Labour politics in China’s platform economy: Contending discourses in trade union building under party-state hegemony

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 10 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 The ACFTU reports ‘inadequate participation’, ‘emphasis on formalities’, ‘lack of specific content’, and ‘unsatisfactory outcomes’ – given this, what is the future for collective bargaining in China? FOCUS ❐ LABOUR SITUATION IN CHINA O ver the past decade or so, the international labour movement has stepped up its engagement with the Chinese State-backed monopoly trade union federation, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). While the current wave of labour NGO arrests discussed elsewhere in this edition will likely temper that engagement, at least for a while, it is unlikely permanently to set aside what has been a clearly developing policy with significant momentum over a number of years. Ultimately, greater engagement between the international labour movement and the ACFTU seems the likely outcome of at least three complimentary trajectories: the increasing interest of unions worldwide in the situation in China; the huge role Chinese industry now plays in the global economy; and the ‘big tent’ approach to organising that the ITUC seems to be pursuing, which is bringing an ever greater share of the global labour movement together. And so IUR extended an invitation to contribute to this edition to the ACFTU. Unfortunately, given the current climate neither the ACFTU nor indeed any of the NGO workers or academics we contacted working in China felt that this was a good time for them to contribute to an international journal. And so, unfortunately, this edition of IUR, focussed on China, is lacking the perspective of the national trade union organisation , which also happens to be the largest union on earth. Whether one supports or opposes engagement with that organisation, it seems at the very least worthwhile to do what we can to examine that organisation’s current thinking, and to try to gain some sense of what it believes are the major challenges for the Chinese working class, and how it sees the evolving dynamics of labour in China. A reading of ACFTU’s official documentation and promotional material yields helpful insights into the organisation’s thinking. Over the past several years, the ACFTU has emphatically stuck to a single core topic which appears to have an overriding agenda above all others, at least if the frequency with which the topic is discussed is any indication. And that topic is collective bargaining . The 2014-2018 ACFTU Plan on Further Promoting Collective Bargaining, gives a clear indication of the continuing focus on this agenda: 2014-2018 ACFTU Plan on Further Promoting Collective Bargaining The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) has formulated its plan to further promote collective bargaining with a view to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of workers and facilitating harmonious and stable labour relations. Guiding philosophy The plan is inspired by the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, and the important speeches of President Xi Jinping. It is based on the decision of the 16th National Congress of the ACFTU to ‘continue to promote collective bargaining for wider coverage and better effect’. The aim is threefold: • to give full play to the fundamental role of collective bargaining in adjusting labour relations, • to enhance the quality of collective bargaining and the effectiveness of collective agreements, • to further strengthen confidence, build consensus and overcome difficulties in collective bargaining work. The 2011-2013 ACFTU Plan on Promoting Collective Bargaining (ACFTU [2011] No. 4) had expanded the coverage of collective bargaining. However, there are still problems in the collective bargaining process: inadequate participation of workers, emphasis on formalities rather than actual effects, lack of specific content, unsatisfactory outcome of collective agreements and so on. It is therefore necessary to form a support system and efficient mechanism for collective bargaining which, with the full participation of workers, can yield real benefits for them. In this way, more and more workers will be able to feel satisfied with the results of collective bargaining; while trade unions can integrate the promotion of enterprise development with safeguarding workers’ rights, thus helping workers to achieve decent and enjoyable work as well as comprehensive development (continued…) (source: http://en...

