The world's leading retailer Wal-Mart saw its third trade union in China set up over the weekend in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, just a week after its first trade union was formed in a store in east China's Fujian Province.

Thirty-one employees of Wal-Mart's Xinjiekou store in Nanjing elected their first trade union committee, and a 22-year-old mid-level management employee named Wu Yinzheng, who has a university education background, was elected chairman.

 

Wu vowed in the election that the committee would safeguard the legal rights and interests of employees according to the laws of the country, and try to maintain a smooth relationship between employees and employers.

 

Within the committee, a financial department and women's federation were also formed during the Saturday election.

 

According to Chen Siming, chairman of the Nanjing Federation of Trade Unions, he and fellow workers had tried to talk operators of Wal-Mart Nanjing branch into setting up a trade union ever since its establishment in 2004, but got no reply from management.

 

So Chen tried direct contact with Wal-Mart employees, which finally led to the formation of the new trade union.

 

"Some foreign enterprises seem to think that trade unions will go against employers' profits. It is absolutely wrong. A trade union is only an organization to protect the rights of the employees and update their skills. It will only benefit the enterprises, not harm them," Chen told China Daily.

 

But employees who signed their names for the trade union were reported to have suffered pressure from Wal-Mart operators.

 

A worker who declined to reveal his name was quoted by local newspaper Yangtze Evening Post saying that the Wal-Mart management in Nanjing even threatened not to renew contracts if workers joined the union.

 

But Chen Siming said that the municipal union would back the legal rights of its union members and fight against job discrimination.

 

Zhao Dachun, head of the Publicity Department under the Nanjing Federation of Trade Unions revealed that about four other Wal-Mart branches in Jiangsu would also set up trade unions within the year.

 

A trade union was formed at Wal-Mart's Jinjiang outlet in Fujian Province on July 29 after 30 employees appealed to the local federation of trade unions, marking the giant retailer's first trade union in the country.

 

And 42 members in a Shenzhen store, Guangdong Province, founded a second trade union on August 4 , just a day before the Nanjing committee.

 

Wal-Mart China has so far not given any response to the formation of three trade unions within its enterprise.

 

And a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart China said she did not know anything about the unions or similar moves at other Wal-Mart branches when she was interviewed by China Daily last Friday.

 

However, the move was reported by Xinhua News Agency as being a result of more than two years' efforts by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to push the retail giant to set up labour unions in its 59 outlets around the country.

 

According to China's trade union law, enterprises or institutions with 25 employees and above should establish trade unions, all employees have the right to join the ACFTU, and anyone who applies to set up a union should be allowed to do so by the company.

 

Xu Deming, vice president of the ACFTU, said that trade unions, organized on employees' own volition, can safeguard the economic, political and cultural rights of workers and also help "lubricate" the relationship between employees and employers.

 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which set up shop in China in 1996 and employs more than 30,000 people at stores across the country, has long resisted pressure in many countries to unionize its workers, an action frequently criticized by local trade unions and governments.

 

But Wal-Mart China released a statement last November, saying "should associates request the formation of a union, Wal-Mart China would respect their wishes and honor its obligation under China's trade union law."

 

ACFTU statistics show that by last September, only about 26 percent of the more than 150,000 foreign-funded enterprises in China had set up trade unions.

 

(China Daily August 8, 2006)