Native name 中华全国总工会 Affiliation WFTU | Founded May 1, 1925 Key people Li Jianguo, chairman | |
Full name All-China Federation of Trade Unions Members 280 Mio. (2013) 250 (2012)
193 million in 2008
134 million in 2005 | ||
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU; simplified Chinese: 中华全国总工会; traditional Chinese: 中華全國總工會; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Quánguó Zǒnggōng Huì), is the nationalised organisation federation of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest trade union in the world with 134 million members in 1,713,000 primary trade union organizations. The ACFTU is divided into 31 regional federations and 10 national industrial unions.
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History
Officially founded on 1 May 1925. The Second National Labour Congress convened in Guangzhou with 277 delegates representing 540,000 workers and adopted the Constitution of the All China Federation of Trade Unions. Between 1922 and 1927, the organization flourished, as did the Communist Party of China’s control over the trade union movement. The labour movement had grown enormously, particularly in the three industrial and commercial centres of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai, but it also had some organizational success in other cities, such as Wuhan. The ACFTU was restricted in 1927 by the newly established rule of the Nationalist regime under Chiang Kai-shek ordering the execution of thousands of CPC cadres and trade unionists. All CPC-led unions were banned and replaced with yellow unions loyal to him.
By the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949, the ACFTU had been re-established as the sole trade union centre, but was again dissolved in 1966 in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. Following Mao's death in 1976, in October 1978 the ACFTU held its first congress since 1957. Since the early 1990s it has been regulated by the Trade Union Law of the People’s Republic of China.
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (now the International Trade Union Confederation) maintains the position that the ACFTU is not an independent trade union organisation, and states in its policy:
5. There are differing approaches among ICFTU affiliates and Global Union Federations concerning contacts with the ACFTU. They range from “no contacts” to “constructive dialogue”. The ICFTU, noting that the ACFTU is not an independent trade union organisation and, therefore, cannot be regarded as an authentic voice of Chinese workers, reaffirms its request to all affiliates and Global Union Federations having contacts with the Chinese authorities, including the ACFTU, to engage in critical dialogue. This includes raising violations of fundamental workers’ and trade union rights in any such meetings, especially concerning cases of detention of trade union and labour rights activists.
However, activists within the ACFTU and the World Federation of Trade Unions dispute the claims of the rival trade union federation. ACFTU activist Guo Wencai said that democratic elections were a key standard to measure the effectiveness of a trade union and noted that the practice of company chiefs "appointing union leaders or assigning someone from their human resources department to act as union leader hampers a trade union's independence and its ability to protect workers' rights.