China: unions set up at two large tech companies

In what is a first for China’s tech sector, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and the country’s second-largest e-commerce platform JD.com have decided to encourage the establishment of unions at group level. Until now, unions have only had a presence at certain branches in the tech sector and at a local level, such as at another e-commerce giant Meituan as well as at Ele.me, the food-delivery company owned by Alibaba. Little information has been released so far, not least because, as Reuters reports, Didi’s union, announced at an internal forum in August, will initially be run by employees at its Beijing headquarters and will be guided by the government-backed All China Federation of Trade Unions. Union representatives have also reportedly been instructed not to speak to the media and not to identify themselves. At JD.com meanwhile, it emerged that a trade union had been established this week, after a report by a newspaper linked to the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, which published pictures of the launch ceremony. JD.com confirmed the creation of the trade union, which it says will seek to coordinate action undertaken by existing unions set up at some of its local branches. Some analysts see the establishment of these national-level unions – initiated from above rather than by the employees themselves, and guided by government-backed unions – as a way for these large digital companies to deflect the criticism they regularly receive about the working conditions they provide, the lack of social security coverage and constant wage depreciation. In July, the All China Federation of Trade Unions announced guidelines for protecting the rights of gig economy workers, implying that trade unions could play a role. This has been on the table since at least April 2018 but has so far come to little.