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Wal-Mart’s trade union in China

journal contribution
posted on 2012-08-01, 00:00 authored by Baogang HeBaogang He, Y Xie
In 2007–8, more than 100 Wal-Mart stores in China established trade unions, which were praised by labour organizations and scholars throughout the world. This article questions these positive assessments and evaluations through an empirical study. The empirical findings reveal a dark and unpleasant picture of a double cooptation in that both the Chinese government and Wal-Mart have successfully coopted a few more or less independent unions. Although the presence of the trade union seems to challenge Wal-Mart’s neoliberal corporate ideology and governance, the compromise and tacit agreement between Wal-Mart and the party-state not only reflects a marriage of convenience but also indicates some deeper compatibility, the compatibility between China’s state corporatist model and the neoliberal approach taken by Wal-Mart. This study finds that China continues to move in a ‘state corporatist’ direction and that the transition towards civil society and ‘societal corporatism’ has been stymied.

History

Journal

Economic and industrial democracy

Volume

33

Issue

3

Pagination

421 - 440

Publisher

Sage Publications

Location

London, England

ISSN

0143-831X

eISSN

1461-7099

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal; C Journal article

Copyright notice

2011, Sage