o which they can turn in the event of unfair treatment in violation of current laws. Very much in contrast to Western unions, wage negotiations are not a core function for Chinese unions at this point (see section 4.4). On the national level the ACFTU has been pushing on the legislative front to improve the legal status of the workforce, most notably the new Employment Contract Law. Certain parts of the law were under criticism by European and American lobbyist groups representing Western enterprises interests in China and have been watered down. Worried about wide spread discontent, the government, in a recent push, set quotas to unionize foreign owned enterprises and in a high profile case successfully unionized Wal-Mart in 2004 which elsewhere refuses its workers to organize (Chan, 2005). It comes to evaluating what Chinese unions are actually doing one could have a vivid discussion. Arguments could be as far as that unions are practically non-existent to that unions are doing their very best, given their current status. Perhaps everyone would be able to agree that Chinese unions currently function very different compared to Western unions, both in terms of their organizational structure as in the role they have representing workers interests. For this reason it may not be appropriate to compare them with each other. Certainly the working conditions of Chinese unions are very challenging as they have multiple objectives to keep in mind involving government, enterprises, and the interests of workers. It is only naturally that conflict of interest will arise leading to unstable implementation of policies. The dilemma of unions may question its legitimacy of representing workers. As a result, workers tend to still view trade unions less associated with their representation, as personal linkages between management, government, and union leadership continue to be assumed (Heuer, 2004). Even if grass-root unions are willing to protect its members rights, they still have very little bargaining power over employers. Some authors such as Chen (2003) will argue that after smashing the iron rice bowl the government is sacrificing workers interests for the sake of restructuring the economic system . Local officials preference for GDP growth might also contribute to side with the enterprises desire for a union free labor relationship at the expense of protecting workers legal rights. The government has discovered the potential of unions, but at this stage might still be experimenting on what exact role they should be given even as they are pushing for a stronger unionization rate. As the paternal role of the government has been abandoned this vacuum might be filled by unions (Metcalf and Li, 2...
