Please Help Us Fight against Walmart’s Illegal and Brutal Closings
Dear AFL-CIO leadership,
I am a Walmart worker in China and writing to ask for help for hundreds of Chinese Walmart workers facing Walmart’s illegal and brutal closings! During Walmart’s expansion in China, establishing more than 400 stores, it has also suddenly closed several stores to maximize its profits and plan to close about 20 stores in 2014.
In previous years, Walmart’s brutal closings led to a few suicidal attempts in Northeast China. Recently, more than 100 Walmart workers in Changde city of Hunan province, under the leadership of local union, got together to resist Walmart’s plan. Walmart store management suddenly announced the closing plan on March 5th, without any prior information for workers, and replaced workers immediately, dragging workers from their posts. Walmart’s action is illegal, violating Article 4 of China Labor Contract Law which requires prior consultation with workers or worker representatives and negotiations with unions when firms make decisions with significant consequences to workers, and barbarous, enraging the union chairman and more than 100 workers who organized together to ask for the right of consultation and dignity and a reasonable closing package for workers.
This is the first organized resistance to Walmart, with the help of local Walmart union, in China and has inspired hundreds of workers in other two Walmart stores in Anhui province which were closed in Mid-March. Given Walmart’s abrupt announcement and cruel instant replacement, store union and workers did not have enough time to organize resistance and now loosed workplace power to force Walmart management to come to the bargaining table. Local police and security personnel fiercely suppressed workers¡¦ collective actions. Although several labor lawyers and scholars went to the store and are helping the workers, it would greatly help these workers if AFL-CIO or other relevant unions or organizations from the US which is the mother country of Walmart could join in our fight against Walmart.
Would you please join our campaign against Walmart’s illegal and brutal closings? This campaign would benefit several hundreds of Walmart workers since Walmart will close more than 20 stores this year and has the potential to inspire China’s local Walmart union, Walmart’s only union in the world, to represent workers instead of serving management. Would you please forward this message to any other unions or organizations/people that may be interest in a campaign against Walmart or helping Chinese Walmart workers? We would also appreciate your comments or advices in guiding our fight against Walmart!
Yours sincerely,
A worker from China Walmart
Workers at Walmart stores in Changde, Hunan Province and Maanshan, Anhui Province in China are protesting Walmart’s plans to close the stores.
AFL-CIO
According to the Financial Times (behind a paywall), Walmart is in the process of closing 20 stores in China.Store closures present workers globally with loss of income, disrupting family life, jeopardizing housing and the educational opportunities of children. Abrupt closures leave workers with little time to plan transitions, and are often an occasion for avoiding payments due workers when they are laid off. Media and labor activists in China report that Walmart has not consulted with the local union in Changde on its closure plans. Workers are demanding that the company comply with Chinese labor laws in full, rescind dismissals of its workers and negotiate in good faith with the local trade union. The AFL-CIO supports the demands of Chinese workers.
* Wed, 04/02/2014 - 11:41: http://www.worldlabour.org/eng/node/667
Further Reading:
UNI report on the case
Chinese trade union challenges Walmart closure programme
Closures of Walmart stores in China have been challenged by the local unit of the ACFTU (All China Federation of Trade Unions, supported by the Chinese government) in Changde, Hunan province. The union has been leading protests outside a Walmart store that closed last week. As it is highly unusual for the government sanctioned union to lend its support to industrial actions, their backing has given workers great confidence.
Chinese workers have been demanding twice the compensation offered by Walmart to workers who will lose their jobs, and also rental and other subsidies for those who transfer to stores in other cities. The involvement of ACFTU adds weight to their actions and could increase official scrutiny of the closures.
Head of UNI Commerce, Alke Boessiger said “The protests against Walmart in China are highly significant. The Chinese union, the ACFTU are challenging Walmart’s behaviour in order to safeguard the future of its workers.”
“The UNI Walmart Global Union Alliance stands with the ACFTU and Chinese Walmart workers, who, like their brothers and sisters around the world, including in the Unites States, are victims of the company’s outmoded and irresponsible business model.”
Published: 24 March 2014
Google translate
Branch Union at Walmart Store in Hunan Province Appeals for Help
Walmart has been planning to downsize their presence and close down the store at Chengde city of Hunan province. The branch union at Chengde store is representing its members for due compensation and involving the district FTU for support in every step it makes. Walmart agrees to pay the legal severance to workers, but not any economic compensation which the branch union claims for lack of a due procedure in closing down a company. Under the Labour Law, the employer should give one-month’s prior notice and consult the union before contract termination, retrenchment or deciding a re-structuring package.
