Labour%20activism%20and%20the%20reform%20of%20trade%20unions%20in%20Russia,%20China%20and%20Vietnam

1
Labour activism and the reform of trade unions in
Russia, China and Vietnam

• Simon Clarke and Tim Pringle
• University of Warwick

2
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

3
Socialist market economy

• Dualism state-owned and private sector
• Decentralisation of SOE management
• Ambiguous role of unions
• Unitary interest of enterprise (STK, WC)
• Represent interests of workers
• Aspirations to independence
• Worker activism directed against state
• China post-Tiananmen crackdown
• Russia collapse of soviet system

4
Transition to capitalism

• Transformed environment of trade unions
• state no longer determines terms and conditions
• employment relation transformed to contract
• New industrial relations framework
• Contrasting political status of unions
• Workplace unions still management dominated
• Little internal pressure for union change

5
Russian unions

• Collapse of soviet system threatened survival of
  traditional unions
• State needed the traditional unions
• To administer traditional state functions
• To channel and contain social unrest
• Social partnership
• Economic collapse demobilises workers
• Activism confined to state sector, collusion with
  employers

6
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 disputes

7
Trade unions and worker activism

• Trade unions channel conflict into symbolic
  protests and bureaucratic representation of
  worker interests
• Weakness of unions is management dominance of
  primary organisations still function as part of
  personnel department
• Workplace militancy harnessed by small
  alternative unions

8
Revitalisation of workplace unions

• Post-1998 economic and political stabilisation
  reduce political leverage of unions
• Traditional unions have to revitalise workplace
  unions to establish legitimacy
• Limited leverage over workplace unions
• Constrained by commitment to social peace
• Limited to servicing role training, legal
  advice, lobbying, branch and regional agreements
• Minimal organising few members in new private
  sector

9
The challenge of alternative unions

• Competition fosters revitalisation
• Improved collective agreements
• Support for individual disputes
• Some collaboration with alternative unions
• Mostly via ICFTU/ITUC and GUFs
• Suppression of alternative unions
• 2001 Labour Code
• Collaboration with management victimisation
• Alternative unions in terminal? decline

10
Best practice of traditional unions

• Political representation of worker interests
• Lobbying legislatures
• Collaboration with state bureaucracy
• Judicial representation
• Facilitates negotiated resolution of individual
  and collective disputes
• Collective bargaining
• Sectoral and regional agreements set minimum
  terms
• Genuine bargaining in booming sectors energy,
  metallurgy

11
China and Vietnam

• Unions under the leadership of the Party
• No freedom of association
• Restricted right to strike
• China abolished in 1982
• Vietnam from 1994, only after mediation and
  arbitration, called by union, supported by
  majority of labour force, no legal strikes
• Illegal strikes pervasive and growing, limited
  repression

12
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

13
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

14
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
• Union can play consultative role, esp in SOEs
• Some more effective collective agreements,
  especially in JVs

15
Judicial resolution of disputes

• Baseline terms and conditions set by labour law
• Mediation, arbitration stacked against workers,
  moribund in Vietnam
• Massive growth in court actions in China
• Strikes and protests reveal legal violations
• Legal advice centres NGOs and ACFTU
• Indicate ineffectiveness of workplace trade union
  in monitoring employer legal violations
• Buck passing between union and MoL

16
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
• Support for collective bargaining
• Trade union elections
• Professionalisation of union

17
Trade union organising

• Trade unions traditionally confined to state and
  collective enterprises
• Pressure from Party to extend organisation to
  POE, FIE and migrant workers
• Legal requirement to have a trade union
• Mostly bureaucratic process, always top-down
• Some rare exceptions, e.g. Wal-Mart
• Sectoral/local unions for SMEs

18
SOE worker activism

• SOE workers lost jobs, security and social and
  economic status
• Protest contained/repressed early 1990s
• China laid-off workers protest escalated,
  peaking in 2002 met with repression
• State response early pensions, xiagang,
  employment creation
• ACFTU priority to job creation over wages

19
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 collective
  bargaining by riot
• 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

20
Worker activism and union reform

• Worker activism has defined role of trade unions
  of maintaining political stability
• By diverting protest into bureaucratic and
  judicial channels
• Key is reform of workplace unions
• Limited by management control, limited leverage
  and resources of higher levels
• Compounded by fear of loss of control,
  encouraging activism

21
Trade unions and the Party-state

• Unions in transition from state body to NGO
• Party control
• Imposes pressure on unions to reform to contain
  worker activism
• But confines reform within strict limits, impedes
  reform of workplace unions
• Union reform much more advanced in China than in
  Vietnam greater political fear?
• Prevents unions from mobilising politically

22
Freedom of Association

• Gives workers capacity to by-pass
  management-dominated union
• Provides competition for traditional unions
• Traditional unions have ample resources to
  contain the alternative threat
• Significant as a force for change rather than as
  replacement of traditional unions

23
Right to Strike

• Issue is not is a strike legal, but is it
  effective
• China and Vietnam very effective in meeting
  workers immediate demands
• Not effective as a means of building workers
  organisational solidarity because of absence of
  freedom of association

24
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 inertia of apparatus
  and dependence of workplace union on management
• Freedom of association critical factor
• International collaboration has played an
  important role in Russia, limited possibilities
  in China and Vietnam
• There is progress but it is very slow