Background

China has seen dramatic changes in industrial relations in the recent years. Market economy system has brought about changes and challenges to the employment relationships in China. Since the labour market reform in mid 1990s, China has witnessed a rapid increase of labour disputes related to unpaid salaries, suspended overtime payments, working conditions and social security payments. According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS), the number of labour dispute cases registered in the Labour Dispute Arbitration Committees has been doubled from 314,000 in 2005 to 690,000 in 2008. In recent years, there has been a trend towards more number of collective interest disputes where workers demand higher wages and better working conditions. It is also noteworthy that young generation of migrant workers, whose rights and entitlements are often inferior to their urban counterpart, have begun to take actions to protect their rights and advance their interests.

Faced with the above challengesAll China’s Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) has played key roles in promoting collective bargaining, settling labour disputes and eventually, striving for industrial peace for a win-win situation. The ACFTU has taken several steps to protect the workers.

ACFTU was able to influence the government to enact a number of new laws, including the Labour Contract Law (2008), the Labour Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law (2008)and the Contract Labour Law (2008) as well as numerous local regulations for better protection of workers; rights.

ACFTU has vigorously promoted social dialogue at enterprise, provincial and national levels to pave a road for industrial harmony and peace. As of late 2008, over 12,000 tripartite consultation bodies were formed at different levels, in order to exchange information, consultation and negotiation. The Chinese government ratified ILO convention on Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards) in 1990.

ACFTU has launched organizing campaigns as a basis for strengthening workers’ bargaining power. According to an ACFTU report, 240 million workers are unionized in China, 185 million workers are covered by the collective contracts.

While ACFTU initially focused on promotion of collective bargaining at the enterprise level, it has recently shifted its priority towards promotion of regional and sectoral bargaining. ACFTU has been actively working with ILO for over 10 years to enhance the capacity of union negotiators and trainers, primarily at the enterprise level. Currently ACFTU makes its focused efforts to promote collective bargaining at sectoral and regional level, while further improving collective bargaining at the enterprise level. ACFTU believes that sectoral collective bargaining is fundamental to regulating the sectoral labour market and addressing labour disputes. For instance, Wood Board Industry in Pizhou city, and Chemical Fiber Textile Industry in Huangjing Town, Taicang City, Jiangsu Province have undergone sectoral collective negotiation.

With the new focus on sectoral and regional collective bargaining, there is a urgent need to adjust the ILO-ACFTU collective bargaining collaboration to meet the needs of union negotiators in sectoral and regional bargaining situation. The ACFTU plans to train some 550,000 negotiators at different levels - enterprise, district and provinces in the next 3 years.

In order to support the endeavour of the ACFTU to promote collective bargaining and protect the rights of workers, ILO/ACTRAV together with the ACFTU will organize the international seminar on collctive bargaining for industrial relations where international trade union resource persons can share their experiences with local negotiators with a view to exchanging experiences and to strengthening organizational capacity of ACFTU unions to carry out sectoral and regional bargaining. This seminar would be followed by another two-day training of trainers workshop on collective bargaining, which will be covered by a separate proposal.

This seminar, together with the next TOT workshop, is a part of the Declaration Project on Promotion of Collective Bargaining in China. The results of the seminar (and the following workshop) will become a valuable input for a policy discussion among tripartite partners, which is scheduled in November 2011.

Objectives

The seminar will focus on sharing international experiences on collective bargaining, particularly at industrial or sectoral levels. It aims to increase the cooperation between ACFTU, ITUC and ACTRAV. It is aimed at helping the ACFTU in promoting industrial or sectoral collective bargaining in China.

Expected outcomes

• Industrial and sectoral collective bargaining practices experienced by trade unions in the ITUC, the UK, Belgium, and other countries will be shared with the ACFTU.

• The cooperation between ACFTU, ITUC and ACTRAV will be strengthened.

• Chinese local pilot experiences of Collective Bargaining at sectoral level will be shared and promoted.

• Outcome CHN802 of the DWCP implemented.

Venue and date

Harbin city, Hei Longjiang Province on 24-25 August 2011

Total participants

A total of 40 people including resource persons will participate in the seminar. The resource persons are Mr Steve Benedict, Director of Human Rights Dept., ITUC, Brussels, Ms Anne Douglas, TUC, Mr Bart Vannetelbosch, national negotiator, ACV-CSC, Belgium, and GB member, and Mr Pong-Sul Ahn, ILO Bangkok.

Programme

Day 1: 24th August, 2011 (Wed)
09:00	Opening Ceremony - Representative of ACFTU - Pong-Sul Ahn, Senior Specialist on Workers’ Activities, ILO DWT, Bangkok
09:30	Introduction of participants
09:45	Keynote Speech -- ACFTU presentation on the development of China’s industrial relations and Collective bargaining (by ACFTU)
10:30	Tea Break
10:45	Keynote Speech --Collective bargaining: the principles and its development (by ILO)
11:30	Q & A
12:00	Lunch
14:00	International Experience -- The policies and practices of international trade unions on collective bargaining (by ITUC)
14:45	International Experience -- British experience in industrial collective bargaining (by TUC)
15:30	Tea Break
15:45	Q & A
16:30	Chinese Local Experience
17:00	Q & A
17:30	End
Day 2: 25th August, 2011 (Thurs)
09:00	International Experience --Industrial Collective bargaining in Korea and Asia (by ILO) - Pong-Sul Ahn, Senior Specialist on Workers’ Activities, ILO DWT, Bangkok
09:45	International Experience --Belgium Experience in Collective bargaining (by CSC)
10:30	Tea Break
10:45	Q & A
11:15	Chinese Local experience Ⅱ
11:45	Q & A
12:00	Lunch
14:00	Chinese Local experience Ⅲ
14:30	Q & A
15:00	Tea Break
15:15	Panel: Future perspective and Strategies on Industrial Collective Bargaining
16:15	Closing ceremony
17:00	End