The district and municipal FTU have failed to back up their subsidiary and get a settlement from Walmart which has secured the support and protection from the municipal government. The municipal government chooses to protect the world’s largest retailer arguing that there is no undue procedure. The branch union is pressed by the government to mediate a compromise and its members are harassed by Walmart to accept the company’s deal. Now assisted by a group of lawyers and labour academics as their consultants including Professor Chang Kai, who represented the Honda workers in the negotiation with the management in 2010, the branch union is also calling the provincial FTU and ACFTU for support.
Case Development
February. Workers and the trade union at Chengde Store of Hunan province kept hearing rumours that the store was closing down due to poor business. The store employs 143 workers and 90% of them are women, with non-fixed term contract. The branch union at Chengde Store collected 15 demands from its members and drew up a plan for negotiation with the store manager. They demand economic compensation for the retrenchment under the 2N+1 plan, which is double of the legal minimum of severance compensation (of one month’s salary per year of service) plus an extra month’s salary of the 2014 level).
Other demands include their bonuses and incentives of the previous year, extra compensation to the pregnant workers, trade union fees (due to pay the branch union), unemployment insurance, pension premiums and other compensations. The branch union also wrote a letter to the district FTU and municipal FTU to inform and prepare them for support to future actions.
2.27 Management secured the consent of the municipal government and party committee over the closure of Chengde Store and settlement of workers’ severances according to the law.
3.4 The District HR and Operation Mangers of Walmart began to call workers in for one-on-one ‘preliminary communication’. Workers rejected while the branch union requested the management to initiate an official negotiation and informing the upper FTU.
3.5 Management posted up the closure notice, to be effective on 19 March. According to the pack, workers who volunteer to work in another store will be guaranteed the same pay and benefits. That applies mainly to the deputy store managers and above grade while most store employees do not want to leave their family to work in anther city. Those who prefer to quit the job are entitled to severances according to the law (ie one month salary per year of service). The management sent in a batch of workers and security guards from other stores to take up work from the current workers and ensure control over the goods and assets. In reaction the branch union arranged members to take shifts to keep a watch on their moves. The branch union went to the municipal FTU and labour bureau for assistance.
3.6 Workers staged a protest at the store.
3.7 The first negotiation took place in the store office with the government’s facilitation and the participation of three branch union committee members and three workers as observers. The negotiation got into a deadlock right away with the management pointing at the non-cooperation and discipline issues and the branch union accusing the management of violating the legal procedure in laying off workers.
3.9 Management sent out the official letter of contract termination to workers.
3.10 The municipal FTU agreed the lay off was not conforming to the law. But it failed to get a settlement out of the two meetings it had with the management on 10 and 11 March.
3.14 The government called a second mediation meeting at the store attended by more government representatives from the labor bureau and the department of commerce. The labour bureau representatives dismissed the branch union’s demand for economic compensation claiming that the contract termination in Chengde store was forced by bankruptcy rather than retrenchment, and there is no legal obligation on the employer for compensation. Other government representatives urged the workers to accept the company’s severance offer. Meanwhile the management announced a special award, on top of the severance pack, if workers terminated their contract before 19 March.
3.17 Police were sent to the store to assist the management which started to pack up the goods for moving.
3.18 The third mediation meeting was held by the government. The government representatives sided with the management against the branch union on compensation and due procedure for retrenchment, insisting that Walmart had committed no violation. Pressured by the government, the chairperson and vice chairperson of the branch union started to prepare for delegation of authority to two committee members if they are unable to perform their role in the union.
3.19 Lawyers volunteering to help the union came over and advised them to change the strategy and press for a negotiation with the management without the presence of the government which protected the company rather than workers. Meanwhile the management was pressing the workers harder to accept the severance pack with more phone calls and lobbying.
3.20 The branch union requested the management for a new round of negotiation on 21 March to find a resolution. The three tough issues to be conceded from the management are: (1) double the legal compensation for retrenchment and termination of contract (of one month salary per year of service) plus one extra month salary, called the 2N+1 plan; (2) compensation based on the 2014 wage standard based on the increment signed off in the collective contract; (3) compensation on housing and children’s schooling.
The chairperson and vice-chairperson of the branch union were called to the government office where the officials pressured them to mediate a compromise with the management on the spot and without success. The branch union committee entrusted a group of lawyers and labour academics as their legal advisors including Professor Chang Kai, who took part in the negotiation in the Honda strike in 2010. The union also sent letters to the Hunan Provincial FTU and ACFTU for assistance.
3.21 Police were sent to the store to disperse the workers and took a number of them away, including ZHOU Zhigang who was put under administrative detention. The branch union initiated online fund raising to support further actions.
3.23 The branch union sent an open appeal for solidarity from AFL-CIO.
3.25 Management extended the deadline to 29 March for workers to sign up the company’s severance pack. Zhou was released from custody in the evening.
IHLO, 24 March 2014