Regulating the algorithm:platform economy workers in China Aidan Chau (bio) China makes an interesting case study for the global challenges of the platform economy. China's technology giants, such as Tencent and Alibaba, set the stage for high volumes of online commerce, and in this environment, other tech giants have thrived, notably food delivery companies Ele.me and Meituan, and ride hailing company Didi Chuxing. Platform workers face low wages, lack of labour protections, and working conditions dictated by algorithms. The political and social environment prevents independent organising and large-scale protests, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. China has one official trade union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) that is beholden to the Party and state, but recent reform efforts have led the ACFTU to try to focus on better representing platform workers. Further, the state has cracked down on technology companies and introduced regulations that attempt to strengthen workers' rights. China's platform economy China has the world's largest platform economy. A 'platform' is a tool that connects businesses, consumers, and others in a way not possible before the rise of the internet. Many platforms began as small websites or start-ups that expanded rapidly and resulted in a new flexible and casual employment model. In China, this began in 2008 with the spread of mobile technology. By 2014, mobile internet users surpassed those of computer users, meaning that many citizens accessed the internet for the first time on mobile phones and were ripe for app-based transactions. To avoid the effects of the global recession, China's economy became domestically re-orientated in 2008. Food delivery and ride hailing platforms experienced a rush of capital starting in 2013. The two ride-hailing companies Kuaidi and Didi received investments from Alibaba and Tencent, respectively. The food delivery platform Ele.me received a US$25 million capital investment from Sequoia Capital, and its rival Meituan got a US$300 million investment in 2014. The capital injection allowed these companies to set up their operations in all major cities in China within a year. Other economic conditions primed the platform economy to receive the necessary labour. The relative decline of China's manufacturing sector in the last five years has allowed an influx of workers. The new platform economy advertised good pay and flexible working conditions, which was attractive to those who formerly worked in factories. Statistics released by the companies reveal 15–30 percent of workers for these companies have come from manufacturing. Algorithms, labour and market share The rise of the platform economy in China has been rife with competition. Starting in 2014, the food delivery and ride hailing companies engaged in price wars by subsidising costs for their customers to expand their market shares. This competition resulted in Didi Chuxing buying Kuaidi and Uber China, and Ele.me purchased the third largest takeaway company, Baidu Waimai, maintaining a duopoly with Meituan ever since. Platform companies also compete with each other by worsening labour conditions for workers. Huge amounts of capital have been invested to develop algorithms that manage the allocation of labour, matching supply with demand and determining route planning. China has the world's largest platform economy. The new sector advertised good pay and flexible working conditions, which was attractive to those who formerly worked in factories In the food delivery industry, algorithms shorten the delivery time by fine-tuning the areas that workers are allocated to. In a pilot test conducted in 2019, the average distance travelled by a rider dropped by 5 percent. The algorithms also guide riders through the process of taking and dispatching orders, reducing the time workers spend waiting, planning and delivering the meals. For example, riders are directed by a heat map displaying the regional distribution of delivery orders. Workers follow the delivery route planned by the system, which is designed to find the fastest path for multiple deliveries. The combined effects of these algorithms have halved the delivery time of an average order from 1 hour in 2015 to 30 minutes in 20181. In the ride hailing industry, algorithms reduce the total time it takes for drivers to pick up passengers. Rather than...

This article seeks to examine whether the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is a trade union organization, with implications for foreign unions, governments and other parties seeking to engage it. After examining the international context of pressure on China, the article will briefly outline the historical and present structure of the ACFTU and examine the problems the ACFTU faces in carrying out its functions. The article will argue through a number of criteria of union characteristics that the ACFTU is not a union. This is a more fundamental position than arguing the ACFTU is not an independent union. However, because the ACFTU is a state organ, closely subordinated to the Chinese Communist Party, foreign engagement can potentially lead to positive results for China's domestic labour. Finally, the article will briefly make suggestions for constructive engagement with the ACFTU as a state organ rather than as a union.

The period of neo-liberalism in the 1980s and the post-Cold War context of the 1990s have challenged trade unions throughout the world. With the onset of market reforms from 1978 onwards, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) began to revitalize its activities. However, reform and entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) have posed new challenges to the functioning and legitimacy of the ACFTU. In confronting its various challenges in the reform context and making gradual attempts at internal reform, the ACFTU is shifting from being an incorporated organization to a state corporatist entity. Furthermore, although entry into the WTO has accentuated the need for the ACFTU to become more active in representing workers, the ACFTU is unlikely to reshape itself institutionally to guarantee either the protection of workers or social stability.

In the context of China's economic reforms and realignment with global capitalism, this article examines the role of the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and its failure to act as a genuine trade union organization. Rather than putting workers' interests and the protection of their rights first, the ACFTU, as an organ of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has largely shifted its agenda in line with that of the Party. The article looks at how this has often meant prioritizing the interests of business over those of labour and how subsequently the ACFTU faces a crisis of legitimacy in the eyes of many workers, who increasingly turn to alternative methods of struggle outside of the officially sanctioned union. While such struggle has alarmed the CCP and has led to apparent attempts at trade union reform, often this has meant little in reality. The article also addresses the changing relations of international trade unions with the ACFTU and challenges unions who are prepared to work more closely with it for giving the ACFTU a false credibility.

