VIETNAMESE AND CHINESE LABOUR REGIMES:ON THE ROAD TO DIVERGE(3)

　　In the foreign-funded sector，the governments and their trade unions in bothChina and Vietnam regard the escalation of industrial conflict as a pressing problem.With the promulgation of the labour laws，both perceive that maintaining labourpeace in this sector will entail setting up union branches in such firms.But toquickly set up large numbers of workplace unions is an impossible task，especiallyin China where the number runs into the tens of thousands.

　　Unionization figures for China's foreign-run firms are，at best，approximations.[77]After the labour law was put in place ，to fulfil new enrolment quotas local unionofficials were dispatched to foreign-run factories to seek approval from managementto set up a union branch.More often than not the union chair who emerged came fromwithin the managerial staff and in some cases was none other than the enterprise'smanager.[78]The national press held up as a model of success the Shekou IndustrialZone trade union，which had begun its expansion into the foreign-funded sectorseveral years earlier and was the first to attain a unionization rate of 99percent.Yet a 1993Guangdong province trade-union report gives the following figures：of the 250trade union chairs at the foreign-funded factories in Shekou，13per cent simultaneously held top managerial positions ；another 44per cent werefactory department managers ；and the remaining 47per cent were lower-level managerialcadres，production line supervisors，or ordinary workers.[79]New unions set upin this manner are at best ineffective；at worst they have become a managementtool to control workers.In the Shanghai region these management-controlled unionbranches have been mushrooming in recent years.[80]

　　Although the number of foreign-funded enterprises in Vietnam only stood at 1，400in 1996，unionizing them all within six months was no easy task either.Betweenmid-1994and 1996the unionization rate at such firms increased from 15per cent[81]to 20per cent.[82]In the new economic zones such as Tan Thuan near Ho Chi MinhCity，as in China，there is also the problem that the newly-established workplaceunions are dominated by the management.The zone's deputy manager is simultaneouslythe head of the zone's trade union.Under such a personnel set-up ，the 14unionizedforeign enterprises out of 34in the zone are likely to be management-dominated.

　　A notable difference between Vietnam and China lies in the emergence of spontaneouslabour groups called？labour associations ìand ？occupational unions ì，due toVietnamese workers'demands in the foreign-funded and other sectors.This is particularlythe case in Ho Chi Minh City，which has a history of adversarial industrial relations，as noted earlier in the chapter.[83]Taxi drivers in Ho Chi Minh City ，after participatingin industrial actions and strikes ，set up their own union in 1996.[84]By 1996，492labour associations totalling 21，800members[85]had been organized by cyclodrivers ，cooks，market porters and the like in the non-state sector.[86]Thusfar even the official trade unions are not clear about the status of these labourassociations.The VGCL gives them moral support but no money.

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