Establishing a Trade Union for Shenzhen Port Workers

Establishing a trade union for port workers Summary ESRC/Case Study/B7

Y port is a joint venture between an HK container company H and mainland SOE. HK side owned 70 per cent of the shares. Y port is one of the largest ports in Asia and handles over nine million containers per year - compared to 10,000 in 1994!

Managers and operations officials are from HK and their different approach to labour relations created a problem with local staff and workers. The Chinese company provides over 2500 staff. Of these workers 1,600 are gantry and tower crane operators on better rates than local firms offer. Wages at Y are high: up to 5,000 yuan per month for gantry operators and 8,000 for tower crane operators. Plus insurance and benefits including grants for children’s education etc.

Y company did not set up a trade union for fear of frightening off foreign clients but instead made annual subsidies of up to 20 million yuan for a qun jin hui (workers advancement association (WAA). The WAA followed the traditional union model with committees for various company-worker orientated matters: Health committee, canteen committee etc. (ESRC/Case Study/A/4 for more detail)

Criticism of the WAA came from some workers who dubbed it a white-collar benefits club. When six work stoppages occurred among ports in the area between March and May 2007, the question of union representation emerged as a key issue. There were two stoppages connected to Port Y. March 24-25 sub contracted workers from a company pulling trailers for Y struck for wage and o/t related problems. April 6-8 gantry and tower crane workers struck for 33 hours with considerable impact. There were three basic demands: Lower differentials with white collar workers; increase basic pay and include lunch hour in hour count; establish an effective trade union. Also a conflict with HK management style which was law and regulation based rather than ‘reason’ based as well as patronizing attitudes to mainlanders.

S city union chair went to the scene of at least one stoppage at Y and assured the workers that the union would represent them according to the law. At first, the mood was very angry, with some workers accusing government representatives who arrived with the union group as being in league with the port’s bosses. Things calmed after the union chair arrived. After listening to the workers, S union officials put the workers’ demands in a negotiable format and asked the workers to elect reps and offered guarantees they will stop the company from taking revenge on reps after the stoppage. This guarantee was very important to the settling of the work stoppage as it was the only way of ensuring that the workers elected capable reps able to negotiate. Without guarantees from an official government-backed agency such as the union, such reps would not put themselves forward for fear of revenge from the company. During the negotiations the union and government departments played a mediating role and reminded the bosses of their legal responsibilities. During negotiations the union group – which included representatives from various relevant government departments – split up and persuaded the two sides to compromise. This was a difficult process. For example the Y Port Company wanted to continue calculating wages on the basis of a 7.5 hour day, but the union sided with the workers who argued that they worked for 8 hours and that rest time should not be deducted. The stoppage ended peacefully when the workers agreed to a compromise of aq 3 per cent pay rise plus a 500 yuan ‘working at height’ subsidy.

On the call for a union: the stoppage took place after workers at a nearby SOE stopped work and included the removal of the trade union chair and fresh election of a chair as one of their demands. The workers at Port Y demanded that they pay the wages of their own elected rep out of their own pockets. The S union boss said this would be an illegal organisation and persuaded the workers to agree to set up a union in accordance with procedures set out in the TUL and pressured the company to agree. There was a split among the workers but most went with this arrangement. Most of the workers expressed their faith in the authorities to bring the HK employers to negotiate in good faith.

Problems again emerged when the election for the new union committee was held. The SFTU presented a list of vetted candidates. However, many of them lost and workers elected candidates who were mainly crane operators, apart from two low-level white- collar workers. Workers expressed the view that anyone at team leader level and above was by default on the side of capital. This split was then reflected in the workers’ reaction to the company extending the height subsidy to white-collar engineers. Many workers said that the reason they agreed to return to work was because they thought that the award to crane operators would reduce differentials but the company was now doing the opposite and increasing them again.

The S union spent a great deal of time working on a compromise trade union committee and refrained from imposing a selected committee on the workers. A compromise committee was finally agreed.

The stoppage threw into focus many of the questions currently facing the Chinese labour movement. RT asked how a stoppage could take place at a good company with such well paid workers. They were also struck by the attitude of the HK managers who said the wages were set in accordance with the market rate plus. Workers acknowledged this but said they deserved a share of the company’s rapid development and increased profits. One worker said that ‘company efficiency is linked to the rate of surplus value extracted’.

The company director stated that although they were able to settle this time the dominant notion of social harmony and the law of the market cannot coexist without future conflict. Workers demanding to pay their own rep is a very interesting example of how workers feel they might overcome union dependency on management and traditional trade union practice. This is a demonstration of the huge pressures on the ACFTU to become more representative. Moreover, there was a clear split between white-collar and blue-collar workers both of whom are represented by the same union. The union has to address these issues and find new ways to solve them even within its own narrow parameters.