Recruiting in China

ALTHOUGH collective wage bargaining was being used by more companies, it still needed promotion, the Shanghai Trade Union said yesterday.

Along with the Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau and the Shanghai Enterprise Confederation, the union will have a conference promoting collecting wage bargaining this afternoon.

Under collective bargaining, a company's salaries are set after discussion and voting by all the employees.

"Wages are the key issue which directly influences the relationships between workers and employers," said Wu Meng, an official of the Shanghai Trade Union.

"We encourage employers to set up collective bargaining with their workers to ensure that everyone can get a share of the company's success," he said.

Shanghai began collective bargaining in 1998 and by the end of June this year, 46,600 businesses in the city had joined the system which covered about 1.45 million employees.

But the union said this was not nearly enough.

"There were more than 500,000 businesses at the end of last year," Wu said. "So those which have set up collective bargaining only account for a small portion."

Wu said there were 49,000 private businesses in the city and it might be difficult to get every private company involved in collective bargaining because many workers were unaware of their rights.

A union survey found that most employees in privately-owned enterprises thought wages should only be set by the employers.

"They don't believe that workers can negotiate wages with employers," Wu said.