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BIZCHINA / Biz Media Digest

Carrefour lets staff set up trade union

By Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-19 11:27

Retailer Carrefour yesterday announced the opening of a trade union to
cover its five outlets in the city.

The organization, which is the company's first in Guangdong Province,
will have a branch in each outlet and represent some 590 employees. It
will be chaired by Li Wenkai, a department manager at one of the stores.

Pierre Bertholat, vice-president of Carrefour China, said: "We hope the
union will play an active role in organizing activities and do its bit to
contribute to an invigorated corporate culture and to the protection of
the worker's rights."

Joanna Meng, human resources director, said establishing the trade union
was part of its localization strategy.

"Carrefour is witnessing a rapid expansion in China and we will step up
efforts to set up trade unions in all of our outlets across the nation,"
she said.

Carrefour has opened 13 outlets in China this year, taking its total to
100, and plans to open a further 10 by the year's end.

Zeng Fanqiang, trade union chairman of Guangzhou Development District,
where Carrefour's South China territory is registered, said the setting
up of the union was a positive move.

"I hope the union will aid Carrefour's labor-management relations and
unite employees," he said.

More than 70 percent of the province's 36,200 foreign-funded companies
now have a union. Sixty-eight were set up last year.

In addition, more than two-thirds of the multinationals represented in
the province have established unions, with the remainder expected to do
so by the end of the year.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)

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