ACFTU

Mr Hoffa said he had urged the ACFTU to be as aggressive in organising in local private companies as it had been with foreign enterprises.

Beijing itself is choosing to maintain a wary silence, allowing local officials and ACFTU chapters handle events one factory at a time.

But nothing at all has changed with regard to workers' rights, as a statement from the country's government-backed trade union shows.

The ACFTU's Yellow Hats were not, however, able to interrupt the Honda workers' momentum.

But for all the ACFTU's propaganda, few expect it to emerge as a strident new champion of workers' rights.

In name, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is a vast union bureaucracy running from the national level to small enterprises.

McDonald's says that its agreement with the ACFTU to set up unions in its Guangzhou stores predates the government investigation.

ACFTU officials in Shenzhen declined requests for an interview.

Zheng Ma, a lawyer at one of the firms, says: "I see changes in the Shenzhen ACFTU's attitude. It wants to provide better service. "

The role and influence of ACFTU branches and party committees at Chinese state-owned companies is even more vague.

For all the ACFTU's fulminations , critics say many companies will continue efforts to evade the law or else simply ignore it.

That raises the prospect of in-house unions that are independent in practice, if not in name, from the government-affiliated ACFTU.

"If there are problems, the company has to deal with them itself, ACFTU is not asking them to change, " Guo told beyondbrics on Thursday.

Party leaders have ensured that the ACFTU has a monopolist position.

The Chinese government still frowns on strikes and the establishment of unions independent of the ACFTU remains illegal.

"The Labour Contract Law presented ACFTU with a big opportunity. "

In 2003, the ACFTU made efforts to make migrant workers into trade unions management sequence.

Now he worries that ACFTU is being reined in because of the government's concerns over the economic outlook.

The role of the ACFTU, in the government's eyes, is to prevent worker unrest.

ACFTU has a monopoly on trade unionizing in China and creation of competing unions is illegal.

"It is not just in the US but the entire trade union movement is starting to engage more and more with China and the ACFTU, " she says.

Construction, the ACFTU issued on the settlement of housing issues facing urban living special notice of a number of observations

ACFTU Hotel: Beijing Hotels - China Hotel Beijing Hotel Reservation