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 3 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 FOCUS ❐ LABOUR SITUATION IN CHINA Labour under threat: The rise and (possible) fall of ‘collective bargaining’ in South China After at least three years of delay, the Guangdong Regulation on Collective Consultation and Collective Contract came into force in 1 January 2015 in this phenomenon has been on-going labour militancy and its role as a driver of state policy. Consequently, state policy has not been static in recent years. After at least three years of delay, the Guangdong Regulation on Collective Consultation and Collective Contract came into force in 1 January 2015. The ILO described the new regulation as heralding a ‘good year for business in Guangdong’ and argued that the new regulations provided a framework for collective bargaining. After years of lobbying aimed at reducing the impact of the regulations on Hong Kong business interests in Guangdong, The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce congratulated itself on getting all references to sector- and industry-level bargaining removed from the Regulations and raising the trigger threshold for demands for collective bargaining from a third to a half of all workers in an enterprise. The ACFTU has also been under pressure to react to labour unrest. Following the watershed 2010 strike by auto-parts workers employed in a Honda factory in Foshan, provincial and city levels of the organisation in Guangdong announced a willingness to experiment with various reforms with the potential to facilitate limited forms of collective bargaining. The two most important were pilots in the election of enterprise trade union committees that are largely appointed by management or higher trade unions; and the cautious emergence of annual collective bargaining in key industries, notably the auto industry and to a lesser extent at port terminals. Results to date have been mixed. In October 2013, university student researchers working undercover in factories wrote an open letter to the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) claiming that only two out the five factories they had worked in had effective elected union branches. Annual collective bargaining in Guangdong’s auto sector has been more interesting . Former chairman of the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions Chen Weiguang reported that the median negotiated pay rise in six Guangzhou-based wholly-owned auto parts factories was 15 percent for the period 2011-2012 and an average wage of RMB 3256 for frontline shop floor workers – excluding deputy supervisors and above – in 2013. In larger, more capital-intensive joint venture auto assembly plants, the median wage increase over the same period was 19 percent – but with higher differentials – and an average wage of RMB 5834. However, something of a stalemate has emerged over the last two years as state policy has swung back towards prioritising stability in the face of a generalised economic slowdown. On the one hand, the more repressive organs of the state have launched campaigns of intimidation and arrests against civil society actors such as the O n 3 December 2015, police began raiding the homes and offices of labour rights activists across the city of Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta in China’s southernmost province of Guangdong. At least 21 people were taken in for questioning. Six have since been charged with gathering crowds to disrupt public order and one with embezzlement. They are facing prison sentences. Worse, there are rumours of the accusations being ‘upgraded’ to the much more serious charge of ‘threatening state security’. It carries a sentence of up to fifteen years in prison. In response, trade unionists, labour organisations , activists and academics have written articles and signed petitions calling for the release of the detainees. National union federations, Global Union Federations and the ITUC have contacted the party-led All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) expressing concern and calling for the organisation to intervene on behalf of the labour activists. Given the absence of transparency in China’s judiciary, the denial of regular access to lawyers and general climate of fear that this and previous crackdowns on lawyers and human rights defenders has created, on-going international solidarity is going to be a key resource for both detained activists and operational labour NGOs (LNGOs) in coming...

