Abstract

Wal-Mart in China

The author reports on Wal-Mart's refusal to allow its employees in China to unionize, but argues that official unions in China do little to help workers anyway. The signs all over the store proclaiming "Everyday low prices," look the same (except that they're printed in Chinese), as do the neatly dressed "associates" patrolling the selling floor. And one other thing about Wal-Mart in China is familiar, too: The company's labor problems are making headlines. To be sure, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which has launched a public relations campaign against Wal-Mart over the firm's refusal to let its Chinese workers unionize, does not much resemble unions in the United States. It is, rather, a virtual extension of the Communist Party and the government, and the fight with the antiunion Wal-Mart does as much to showcase the labor group's own shortcomings as those of the corporation. The labor federation is threatening to sue Wal-Mart unless the US company agrees to establish unions in its stores. Wal-Mart, for its part, maintains that officials in the central government have assured the company that it's not required to do so. Which seems a bit odd, because Article 10 of China's Trade Union Law clearly states that a union "shall be set up" in any enterprise with twenty-five or more workers. Wal-Mart may well have determined that some unfriendly headlines are a price worth paying if the company can stick to its bedrock antiunion principles.