Die internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung, Arbeitskonflikte und Aussichten auf Tarifverhandlungen in China [Strikes in China's Export Industries and the Reaction of the Chinese Government and Official Trade Union]

During the past two years the All-China Trade Union Federation (ACTFU) has launched a campaign to set up trade union branches in as many workplaces as possible so that it can implement “collective consultation,” a less adversarial form of collective bargaining. The seminar talk argues that this call to reform in the hope of maintaining labour unrest is unrealistic. A series of labour protests and strikes since 2006 have shown that the ACTFU has no understanding of the fundamentals needed for collective bargaining. This is confirmed by evidence from the campaign and by the recent findings of a survey I devised regarding China automobile workers’ attitudes towards the trade union and collective bargaining.