Chinese Labor Unions

[quixotecoyote]

SHANGHAI — Some of the world’s biggest corporations are facing intense pressure from China to allow the state-approved union to form in their Chinese plants and offices. But many companies fear admitting the unions will give their Chinese employees the power to slow or disrupt their operations and will significantly increase the cost of doing business here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/business/worldbusiness/12yuan.html?ref=business


This struck me as interesting for a number of reasons.

1. Isn't the Communist Party supposed to perform the major functions of a labor union, setting strict laws about wages? Granted, the union appears to be an extension of the government, but isn't that a redundancy unless the workers start having independent power.

2. The rise of the American middle class happened thanks to unions gaining enough influence for workers to bargain on more equal terms with buisness and to force the government to recognize protections. Could we see the rise of a large middle class in China, beyond the small growing one that currently exists?

2a. In America, it was a bloody fight with strikers and strike busters clashing at various points in history. Chinese culture appears to suggest that kind of thing won't happen. Does anyone think the unions could seperate to form a power bloc?

2b. What will this do to outsourcing to China? I'm thinking the actual change will be minimal, but if there is a significant increase in worker's pay in China, can India, the Phillipines and Central America pick up the slack? I don't see it as having much effect on the number of American jobs leaving, but I wonder if the current sources of cheap labor can handle the demand, or will we see spillover into new countries that haven't been part of that economy?

 

[balrog666]

SHANGHAI — Some of the world’s biggest corporations are facing intense pressure from China to allow the state-approved union to form in their Chinese plants and offices. But many companies fear admitting the unions will give their Chinese employees the power to slow or disrupt their operations and will significantly increase the cost of doing business here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/business/worldbusiness/12yuan.html?ref=business


This struck me as interesting for a number of reasons.

1. Isn't the Communist Party supposed to perform the major functions of a labor union, setting strict laws about wages? Granted, the union appears to be an extension of the government, but isn't that a redundancy unless the workers start having independent power.

2. The rise of the American middle class happened thanks to unions gaining enough influence for workers to bargain on more equal terms with buisness and to force the government to recognize protections. Could we see the rise of a large middle class in China, beyond the small growing one that currently exists?

2a. In America, it was a bloody fight with strikers and strike busters clashing at various points in history. Chinese culture appears to suggest that kind of thing won't happen. Does anyone think the unions could seperate to form a power bloc?

2b. What will this do to outsourcing to China? I'm thinking the actual change will be minimal, but if there is a significant increase in worker's pay in China, can India, the Phillipines and Central America pick up the slack? I don't see it as having much effect on the number of American jobs leaving, but I wonder if the current sources of cheap labor can handle the demand, or will we see spillover into new countries that haven't been part of that economy?

1. Yes. And, yes.
2. Complete BS, look at Henry Ford. Political and legal changes screwed the pooch. And not via the union route when Malaysia and India and ...
2a. Hell, no. They'd end on a prison farm or as an organ donor.
2b. Nothing. Yet. And, yes.

 

[geni]

1. Isn't the Communist Party supposed to perform the major functions of a labor union, setting strict laws about wages? Granted, the union appears to be an extension of the government, but isn't that a redundancy unless the workers start having independent power.

Technicaly yes. Even within idealised comunism though unions can have a role for dealing with day to day concerns and acting as working people's clubs. There is also the workers coperative thing which complicates matters.

For real world comunism there is Solidarity.

 

[Wolfman]

1. Yes and no. Forming labor unions in Chinese companies is strictly forbidden; only the Communist Party is allowed to take that role. People have been imprisoned over attempts to start labor unions when they felt that their Chinese bosses were treating them badly, and wanted to improve the situation. This isn't so much a bid to create labor unions, as it is to increase Communist Party presence in foreign companies.

2. China's middle class is growing at a phenomenal rate, and yes, we can certainly expect that trend to continue.

2a. As I mentioned above, there is little or nothing to do with real 'labor unions' in this; in fact, most Chinese I know of oppose this gov't effort as they feel it will not result in greater labor rights, it will just result in greater gov't interference and controls in private industry. And were Chinese to protest or get violent to try to start independent labor unions, you'd see just how much the gov't really wants to promote labor unions...they'd be arrested and imprisoned within a few hours.

2b. This isn't going to have any real impact, in my opinion.

 

[quixotecoyote]

<snip>

This was a trap! Now you have started to post here, more and more questions about China will be asked, and you will be compelled to answer. Bwah hah hah hah hah hah.





In all seriousness I meant to create a distinction in 2a. Good call.

 

[Wolfman]

I just read the article in its entirety, and am rather saddened by just how uniformed the author is. Chinese companies have been "unionized" for years, and yet the abuses the author cites, that the union will supposedly prevent, are most endemic within those companies. In fact, the vast majority of underpaid workers and 'sweatshops' belong to Chinese companies, not foreign ones (although some foreign companies will pay these Chinese companies to make their goods for them).

Nor will particular unions have the right to bargain or take action on their own; there is only one authorized union for all of China, and it is run by the government. Any/all policies and actions will be determined by the gov't, not by the union leaders; and where gov't policy conflicts with workers' rights, you can be darn sure which will be sacrificed first.

There are foreign companies here who've specifically expressed a willingness to allow Chinese employees to establish unions within their companies, so long as those unions are independent of the government, and represent the workers, not gov't policy. They've been flatly refused every time they've suggested it.

So the idea that this has anything to do with improving workers' rights is just plain ridiculous; what it is about is the gov't trying to find another way to gain greater control within foreign companies.

 

[Francesca R]

I first read the article as going way over the top in respect of a sudden increase in costs that the poor little western multinationals were going to get smacked with. Then as it went on it seemed to switch to painting far too rosy a picture of how the PRC government was now standing up for employment rights. Overall I agree with the above. It is the Chinese government which holds all the levers to "slow or disrupt their operations and will significantly increase the cost of doing business here" . . . if it wants to (although it doesn't), not organised labour. And the government wishes to retain large influence on the way business in China is done. It wants foreign involvement because of the prosperity that brings, but the foreign firms are the ones it has the greatest interest in maintaining/stregthening its influence over.

Pretty obviously, a "state approved" (read controlled) union, acts in the interest of the state. Labour unions as designed are supposed to act in the interests of their membership.