the Party to require trade union leaders to do its bidding. A trade union boss  dare not disobey the Party's orders for fear of disciplinary action.

In recent years we have seen that many people in the ACFTU have tried to change the image of trade union officials as "obedient children of Party leaders and bosses". The ACFTU played an important role in the drafting of both the Trade Union Law passed in 2001 and the recently approved Labour Contract Law. As such, its role as a defender of workers' rights has been given a much clearer legal basis.  Moreover, the ACFTU has now launched its "where there are workers there are trade unions" campaign, and has already achieved notable success in unionising WalMart and McDonald’s.  It is widely believed that the ACFTU has made considerable progress in organising grassroots unions and that thanks to China’s new legal framework it will be in a better position and have greater power to defend the rights and interests of workers. 

But the spectacle of union leaders once again opposing workers in labour arbitration hearings has shattered that illusion.  It shows that although the ACFTU is pursuing grassroots unionisation work, these grassroots union organisations are rapidly being merged with Party and government organisations. Most union leaders are not just appointed by enterprise managers and government officials; in many enterprises the post of trade union chairman is filled and held concurrently by the Party committee deputy secretary, the factory deputy director, the head of a local government office, a senior manager in the enterprise or the head of the personnel department. The ostensible reason for this is to "to streamline administration and cut down on personnel."  However, it is precisely because they hold concurrent posts in the Party and in the management of the enterprises concerned that union leaders are able to represent employers rather than workers in court proceedings and labour dispute arbitration hearings.

On 14 December 2006, Chen Weiguang, deputy director of the Guangzhou People's Congress and chairman of the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions, told a reporter that according to a survey conducted by his federation, 65.9% of trade union chairmen in Guangzhou enterprises held two or more posts concurrently, and in non-state-owned enterprises the figure was 98.7%. In other words, virtually all union chairmen in Guangzhou's foreign-invested enterprises, including WalMart, as well as in the city's private and collective enterprises were also senior managers in those enterprises.

A survey carried out by the Shenyang Federation of Trade Unions in 2005 revealed that in 98% of the city's enterprises and in 100% of its grassroots trade unions, the post of union chair was held by someone who was also a deputy secretary in the municipal party committee or who held a deputy position in the administration. The survey also found that union chairmen "rarely concern themselves with union work." Furthermore, 90% of trade unions in the city's enterprises were either dissolved or merged with Party organisations when the enterprises were reorganised. According to this official trade union report, these trade unions were unions in name only.

The ACFTU has been very successful in unionising foreign invested and private enterprises throughout China, but most union leaders in these enterprises are either members of management or represent management. These trade unions are in fact front organisations: their staff and offices are so interpenetrated with Party committees, company directors' offices or local branches of the Women's Federation or the Communist Youth League as to be all part of a single organisation.

The surveys conducted by the Guangzhou and Shenyang trade union federations revealed considerable dissatisfaction and concern at the extent to which grassroots unions established by the ACFTU have been gobbled up by Party organisations and the management of the enterprises concerned. But what can ordinary workers and union organisers do in the face of China's huge bureaucratic juggernaut?