Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – On Saturday Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, saw its first trade union set up in China's south-eastern Fujian province.  The move comes as the mainland's top trade union—government-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU)—continues its drive to unionise foreign-invested companies to better protect workers. In agreeing to the move the US retailer is also trying to improve its image in China.

China's trade union law requires enterprises or institutions with 25 or more staff to establish trade unions. But Xinhua news agency reports that less than 30 per cent of the 100,000 overseas-funded companies (figure which does not include those from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) in China have unions.

Wal-Mart has opened up 59 stores employing 23,000 staff on the mainland since it started its operations in China in 1996, and its plans to open 20 stores this year and hire 150,000 people over the next five years. Until now it opposed all attempts to unionise its workforce.

Progress towards greater unionisation "has been far from smooth because most employees don't have the urge to set up unions because their salaries are higher than their counterparts in mainland companies", said Qiao Jian, head of the Labour Union Department at the China Institute of Industrial Relations.

Last November, Wal-Mart chief executive Lee Scott said: "We have direct communications with our employees and have no need of third-party union representatives." However, Chinese union leaders have always resented this attitude.

ACFTU chairman Wang Zhaoguo proposed this month an amendment to the Trade Union Law to make it compulsory for foreign-invested companies to unionise.

Professor Qiao said that having made Wal-Mart unionise, the federation would find it easier to push other foreign companies to organise unions as part of its efforts to better protect labour rights.

However, the union's creation is more symbolic than practical, said Liu Kaiming, of the Shenzhen-based Institute of Contemporary Observation.

"This union is likely to be an organisation that caters to employees' fringe benefits rather than one that fights for their rights," he said.

In fact, foreign-invested companies can often impose inhuman working conditions and pay low salaries.

A few days ago 11,000 factory workers employed by a Metron toy manufacturing plant in Dongguan, Guangdong, with sales to US companies like Disney, McDonald's, Mattel and Hasbro, went on strike. Many of them threw stones and clashed with police—riot vehicles were sent in to control the situation and dozens of workers were arrested.

"Apparently, [. . .] acts of vandalism at the plant [. . .] required local police to respond," said Michael Lillioja, executive director of the plant involved. Workers tell a different story though, complaining about 11-hour days, seven days week, and a company that "steals" cafeteria funds.

"The company deducts 200 yuan from our salary each month for food and beverages," said one worker. "But when the money comes down to the kitchen, each of us only gets 125 yuan a month for food."

The average monthly salary, after deducting the food expenses, is about 600 yuan. And although management promised to raise their salaries in May, they never did.

Workers say the factory has been in operation for more than 10 years and used to be one of the best employers in the area, but now allege that corrupt middle management has let things degrade. (PB)