Trade Unions in Russia, China and Vietnam

Simon Clarke

State socialist trade unions

• Integral part of Party-state apparatus

• Primary functions – to maintain labour discipline, – encourage the production drive – administer state social welfare system

• Protective functions– Represent individual worker in disputes– Monitor enforcement of labour law

Transition to capitalism

• Transformed environment of trade unions– state no longer has control of enterprises– does not determine terms and conditions– employment relation now contractual

• Contrasting political role of unions– Russian trade unions declared independence

of Party-state in 1987– Chinese and Vietnamese unions still under

the leadership of the Communist Party

Russian unions

• Collapse of soviet system threatened survival of traditional unions:– Property– Legal privileges– Membership had no confidence in the unions

• State needed the traditional unions– To administer traditional state functions– To channel and contain social unrest

Social Partnership

• Partnerly relations with state and employer– Tripartite commission– Lobbying legislature and executive– Branch and regional agreements– Collective agreements

• Dispute resolution– Negotiated settlement– Judicial resolution of individual disputes

Trade unions and class struggle

• Trade unions channel conflict into symbolic protests and bureaucratic and judicial forms of conflict resolution

• Weakness of unions is management dominance of primary organisations

• Slow progress in overcoming this barrier, mostly in prosperous branches (oil and gas, chemicals, metallurgy, autos)

China and Vietnam

• Unions under the leadership of the Party• No freedom of association• Restricted right to strike

– China abolished in 1982– Vietnam introduced in 1994 labour code, only

after mediation and arbitration, called by union, supported by majority of labour force

– Over 1000 registered strikes since 1994, not one legal

Changes in employment relations

• Large lay-offs from SOEs – privatisation• Transition from permanent to contractual

employment• Transition from state welfare to social insurance• Massive growth of private and foreign-owned

enterprises• Employing migrant workers on low wages, short

or no contracts, long hours, poor health and safety

Trade unions and the Party

• Not mere puppets of the Party, unions have a powerful voice in the Party

• Party has greater interest in reform of the unions than do the unions themselves

• Party requires unions– To extend organisation to POEs and FIEs– To prevent strikes and social unrest– By mediating between worker and employer– And channelling disputes into bureaucratic and

judicial channels

Collective agreements

• ACFTU very active in promoting collective agreements, VGCL less so

• Most collective agreements contain little beyond that provided by law

• Terms largely dictated by management

• Few sanctions for violation

• Some more effective collective agreements, especially in JVs

Trade union organising

• Trade unions traditionally confined to state and collective enterprises

• Pressure from Party to extend organisation and membership

• Legal requirement to have a trade union• Mostly bureaucratic process, always top-

down• Some exceptions, e.g. Wall-Mart• Sectoral/local unions for SMEs

Reform of workplace unions

• Controlled by management

• Recognised as a problem, but– Higher union bodies have little leverage– Fear of loss of control– And provoking conflict

• Trade union elections

• Professionalisation of union

Legal regulation

• Collective bargaining vs legal regulation

• Baseline terms and conditions set by labour law

• Individualistic bureaucratic/judicial dispute resolution

• Legal advice centres: NGOs and ACFTU

• State or union function? Trade union versus Ministry of Labour

Strikes and protests

• Increasingly migrant workers in POEs and FIEs• Strengthened by labour shortage• Fire-fighting role of state and tu

– Confine strike to one enterprise• From repression to concession

– Labour bureau persuades employer to concede– Trade union persuades workers to return to work– Usually establish a trade union branch by agreement

with management– Severe repression of organising beyond one

enterprise

Trade unions and Party-state

• Unions under Party leadership

• From state body to NGO

• Party control – Imposes pressure on unions to reform– Backs up union with weight of Party– Confines union within strict limits– Union reform much more advanced in China

than in Vietnam

Post-socialist trade unions

• Driving force of reform has been development of capitalist relations of production

• Mediated by worker unrest• Need for trade unions to take on new roles,

reinforced by anxieties of Party-state• Trade union reform confined within limits of

social stabilisation• Main barrier to reform is dependence of

workplace union on management• There is progress but it is very slow