Elected trade union gives Wal-Mart unprecedented hassle(2)

Professor Chang Kai (L) speaks to the laid-off Wal-Mart workers as Huang Xingguo (second from left) listens during a meeting before the labor union submits their second arbitration application on April 21.

Forty-two-year-old Huang is the central figure of the Changde union. Working from the lowest level in the store, Huang was promoted step by step to administrative manager. He was then elected unanimously by the workers to be chairman of the labor union last year.

According to the relocation plan of the company, Huang was offered the same position at another branch store in the provincial capital Changsha. He almost accepted the offer, until he saw how a team of company staff talked down to a worker during their "negotiation" for compensation.

"The workers, generally with a poor education background, rarely have any legal know-how, while the negotiation team of the company is comprised of human resource professionals and labor law experts. It's totally unbalanced," he said. As a result, the workers could easily be cheated and fall into their traps. "I felt strongly that I had to do something for the workers, as I had been elected and am trusted by them."

It's common practice that companies in China settle labor disputes with the workers one by one, as most grass-roots labor unions don't really fight for the workers' interests in such circumstances, according to Chang.

Huang said Wal-Mart didn't treat the labor union seriously. The company informed Huang on March 4 of the closing scheme which was announced the next day, but the labor union should have been consulted by the company according to the Labor Union Law.

"That's because they have always behaved that way in other Chinese branch stores and forgot the Changde labor union was elected," he said.

"If the company showed due respect to the labor union, we would have been the company's best assistant in the process of closing the store," he said.

Disputes with authorities

Chang has come to Changde twice with his four-member team, all law professors at universities in Beijing. They are enthusiastic about this case because they see the potential for it to set an example of how a company labor union can strive to protect workers' rights, which is still rare in China. Furthermore, "this case should straighten out the legal interpretations of the law when it comes to accommodating laid-off workers in the future, otherwise it will be a social problem," said the labor law expert.

Therefore, securing the role of the company labor union in resolving the case has become a priority for Professor Chang's legal assistance, which is unprecedented in labor disputes in China. The Changde arbitration authorities have yet to accept the union's application to represent the workers.

However, not all law professionals have the same view. Zhang Jinqian, a Changde local lawyer working with the Changde Federation of Trade Unions, the official organization, sharply disagreed with Chang, and insisted on representing the workers rather than the labor union as most lawyers did.

"Talking about theories can never resolve practical issues. I once won a case representing more than 100 workers," Zhang said during a meeting in which the company labor union tried to seek help from the labor union federation. "Forcefully inserting the labor union into the negotiations is a bad approach," he told the Global Times.

"The usual way of resolving such cases by local authorities is to finish it quickly," said Fan Wei, associate professor with the School of Labor Economics at the Capital University of Economics and Business, who is also a member of Chang's team.

In the early stage of protests by the Wal-Mart workers following the store's closure, Changde police harassed the demonstrators and detained a labor union activist for five days.

"At first there was misconduct by the district police. They did it out of pressure to maintain stability … The Federation fully supports your demand," said Luo Yahai, vice chairman of the Changde Federation of Labor Unions, an official organization that oversees all grass-roots labor unions.

The Changde federation of labor unions had issued a formal letter that requested Wal-Mart to answer the calls of the workers, but the letter was rejected by the company.

According to Fan, Zhang's approach may increase the compensation for each worker by a one month's salary or two, but the company labor union aims to double the compensation as Wal-Mart may be subject to punishment for its misconduct.

After a short discussion, Huang and other members of the labor union committee agreed to entrust Chang's team to represent them in their arbitration application and, if the arbitration fails, the lawsuit against Wal-Mart. They expressed fears that local legal assistance might become entangled with vested interests.

"We have chosen a path that could lead to an uncertain future… But it couldn't get worse, because now we are already in the worst situation," Chang told the crowd of workers.