Since last year I have been following the developments of China's only allowed trade union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) quite closely. Under orders from the central government this collection of tea-drinking government officials were forced out of their offices as a part of the effort to make the society more harmonious.
Well, the migrant workers got some attention and especially the efforts to organize trade union branches at foreign companies in China got a lot of interest. Also internationally foreign trade unions watched breathless as their Chinese brethren organized Wal-Mart. Also were people from the ACFTU very active in organizing the discussion around the new labor contract law.
The question was then and still is whether this is a real change that might push the ACFTU into the direction of a real trade union, or whether it is some window dressing that will disappear when a new show has to take the stage. At least a part of the ACFTU-officials is rather enthusiastic about the new direction their organization has taken.
But since a few months, they seem to have fallen off my online radar screen. Media do not mention the ACFTU anymore and there is certainly a move back to the previous tea-drinking activities.
The question now is whether this is a temporary move ahead of the upcoming party conference in October, or whether the issue of labor issues has definitively fallen off the agenda of the central government.
The overload of priorities has already led to painful choices and for example the environment has drastically dropped on the list of priorities. Labor issues might as well be the next victim in the permanent push-and-pull between the central government and other governmental power brokers.
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