4 | International Union Rights | 26/3 TOWARDS UNIVERSAL RATIFICATION OF C87 AND 98 Vietnam has Ratified ILO C98. How about China? Reflecting on the ILO’s mission in its centenary year, the articles carried in the recent International Union Rights issue Focus on the ILO at 100 lamented that globally labour rights and trade union rights are in the doldrums1. Fortunately one case is worth celebrating—Vietnam in June this year ratified ILO C98, which recognises the rights to organise and collective bargaining. Vietnam has promised to ratify C105 on forced labour by 2020 and C87 on freedom of association by 2023. While the majority of countries in the Southeast Asian region are undergoing rapid industrialisation in tandem with labour exploitation, labour unrest and anti-trade union government policies, Vietnam is heading in a different direction. Instead of choosing a repressive labour policy, Vietnamese leaders have been debating how to revamp the industrial relations system to allow workers to form their own unions. Vietnam originally was willing to take such an initiative because, before Trump’s election, it was eager to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that was under negotiation, in order to enhance Vietnam’s prospects for more foreign direct investment and trade, especially with the United States. To become a member, Vietnam would have had to agree to establish an industrial relations system that accommodates freedom of association. To help fund this shift, the US government earmarked four million dollars in 2013 to the ILO in Vietnam to administer programs to assist the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) to make this transition within five years. After Trump in early 2017 withdrew America’s willingness to enter the TPP, the eleven other countries that had negotiated the TPP engaged in renewed negotiations and formed the impending Comprehensive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP or TPP-11). This also contains a clause on freedom of association. In addition, to access the European market, Vietnam has signed a free-trade agreement (EVFTA) with the European Union that similarly stipulates freedom of association. Sceptics of Vietnam’s motives, die-hard critics of one-party states2, and those whose own constituencies would be losers in a new PPT deal, such as the American trade unions, were of the opinion that Vietnam was willing to sign on to freedom of association only because it was forced into it for economic reasons, and that genuine freedom of association is unlikely to materialise3. This view begs the puzzling question of why the VGCL, which has held a state-backed monopoly on representing Vietnamese workers, was the very group that lobbied the party-state to accept this challenge to allow independent unions to compete with the VGCL and thus democratise the industrial relations system. To address this puzzle I argue that the TPP and Vietnam’s economic interests explain only part of the story. There are also other factors--historical, political and structural—that contribute to the preconditions for change. To strengthen my argument and to provide a context I will use China as a comparator. Both countries are Asian and historically Confucian, both the Vietnamese and Chinese governments were born from Marxist-Leninist stock, authoritarian oneparty states that only have allowed one trade union, and are today steeped in a market economy. Yet Vietnam is opening up politically while China is becoming increasingly suppressive under the Xi Jinping regime. In China, the end of 2015 witnessed the mass arrests of labour NGO organisers followed in 2017-18 by arrests of Marxist students who had joined a workers’ strike. So while the two countries appear similar they are also on different trajectories. But the reasons for the two countries’ different current stances toward labour relations also go beyond these political trends. First, while the two countries’ respective trade unions, the VGCL and the ACFTU (All-China Federation of Trade Unions), are both social welfare arms of the Party, China’s ACFTU is much weaker than the VGCL within Vietnam’s political structure. The ACFTU has been entirely under party-state domination since 1949. After seven decades the ACFTU is today no more than a weak second-rate bureaucracy. The VGCL on the...

4 | International Union Rights | 26/3 TOWARDS UNIVERSAL RATIFICATION OF C87 AND 98 Vietnam has Ratified ILO C98. How about China? Reflecting on the ILO’s mission in its centenary year, the articles carried in the recent International Union Rights issue Focus on the ILO at 100 lamented that globally labour rights and trade union rights are in the doldrums1. Fortunately one case is worth celebrating—Vietnam in June this year ratified ILO C98, which recognises the rights to organise and collective bargaining. Vietnam has promised to ratify C105 on forced labour by 2020 and C87 on freedom of association by 2023. While the majority of countries in the Southeast Asian region are undergoing rapid industrialisation in tandem with labour exploitation, labour unrest and anti-trade union government policies, Vietnam is heading in a different direction. Instead of choosing a repressive labour policy, Vietnamese leaders have been debating how to revamp the industrial relations system to allow workers to form their own unions. Vietnam originally was willing to take such an initiative because, before Trump’s election, it was eager to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that was under negotiation, in order to enhance Vietnam’s prospects for more foreign direct investment and trade, especially with the United States. To become a member, Vietnam would have had to agree to establish an industrial relations system that accommodates freedom of association. To help fund this shift, the US government earmarked four million dollars in 2013 to the ILO in Vietnam to administer programs to assist the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) to make this transition within five years. After Trump in early 2017 withdrew America’s willingness to enter the TPP, the eleven other countries that had negotiated the TPP engaged in renewed negotiations and formed the impending Comprehensive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP or TPP-11). This also contains a clause on freedom of association. In addition, to access the European market, Vietnam has signed a free-trade agreement (EVFTA) with the European Union that similarly stipulates freedom of association. Sceptics of Vietnam’s motives, die-hard critics of one-party states2, and those whose own constituencies would be losers in a new PPT deal, such as the American trade unions, were of the opinion that Vietnam was willing to sign on to freedom of association only because it was forced into it for economic reasons, and that genuine freedom of association is unlikely to materialise3. This view begs the puzzling question of why the VGCL, which has held a state-backed monopoly on representing Vietnamese workers, was the very group that lobbied the party-state to accept this challenge to allow independent unions to compete with the VGCL and thus democratise the industrial relations system. To address this puzzle I argue that the TPP and Vietnam’s economic interests explain only part of the story. There are also other factors--historical, political and structural—that contribute to the preconditions for change. To strengthen my argument and to provide a context I will use China as a comparator. Both countries are Asian and historically Confucian, both the Vietnamese and Chinese governments were born from Marxist-Leninist stock, authoritarian oneparty states that only have allowed one trade union, and are today steeped in a market economy. Yet Vietnam is opening up politically while China is becoming increasingly suppressive under the Xi Jinping regime. In China, the end of 2015 witnessed the mass arrests of labour NGO organisers followed in 2017-18 by arrests of Marxist students who had joined a workers’ strike. So while the two countries appear similar they are also on different trajectories. But the reasons for the two countries’ different current stances toward labour relations also go beyond these political trends. First, while the two countries’ respective trade unions, the VGCL and the ACFTU (All-China Federation of Trade Unions), are both social welfare arms of the Party, China’s ACFTU is much weaker than the VGCL within Vietnam’s political structure. The ACFTU has been entirely under party-state domination since 1949. After seven decades the ACFTU is today no more than a weak second-rate bureaucracy. The VGCL on the...

