The Resistance of Walmart Workers in China: A Breakthrough in the Chinese Labour Movement
On 21 June, the Walmart Chinese Workers’ Association (WCWA) announced in its blog that it and its American counterpart, OUR Walmart (Organisation United for Respect at Walmart), had joined hands in cyberspace to discuss how to move forward in their struggle against Walmart. This marks a new stage in recent Chinese labour history. This time the news is not about a leader of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the official government trade union, shaking hands with a leader from a foreign trade union. Nor is it Han Dongfang, the well-known director of the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, shaking hands with the world’s trade union leaders. Instead, a group of workers have themselves, through persistent efforts to break through Chinese walls, finally succeeded in reaching out to co-workers overseas. This is the culmination of a number of breakthroughs in the last ten years.
