Labor federations in Los Angeles and Shanghai have announced a partnership to help workers in both cities cope with globalization. This is the first formal link between a U.S. central labor council and its Chinese counterpart, involving the 800,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the six million member Shanghai Municipal Trade Union Council.
Maria Elena Durazo, who heads the Los Angeles federation, outlined the agreement in a telephone conference call from Shanghai. She says Los Angeles and Shanghai have the largest urban economies in the Pacific Rim, and that workers in both cities face similar challenges.
Durazo says trade unionists in China, which is officially communist, have only recently been exposed to profit-making corporations. She says they hope to learn something from the long experience of their Western counterparts.
Chinese unions have had some notable successes. They have recruited workers in three global corporations - Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken - that have resisted unionization in the United States. . (Source: Mike O'Sullivan, Voice of America, Jul 6, 2007).