Labor rights in the People's Republic of China

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Report of the International Independent Commission of Trade Unionists
Shenyang, Dalian, Changchung, April 25-30, 1996. For the time first since 1989, an independent international delegation of trade unionists able to travel in China. It will report to the annual session of the ILO next June in Geneva. This commission of inquiry was organized independently. The commission also gathered important documentation. To what extent is the ACFTU independent; to what extent can workers organize themselves?
ICFTU calls on WTO to reject China application
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), December 1996. ICFTU general secretary Bill Jordan called on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to reject China's application for membership to the world body as long gross abuses of workers' rights prevail in that country.
Growing resistance by Chinese workers
Green Left Weekly, 18 January 1998. Views of Han Dongfang, an organiser of the Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation (WAF) formed in May-June 1989 in Tiananmen Square, a defender of Chinese workers' rights since he was released from prison, publisher of China Labor Bulletin since 1994, and the producer of a Radio Free Asia program on Chinese labour since early 1997.
Mixed Messages on Labor Rights
AFP, 6 July 1999. China simultaneously is attempting to protect workers' rights, while at the same time jailing three unofficial labour activists for subversion. Wei Jianxing, president of the officially sanctioned All China Federation of Trade Unions, calls for the 1994 labor law to be fully and properly implemented.
Interview with Cai Chongguo, speaking out against WTO
OWC, [25 November 1999]. An interview with Caï Chongguo, editor of the French edition of China Labour Bulletin. On November 15, 1999, U.S. and Chinese officials signed an agreement to pave the way for China's entry into the WTO, and nowhere in this agreement is there any reference to workers' rights. The U.S. government did not insist that China ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98, which uphold the right to independent trade unions and collective bargaining.
A Review of the CCP's Ten Years of Repression of the Independent Labour Movement in China
China Labour Bulletin, 21 February 2000. In 1989 Chinese workers stood up and for the first time since 1949 organised Workers' Autonomous Federations (WAF) to oppose the dictatorship. The international trade union movement has placed its hopes in constructive engagement with the ACFTU, but can it be reformed? Reform from below; CLB hopes such will result from its contact with shop floor level union cadres. Expectations of the ICFTU.
Hugh Changes in China: The IMF begins an exchange of information with Chinese trade unions
7 December 2000. The intenational capitalist finance organization (IMF) seeks to enter into a cooperative relation with business unionism in China—the ACFTU and two metalworking unions—to facilitate international investment in China.
New focus on trade unions in China
By Erwin Marquit, People's Weekly World, 12 January 2001. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) has relations of cooperation with trade unions of 134 countries. Labor federations in industrial countries (especially European ones) are developing working relations with the Chinese unions and are helping Chinese unionists develop more class-struggle trade-unionism ideas in dealing with foreign-owned capitalist enterprises.