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All-China Federation of Trades Unions beyond Reform? The Slow March of Direct Elections*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2009

Jude A Howell
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Abstract

Since the mid-1990s trade union leaders in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shandong and other coastal provinces have been quietly introducing direct elections for grassroots trade union cadres, in order to nurture a stratum of grassroots trade union cadres who prioritize workers' interests. Yet these elections have not been generalized across the country, been institutionalized through legislation or drawn droves of international observers in the way that village elections did in the 1980s and 1990s. What might have promised to be China's “second silent revolution” has failed to take off. This article explores the political, structural and institutional reasons behind the piecemeal and slow spread of direct basic union elections in China. In doing so it analyses the parameters constraining the reform of the All-China Federation of Trades Unions in the direction of a more effective, worker-oriented organization.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 196 , December 2008 , pp. 845 - 863
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2008

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References

* I am grateful to colleagues Professor Feng Tongqing, China Industrial Relations College, Dr Zhao Wei and Professor Shi Xiuyin, CASS, for their collaboration in this research and to the DFID for funding this project. Given the sensitivity of this topic names of interviewees and places remain anonymous.