“In China, Walmart Is Unionized, But Workers Have No Power on the Job”， 25 Jun 2015

Almost 10 years after Walmart was forced to accept unionization of its stores in China, the U.S.-based merchandising giant continues to deny basic collective bargaining rights to its Chinese retail workers, according to two union experts speaking…at a conference on Walmart and labor in Washington, D.C.

Walmart has succeeded in meeting the Chinese government’s demands that the company allow unions to be formally established, but this has not translated into any effective collective bargaining power for some 107,000 workers at the company’s 411 Chinese stores, says Han Dongfang, Executive Director of…China Labour Bulletin…Wal-Mart’s China subsidiaries exercise effective control over a “yellow union,” he says…employer-dominated union that prevents the establishment of an independent union controlled by workers…

Duan Li, a lawyer and founder of Guangdong Lao Wei Law Firm…said that “workers have a difficult time carrying out collective bargaining...Union leaders are part of management.” Store managers have the “ability to retaliate against workers” by dismissing employees who assert their labor rights…

Kevin Slaten, Program Director at New York-based China Labor Watch [says] “…The company uses low-cost plants with poor working conditions, competing them off one another. The downward pressure of this dynamic on China's labor standards is probably greater than the impact of Wal-Mart's retail stores.”

A spokesperson for Walmart’s international corporate affairs department at the company’s Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters declined a request from In These Times for a telephone interview with an executive qualified to comment on Walmart’s union issues in China. She also refused to respond to a series of written questions seeking confirmation or clarification of the remarks of Han and Duan.