In recent years, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the only trade union legally allowed in China, has become increasingly assertive on the international stage. Successive amendments to its constitution demand that the ACFTU not only assist the Chinese authorities in pushing forward the Belt and Road Initiative, but also reshape the current order of the international labour movement. Through the testimonies of local trade unionists, this paper examines how the ACFTU is attempting to achieve these goals in Cambodia, a country with large inflows of Chinese investment. The article will show that the Chinese trade union in Cambodia consistently engages with local Cambodian government-aligned actors that are usually neglected by the international labour movement, providing them with material assistance and opportunities to travel abroad. It argues that the impact of these activities should not be dismissed, as their alignment with the illiberal agenda of the Cambodian authorities and the priorities of employers has the potential to drastically change the landscape of trade unionism in Cambodia.

This chapter explores the implications of the rapid introduction of foreign investment for the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). The chapter focuses on the specific challenges the ACFTU has faced under reform and opening up and then proceeds to examine the attempts of the ACFTU to respond to these. It also focuses on particular constraints and pressures the ACFTU is under. The rapid economic changes brought about by the process of reform and opening up have led in turn to a restructuring of society. The emergence of a new class of migrant workers is paralleled by the new phenomenon of “surplus labor” and a growing cortege of unemployed. The diversification of the category of worker and the emergence of new types of problems has served to highlight the growing inadequacy and inappropriateness of the ACFTU. While the trade unions have clearly moved some way in trying to address these issues, the pace has been slow.

In October 2013, Richard Trumka, President of the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL- CIO), visited the AllChina Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to establish formal bilateral relations between unions in China and the United States. This visit signalled an historic shift in labour policy, from Cold War- style hostility to normalisation of relations. Some American labour activists hoped that it might further lead to collaboration on joint activities, such as collective bargaining. That collaboration would be a significant step forward in labour solidarity and building a global labour movement. However since then progress towards building relations has been decidedly slow. There have been only a couple of official exchanges with the AFLCIO , and activities sponsored by Change To Win (CTW), the splinter group of the AFL-CIO that first began relations with the ACFTU a decade ago, have decreased. Some American labour leaders have noted that the ACFTU has become less interested in collective bargaining since Xi Jinping’s campaign against corruption began. Now, given Donald Trump’s election as US President with his agenda to weaken the American labour movement and start a trade war with China, it is fair to ask whether there are any prospects for progress in relations between unions in China and the US, and if so where. A Troubled History The root of American attitudes towards Chinese labour have been shaped by race, class, and ideology. Since the nineteenth century there have been xenophobic fears of the ‘Yellow Peril’ represented by Chinese workers, as well as arguments that workers of European ancestry should cast their lot with American business and shut out Chinese workers. These fears were compounded in 1949, when China became a communist state and an ideological enemy, resulting in antipathies that linger to this day. After World War II, the Cold War set in, and the world was divided into two main ideological camps: the communist and the ‘free world’. In 1949, American unions led a split in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) - a global union that aspired to bring together unions from all over the world into a single organisation—to form the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), an alliance of free world unions. Meanwhile, the WFTU came to be known as the federation of communist unions. The ICFTU consistently criticised the ACFTU for not being a free and independent trade union, and therefore declared that it was not an ‘authentic’ voice of Chinese workers. However, in 1979, when China opened its doors to foreign investment and diplomatic relations with the US were established, the material basis for this divide changed. Multinational corporations raced to China to take advantage of the low-cost labour. Factory conditions were appalling and workers were exploited, causing outcry among international consumer and human rights activists, and drawing criticism of the Chinese government and its unions for not protecting workers. At a time when international labour solidarity might have meant American workers reaching out to workers in China, American unions continued to refuse to have anything to do with Chinese unions, repeating the Cold War rhetoric that they were neither independent nor authentic. Meanwhile, some left-leaning labour organisers worked quietly in the background to coordinate worker-to-worker exchanges between US and Chinese workers, hoping to build solidarity. The Tiananmen Incident in 1989 proved to be a setback for these budding relations. The crackdown on the protests was viewed worldwide on cable news in real time, and its brutality reinforced what many American labour unionists had believed all along— that despite capitalist markets and openness to meeting foreigners, China was still an authoritarian state that did not respect human rights. The AFLCIO response was to support a few Chinese labour activists in exile, and to continue to boycott relations with Chinese unions. At that time, American unions supported campaigns targeting international brands, pressuring these companies to accept corporate social responsibility in their supply chains. The theory was that the brands had power to control labour conditions in factories that manufactured their products. In Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, these cross-border campaigns, mostly led not by unions but by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), had...

