A Chinese activist who helped create the country's first independent trade union has urged foreign labour campaigners to now embrace the country's much-criticised official body.
Han Dongfang set up the Beijing Autonomous Workers' Federation during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square. It was broken up in the ensuing crackdown and he now works from exile in Hong Kong.
Han says the ban on autonomous bodies has left workers with no choice but to take to the streets over their grievances. Activists often complain that the official union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), is more concerned with ensuring social stability and protecting businesses than fighting for the rights of the world's largest workforce.
But in a striking commentary for the Guardian, Han, director of the workers' rights organisation China Labour Bulletin, argues that a new era of worker activism has forced the ACFTU to look for ways to genuinely represent workers' interests, such as helping to negotiate pay rises.
"Times have clearly changed, and the approach of the international trade union movement needs to change too," he writes.
His remarks follow fresh unrest among workers, including riots and strikes in the Pearl river delta, the country's manufacturing heartland. Fast-rising food prices and broader concerns about their treatment by officials have exacerbated grievances over wages and conditions.
Han argues that the increasingly globalised market makes it vital to give China's hundreds of millions of workers a voice and says the International Trade Union Confederation should discuss affiliation with the ACFTU.
He suggests experienced overseas unions could help it to serve its members better "and eventually become a real trade union".
While the Communist party will determine its development, even the party now has to listen and respond to workers' "increasingly clear and angry calls for change," he concludes.
