Concerns About the Trade Union System's Independent Interests

Abstract

The article comprises a survey and a study of grass-roots enterprise trade unions on the Chinese mainland. By means of surveys of the specific activities and functions of three grass-roots enterprise trade unions (at a state-owned enterprise, a joint-venture enterprise, and a foreign-funded enterprise), the author points out that despite some differences in trade unions under different ownership systems, all share a common characteristic in that they do not serve as spokesmen for workers' interests, and that the trade unions' activities do not respond directly to the workers' needs. The article points out that state monopoly and top-down establishment of trade union organizations, party and government appointments of their persons-in-charge, and enterprise payments of their principal funding determine the impossibility of trade unions serving as organizations representing workers' interests. The fundamental reason for the "campaign to set up trade unions" in new enterprises lies not in safeguarding the workers' interests, but in the departmental interests of trade union federations at various levels and the state's need to safeguard its political power. Finally, trade union federations at various levels have their own interests independent and beyond those of the state and the workers, and it is the existence of these self-determined interests that have led to the current campaign to set up trade unions in newly built enterprises. Hence, importance should be given to the existence of self-determined interests in trade union organizations in studies of the relationships among workers, trade unions, and the state.