The focus of this paper is the character and role of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in securing and sustaining a cheap labour regime within China. This labour regime is shaping the character of neoliberal regimes across the globe with dire consequences for societies everywhere. We argue that the international labour movement has the potential to create a movement against this regime, a movement defined by the international labour standards (ILS). The rise of the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR) is a southern network grounded in ILS. However, in spite of SIGTUR’s commitment to independent trade unions there is division within the movement as some support the ACFTU on ideological grounds. We conclude by arguing that support for democratic unions in China can best be achieved by linking local workplace struggles to ongoing pressure on the ACFTU to apply ILS.

Even a decade ago, there was some reason for optimism, as there had been areas of progress in the status of the union federation during the eighties. Three developments in the decade of the eighties that have had ongoing consequences were 1. the emergence within the official Chinese trade union organization, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), of groups of officials and labor journalists who genuinely supported the workers’ cause; 2. the political elite’s decision to incorporate the trade unions at different levels in a consultative status in any policy decisions that affect workers’ welfare; and 3. the inclusion of the ACFTU in the drafting of legislation relating to labor issues. Of these three developments, the ACFTU’s ability to negotiate successfully to include prolabor clauses in several important labor-related laws has had the most significant impact.

18 | International Union Rights | 27/4 FOCUS | TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN ASIA Hong Kong’s New Trade Union Movement For a whole year from mid-2019 to mid-2020, Hong Kong was rocked by mass demonstrations and street violence. At its height, two million out of Hong Kong’s population of seven million marched in a huge demonstration against a proposed extradition bill. The international press heavily covered the mass protests; but what the press has not covered is the birth of a new trade union movement from within this political and social movement. The protests, and the new unions, were led by a generation born a few years before and after 1997, the year when China gained sovereignty over Hong Kong, a British colony for 150 years. Hong Kong was to be governed by a constitution known as the Basic Law, which guaranteed that for the next fifty years Hong Kong’s neoliberal capitalist system and civil liberties would not be tampered with by China’s authoritarian regime. It did not turn out this way. In the past two decades China gradually began to intervene in Hong Kong politically, instigating increasing resistance from the Hong Kong populace in the form of mass rallies. This led to the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 in which the central business district was occupied for months by protestors. When it was suppressed, the protesters left behind a huge banner declaring “We’ll Be Back!” In June 2020 they did come back with a vengeance. The young activists had come to an agreement they would be united despite their differences in political beliefs and strategies. It would be a leaderless movement driven by urban guerrillalike spontaneous tactics. There would be no organisational structure. Communication would be by social media platforms. The youth who were willing to engage in physical confrontation with the police could do so. Those who could not or would not do so instead played supportive roles at the rear. But when months of street actions did not extract any concessions from the authorities, part of the protest movement branched off in a new direction that was more formal and organised—the establishment of small independent trade unions. Unions in Hong Kong Hong Kong is a global commercial hub dominated by free-market beliefs with a weak trade union culture. Collective bargaining rights are not recognised. The largest and oldest union federation, established in 1948, is the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), with 191 affiliates and 426,000 members as of 2019. It is well-resourced and largely controlled by the PRC government as a counterpart of China’s official All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). The second biggest federation is the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU). This has been far more active in organising workers and assisting them in industrial disputes and fighting for collective bargaining rights. It was formed in 1990 and today has 93 affiliate unions and 145,000 members. It is an affiliate of the International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC) and is situated politically in Hong Kong’s prodemocracy camp, openly criticising the ACFTU. It is one of the main participatory organisations every year commemorating the suppression of China’s Tiananmen Uprising of 1989. The new unions that sprang up during the recent protests of 2019-20 have sought advice and training from the HKCTU. While providing this, the HKCTU has hesitated to intervene in a new spontaneous trade union movement. From Loose Sand to a United Front These new unions did not start out as products of traditional unionising efforts. Their birth was conceived out of a political movement which initially did not propose any economic demands such as better work conditions, higher wages, collective bargaining rights, or affordable public housing. The earliest new unions emerged from white collar professions. Among the first participants were nurses, doctors, paramedics, and journalists who were appalled to witness police violence against protestors, while they themselves were also often tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and beaten up for trying to help the injured. Two motivating forces drove the initial formation of unions. The first was a desire to hold a general strike and the other was to participate...

