'Guangdong: a beacon for China’s trade union reform', 27 September 2014

Democratic union election in Guangdong has attracted a lot of attention and has been regarded as the direction of the trade union reform in China. It is a joint result of the bottom-up labour movement, and the need to reform from the above. It is also attributable to the industrial upgrade of Guangdong. Although some factories in Guangdong have successfully rolled out democratic union election, democratic union elections still face many obstacles, such as the strong power of capital, workers’ lack of maturity, the out-dated mind-sets of local officials, and the passive attitudes of upper-level union officials. All these factors are likely to hinder the trade union reform in China…

But Guangdong’s campaign this year has breathed new life into the static democratic union movement. Firstly, this is the first time that the highest-level officials affirmed the role of democratic unions and urged all the factories in the province to have democratically elected unions…Secondly, Guangdong maintains a good consistency in carrying out democratic union elections…In 2014, the Guangdong Federation of Trade Unions announced the plan to have all union chairmen democratically elected in Guangdong in the next five years…