Wal-Mart, the superstore group that is the world’s largest retailer and famously anti-union in its home country of the U.S., has struck pay deals with the officially-sanctioned All China Federation of Trade Unions’ locals in Shenyang and Quanzhou, the FT reports.
A similar deal has been struck in Shenzhen, the Economic Times reports. Such collective bargaining agreements with management are required by the Labour Contract Law that came into effect in January.
The deals ensure a (below inflation) 8% pay rise for employees this year and next. More than 48,500 Wal-Mart employees at 105 stores across the country have been unionized since workers in Quanzhou formed the first Wal-Mart union in 2006 in the face of years of resistance in the country.
While many foreign owned companies now have locally unionized workforces, the ACFTU, the only officially sanctioned union allowed in China, has used Wal-Mart as the vanguard for its campaign to organize at other prominent foreign-owned companies with a history of opposing unions such as Eastman Kodak and Dell.
China Bystander 
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