There is controversy in the UK labour movement over China. Arguments range from assertions that China remains a socialist state albeit in the primary stages to support for China on the grounds that a strong China is a counterbalance to US-led economic imperialism and military adventures. Putting the controversy aside, this article instead makes the case for the solidarity with Chinese workers and citizens on the receiving end of capitalist exploitation and state repression in the hinterlands and heartlands of this emerging global power. We equate resistance in China to resistance to authoritarianism in general, whether in the form of right-wing populism or one-party rule. Capitalist labour relations exist in China. Their reintroduction was a cornerstone of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s neoliberal strategy allowing a minority to get rich first. Which they did: the share of income earned by the top 10 percent of the population went from 27 percent in 1978 to 41 percent in 2015. In the same period, the share of the bottom 50 percent dropped from 50 percent to 27 percent1. China’s adoption of capitalism has lifted millions of people out of absolute poverty. But the cost of this transformation in terms of environmental degradation and social inequality must be a core concern of the international labour and trade union movement. Neoliberal globalisation teaches us that solidarity is not a national undertaking as capital and ideology cross borders with ease in search of new markets and opportunities for accumulation. We need to do the same. For example, trade unionists and activists everywhere can learn from the extraordinary strike wave in China’s auto parts industry in 2010 that generated wage rises of 20-30 percent. The global rise of populist authoritarianism and its nationalist ideologies renders global resistance even more important. In China, authoritarian rule has taken on an altogether more dangerous shade under Xi Jinping’s leadership as labour activists, feminists, minorities and human rights defenders and others have found to their cost2. Labour stat In China, capitalist labour relations are governed by laws that look reasonable on paper and indeed appear to buck the global neo-liberal trend of labour market deregulation. But they are widely ignored. The absence of core trade union rights such as freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining backed up by protection of the right to strike are collective rights denied to the Chinese working class. The notional right to strike was deleted from the Constitution of China in 1982 at precisely the time when China embarked on her journey from a command economy to a market economy. Nevertheless, it is not the case that capitalist labour relations in China allow predatory capitalists and their agents to operate at will. Labour scholars from different disciplines and perspectives such as Ching Kwan Lee, Pun Ngai, Chang Kai and Chris Chan acknowledge that the activism of the Chinese working class, including a reserve army of ruralurban migrants that numbers up to 250 million, has been central to a gradual tempering of capitalist exploitation in China. Capitalist exploitation has been institutionalised. A watershed moment in this process was the passing of three important labour-related laws in 2008 that most commentators agree were a response to rising levels of strikes and labour protests. The Labour Contract Law, the Labour Disputes Mediation and Arbitration Law and the Employment Promotion Law were testament to both the universalisation of capitalist labour relations in China; and Chinese Communist Party’s concern that the militancy and social unrest could develop into a threat to its one-party rule. In other words, the 2008 laws were an outcome of the growing capacity of a dramatically expanding working class to get its voice heard. The only legal trade union in China, the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), has failed to make its presence felt in capitalist firms and remains largely restricted to its traditional role as a welfare arm of the state in what is left of a restructured state sector i.e. good on picnics and birthdays for model workers; absent on collective bargaining and organising. Little wonder then that workers often take matters into their own...