These are strange times indeed. When Yao Fuxin was arrested in Liaoyang City on March 17, more than 30,000 workers took to the streets the next day demanding: "Release Our Representative." The protests - and repression - that followed drew international attention. It was clear that workers were not only defending their right to genuine, independent representation, but were directly challenging the trade union monopoly of the state-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). Yet only three months later, while Yao Fuxin and three other workers' representatives remained in detention, awaiting their trial for "illegal assembly", the ACFTU gained international recognition as the "legitimate" representative of workers in China. On June 10, 2002, elections were held for the tripartite Governing Body of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and among the Worker Delegates the ACFTU gained enough votes to win a Worker Deputy Member seat.

The ACFTU has campaigned for several years to gain a seat as a Worker Delegate in the ILO Governing Body with the aim of limiting criticism of worker and trade union rights violations in China and to undermine the universality of the International Labour Conventions. Sadly, with the support of a number of trade unions in the ILO Workers' Group, the ACFTU has now succeeded.

Just prior to the elections ACFTU officials were criticized in the ILO Workers Group for their failure to support the protesting workers in Liaoyang and Daqing. In their defense the ACFTU delegates claimed that the protesting workers had engaged in acts of violence, thereby justifying the deployment of armed police and para-military units. How breaking windows and overturning cars justified the arrest of workers for "illegal assembly" remained unclear. Also absent from the explanation put forward by these official "representatives" of the workers was the fact that the ACFTU's own offices in Daqing were attacked - precisely because workers were angered by the complete and utter failure of the official union to defend their rights and interests.

Of course, apologists for the ACFTU will claim that it is changing and through continued international contact it will eventually reform itself. Yet there is little evidence of this change in either politico-institutional terms or the practice on the ground. For example, the ACFTU was directly involved in the drafting of the amendments to the Trade Union Law adopted on October 27, 2001. The revised law consolidates the subordination of trade unions to Party-state ideology by adding a new reference to the obligation of trade unions to uphold "Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory". In addition to this, the trade union monopoly of the ACFTU is consolidated, thereby ensuring that independent workers' organizations remain illegal.

While Xu Xicheng, ACFTU Vice Chairperson in charge of international affairs and the newly appointed delegate to the ILO Governing Body, claims that the ACFTU's involvement in drafting the revised Trade Union Law as an example of its commitment to workers' rights, this very same law is in clear violation of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on the right to organize and freedom of association. Only ten days before the ACFTU's election to the ILO Governing Body, the ICFTU updated its existing ILO complaints (Cases No.1930 and No. 2031) concerning violation of freedom of association in the People's Republic of China based on the new violations embodied in the revised Trade Union Law. At the same time a new complaint (Case No.2189) was lodged with the ILO concerning the repression of workers' protests and arrests in Liaoyang, Daqing and Sichuan.

Next> "A major defeat for workers struggling for freedom of association in China" - HKCTU statement concerning the ACFTU's election as a Worker Deputy Member in the ILO Governing Body [June 12 , 2002]