Carrefour Shanghai has 4,700 workers, accounting for 70 percent of Carrefour's workforce. [CFP]

French retailer Carrefour yesterday reached an agreement with its workers in Shanghai to raise wages by 8 percent after two months of negotiations.

According to the agreement, about 4,700 workers, or 70 percent of Carrefour's workforce in Shanghai, will be paid 5 percent higher than the city's minimum wage standard. The current minimum wage is 1,120 yuan (US$171) and is expected to rise to 1,280 yuan in April.

Besides the salary increase, Carrefour workers will also be rewarded with one-month salary if they worked for the company for a year. Other benefits include physical checkups for women workers.

Li Jing, an official at Carrefour, said the retailer has set up a collective wage bargaining system in Shanghai to enable employees to negotiate wages and welfare with their bosses through labor unions. But he refused to comment on the average 8 percent salary increase.

Carrefour came under fire in January when local media reported that it had been paying its workers the mandatory minimum wage for about 12 years.

Carrefour's non-management workers in Shanghai earned 1,075.77 yuan a month in 1998 and 1,124.80 yuan in 2010 as the city's consumer prices rose more than two times over the same period.