The World Workers and Chinese Labours: A Seminar in British Trade Union Congress

11 May, 2009, TUC

If we talk about the relations of trade union and the world working class, everyone shall remember Maxis’ famous slogan, ‘Let the proletarians of the world be united’, and the one from Chairman Mao as well, ‘World working class are one family’!

Thus from the 1950s to 1970s, almost all the Chinese ordinary people believed that our proletarian bothers and sisters in the US, UK and other imperialist countries are living in life as ‘toasting in the flame and suffocating in deep water’, even they did not realize that their situation could be one of the worst in the world. What a poor and horrified image!

Opening policy since 1978 has completely changed the Chinese view, both bottom-up and top-down reversing from people. Westerners became a synonym of rich in their eyes, this perception strengthened constantly by the press, overseas compatriots, films and foreigners performance in newly opened land.

30 years after the Innovation and Opening Policy, people in the world found with a sudden that that hardly could they survive if there are no products of made in China. Impacts of China’s product prevailed over the global market, and brought a complex and ambiguous attitude for westerners, so there was no surprise when I got the news that British trade union congress planned to organize a seminar with the theme of China’s impacts on the world economy and the union response. Good topic, isn’t it?

Even there were only about 30 participants, nonetheless, it is an international meeting, people are from not just Britain, but Belgium, the headquarter of International Labour Organization, Hong Kong, Mainland China, like me and Germany, my supervisor, for example. If it was in China, I could imagine how the local authority shall make it as a quite horrendous event, but here, things are going quietly. You hardly saw any servants, but water with ice on your table, perfect and concise conference interactive microphone system, and projectors.

There were some impressive issues deserved a record. It was the addresses by the people from respective fields. One is Professor Jude Howell, a scholar interested in Chinese trade union and its development in the transition economical times. Her analysis on the ACFTU, all China federation of trade union, opened a window to the audience, even it was not new for me, but her prediction in how ACFTU change its strategy and to keep the balance relating to labour dispute and the right demanding for migrant labours triggered my interests, it may be an instructive cue for their Chinese counterparts. I am thinking to contact this professor and ask for her hand-outs.

The other one shocked me is Dr. Tim Pringle from Warwick University which is quite eminent in trade union research. Obviously, as an audience, you can find that his presentation comes from a scrutiny of Chinese trade union de facto, furthermore, elaborative analysis, which made you think spontaneously that there were horrified prejudice insisting that only Chinese understand their problem not foreigners, actually, it was wrong.

I also met some Chinese, but all of them are not working in China but the educational institutes in Britain, some got the PhD degree and worked in the research institutes. Limited conversations between us during the lunch break time gave few impressions on their academic background.

NGOs was another topic interests the participants in the seminar, Ms Anne Lindsay, a representative of one NGO told people how her organization pushed the pressures on the multinational corporations (MNCS) demanding its suppliers to improve the working situation and guarantee the acceptable treatment to the employees. To be frank, it is an interesting case, but how much credibility and efficiency you can approach, it is a question. At the moment, the government’s attitude towards NGOs are quite suspicious and uncertain, they are worrying that NGOs may act as a factors leading to social instability. The other problem is from employers whose characteristic as capitalist is greedy and selfishness, it’s doubtful that they would like to share their profit with labour, like chopping flesh from their bodies

Last but not least, it is an excellent opportunity to set up this networking for people in the similar fields. Hope there will be more events coming. .