All-China Federation of Trade Unions


The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is the nationalised organisation federation of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest trade union in the world with 302 million members in 1,713,000 primary trade union organizations. The ACFTU is divided into 31 :Category:Regional federations |regional federations and 10 :Category:National industrial unions |national industrial unions. The ACFTU is the country's sole legally-mandated trade union, with which all enterprise-level trade unions must be affiliated. There has been dispute over whether ACFTU is an independent trade union or even a trade union at all.

History

Officially founded on 1 May 1925, the Second National Labour Congress convened in Guangzhou with 277 delegates representing 540,000 workers and adopted the Constitution of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Between 1922 and 1927, the organization flourished, as did the Communist Party of China’s control over the trade union movement. The labour movement had grown enormously, particularly in the three industrial and commercial centres of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai, but it also had some organizational success in other cities, such as Wuhan. The ACFTU was restricted in 1927 by the newly established rule of the Nationalist regime under Chiang Kai-shek ordering the execution of thousands of CPC cadres and trade unionists. All Communist Party-led unions were banned and replaced with yellow unions loyal to him.
By the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949, the ACFTU had been re-established as the sole trade union centre, but was again dissolved in 1966 in the wake of the Cultural Revolution to be replaced by revolutionary committees. Following Mao's death in 1976, in October 1978 the ACFTU held its first congress since 1957. Since the early 1990s it has been regulated by the Trade Union Law of the People’s Republic of China. According to a 2011 study during the period of rapid economic growth in China the ACFTU has prioritized the interests of business over the interests of labor and has lost legitimacy in the eyes of many laborers.
At the 2018 the 17th National Congress of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. At the congress Union leadership faced pressure to stop acting as a bridge or mediator between workers and management and start acting as a genuine voice of the workers. This pressure arose both internally and was also applied by the Communist Party of China.

Lack of independence

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions maintains the position that the ACFTU is not an independent trade union organisation, and states in its policy:
5. There are differing approaches among ICFTU affiliates and Global Union Federations concerning contacts with the ACFTU. They range from “no contacts” to “constructive dialogue”. The ICFTU, noting that the ACFTU is not an independent trade union organisation and, therefore, cannot be regarded as an authentic voice of Chinese workers, reaffirms its request to all affiliates and Global Union Federations having contacts with the Chinese authorities, including the ACFTU, to engage in critical dialogue. This includes raising violations of fundamental workers’ and trade union rights in any such meetings, especially concerning cases of detention of trade union and labour rights activists.

However, activists within the ACFTU and the World Federation of Trade Unions dispute the claims of the rival trade union federation. ACFTU activist Guo Wencai has said that democratic elections were a key standard to measure the effectiveness of a trade union and noted that the practice of Chinese company chiefs "appointing union leaders or assigning someone from their human resources department to act as union leader hampers a trade union's independence and its ability to protect workers' rights."

Other labor activism in China

The ACFTU remains the country's only legally-permissible trade union. Attempts to form trade unions independent of the ACFTU have been rare, short-lived, and brutally repressed with the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation formed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests a notable example.
The failure of the ACFTU to advocate for workers has led to an increase in wildcat strikes and other unauthorized labor action. Wildcat strikes are one of few options available to workers because the ACFTU refuses to authorize strikes no matter what the conditions.

Member organisations