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

Simon Clarke and Tim Pringle

University of Warwick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

especially in JVs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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