The All-China Federation of Trade Unions(ACFTU), the world's largest union in terms of membership, will set up 120,000 more branches in 2006.

The ACFTU has a membership of 150 million and has 1.174 million branches. In 2006, the union plans to install more than 120,000 branches across the country, with more than 13 million new members, according to Sun Chunlan, vice president of the ACFTU.

The union said that one of its major tasks is to urge all companies, especially those foreign-funded or transnational ones, to have a labor union to safeguard employees' rights.

ACFTU figures show that among the existing 1.174 million grass-roots unions, 773,000 are affiliated to companies, making up for 66 percent of the total, with a membership of 111 million.

China's Trade Union Law says that employees may voluntarily apply for setting up labor unions but fails to specify the duty of companies in assisting such a process.

Many foreign companies, including the world's leading retailer Wal-Mart, have been taking advantage of this stipulation to obstruct the setting up of an union, an ACFTU official said.

China has more than 100,000 overseas companies, and many from Chinese Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, but less than 30 percent of them have set up labor unions.

The ACFTU was formally founded on May 1, 1925.

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2006)