4. Case study: Top Toy, Brio and Coop in China - Swedwatch

– If you really want the workers' rights to be respected, you need to make sure that there is a
possibility for this. You need to put pressure on the factory managers and let the workers vote
for their own representatives, said Han Dong Fang, the head and the founder of China Labour
Bulletin, CLB.
Han Dong Fang considers, just like Elisabeth Tang at the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade
Unions, that it is a matter of democratising the official trade union organisation, ACFTU,
from below. The idea is that the workers themselves get to choose their representatives and
that they start a real trade union work from the factory floor. However, they would have to
belong to ACFTU, as this is the only trade union allowed. Some trials in that direction have
already been undertaken. The best-known example is where Reebok has been the driving
force as a foreign company 145 . In an article about the trials, Doug Cahn, head of the Reebok
programme of human rights, said:
– The suppliers in China are incredible when it comes to finding ways of cheating us. The
best inspectors are the workers themselves.
A step in the right direction of employees choosing their trade union representatives
themselves at the workplaces is to give the workers education about their rights and about the
codes of conduct of the companies, according to several organisations that SwedWatch spoke
to 146 .
– There is only one way. To introduce an even stronger membership in the union and make
the workers become more and more active. In that way the workers can play an important role
in the organisation. If they can get more power and get stronger from below, they can increase
pressure upwards. The higher official trade representatives will then be forced to listen to their
members, explained Han Dong Fang.
60