Trade union federation born at footwear giant

A federation of trade unions was launched on Tuesday at Taiwanese footwear giant Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings in Gaobu town, Dongguan, Guangdong province, after the company saw massive strikes in April over underpaid contributions to workers' social insurance benefits.

The federation consists of eight company committees, 17 factory branches and 186 workshop groups. About 27,000 Yue Yuen workers, nearly 70 percent of its workforce, have joined, Nanfang Daily reported.

The previous version of the trade union did not fulfill its role, critics said. Launched in 2006, it had been inactive before the provincial, city and Gaobu town trade union federations sent a work team into the company in July, according to the provincial trade union federation.

Huang Yebin, chairman of the provincial federation, said he hopes the new trade union group facilitates sound labor-capital relations, smooths out channels for workers to petition and establishes a platform for negotiations.

He also said he hopes the group pays attention to the petitions of workers and provides necessary support to the trade unions.

Chen Han, chairman of the trade union federation of Yue Yuen in Gaobu, said: "Every worker has his or her opinion. When there are calls and suggestions, we should collect them in a timely manner and talk with the management."

"We should build a platform for communication and subdivide the disputes. Only when we have harmonious labor-capital relations can we have sustained operation of the company and realize a win-win."

With its many enterprises and workers, Dongguan has seen a number of major labor-capital disputes in recent years.

Huang emphasized the establishment of trade unions and the efforts to address the needs and difficulties of workers while he conducted research in Dongguan in July.

Gaobu was picked as a pilot site for regulating the establishment of grassroots trade unions.

Statistics show the town has 510 enterprises with a combined workforce of 140,000. A total of 417 enterprises had set up trade unions by July, but all have small memberships.

The management of Yue Yuen acknowledged in July the importance of trade unions and pledged full support for them.

Yue Yuen is the world's largest manufacturer of branded sports and casual shoes and supplies Nike, Crocs, Adidas, Reebok and other industry leaders.

After the strikes in April, the Dongguan government required that the company correct its practices regarding social security benefit payments, and the work team sent by trade union federations worked out plans for making up the underpayments.

Tian Dangsheng, a lawyer with Greenleaf Law Firm in Guangzhou, attributed the increasing labor disputes to poor legal awareness among some business owners, rising operational costs and a lack of laws concerning privately owned enterprises.

While many trade unions are manipulated by enterprise management, trade unions should receive more worker representatives and grassroots workers, he said.