International Trade Unions 1 - Assignment Example

In this scenario ACFTU, the body in charge of trade unions in the country, has no sovereign responsibility. It would continue to be what it is currently: an outside public bureaucracy of the ministry of labor with very little significance in terms of the major issues of export operations in the private economy. Without its own organizational influence, it stays to be subordinate to the Party, disregarded by the employees. Employers are currently in support of powerful ACFTU trade unions because they are opposing the increasing pressure on collective agreements and wages (Merz, 2011).

Industrial action in companies is likely to become more intense if the ACFTU trade unions are involved. In terms of resolution of employee grievances, Trade unions in china have continued officially to play the role of representing the interests of the entire working class under the guidance of the Communist Party. Employees in the country are granted the right to freedom of association. However, the right to strike was eliminated from the constitution in 1982. As a result, the international trade union community does not acknowledge Chinese trade unions as ‘genuine’ trade unions, capable of representing members’ interests. . The handy role of trade unions in the mediation stage is not to represent the employee but to act as a mediator between the employer and the worker and more generally to act as an agent of the employer (Hunter et al., 2008). At the first two stages, judgment is rarely implemented even when the employee wins, and most grievances end up in court.

Judicial procedures have become the chief means for the resolution of employee grievances concerning labor issues in china. The axle of the structure is the arbitration process because, while a complainant can evade the mediation stage, one can only proceed with a case to court by appealing against the decision made during the arbitration process. Trade unions oversee the mediation process which occurs within the enterprise; they chair the mediation committee (Eyferth, 2006). The system of mediation as a method of remedying employees’ serious grievances is weak because, while the number of documented cases has risen, there has been a rapid decline in the number of cases going to mediation (Hunter et al., 2008). Furthermore, the ratio of appeals against mediation decisions has augmented; therefore there has been a fall in the burden of resolution of employees’ grievances on the courts and local arbitration committees.

In 1995, ACFTU tried to strengthen the role of trade unions in providing support to workers in legal disputes by issuing a statement on trade unions’ engagement in settlements of employee grievances. This statement stressed that trade unions should offer legal aid to employees and should establish their individual legal outfits to stand for such employees (Eyferth, 2006). The ACFTU put up legal divisions at state,