沃爾瑪工會率員工與僱主抗爭

After a long, hot spring of industrial unrest, the Chinese government is trying to bring to a close the last in a series of labour disputes involving some of the world’s most powerful multinational companies.

經歷了一個勞資糾紛如火如荼的漫長春天之後，中國政府正試圖了結一系列勞資糾紛的最後一起。這些糾紛涉及一些全球最強大的跨國企業。

On June 12, neighbourhood committee cadres visited the homes of 69 Walmart employees who remain locked in an arbitration case with their former employer in Changde, a small city in Hunan province.

6月12日，湖南常德的居委會幹部走訪了69名前沃爾瑪(Walmart)員工的家，他們與前僱主的仲裁案仍在僵持。

The neighbourhood officials, who enforce Chinese Communist party diktats at street level, carried pictures of the workers and conveyed a simple message to them and their families: don’t interfere in Walmart’s removal of goods from the store, which closed in March, and accept the retailer’s enhanced settlement offer of Rmb3,000 ($480) each for “legal fees” incurred during the three-month dispute.

這些居委會幹部攜帶着員工的照片，向他們及其家人傳達了一條簡單的信息：不要阻撓沃爾瑪將貨品從門店搬離（該門店已於今年3月關閉），並接受沃爾瑪提高了賠償金額的和解方案，即賠償每人3000元人民幣（合480美元），以補償爲期3個月的勞資糾紛所產生的“訴訟費用”。居委會幹部負責在街道基層執行中國共產黨的指令。

Over recent months, industrial disputes at employers such as IBM and Yue Yuen Industrial, one of the world’s largest shoe manufacturers, have been resolved. Other workers charged with disturbing public order have been released, in contrast to the harsh treatment of human and legal rights activists, such as Pu Zhiqiang.

最近幾個月，IBM和全球最大製鞋企業之一裕元工業(Yue Yuen Industrial)等企業的勞資糾紛已得到解決。其他被控擾亂公共秩序的員工已獲釋，這與浦志強等人權和法律權利活動人士受到的嚴厲處置形成反差。

Chinese officials say they support neither side in the Walmart dispute in Changde and insist that the retailer’s former workers, who are demanding greater compensation, are free to fight for their rights through legal channels. But as evidenced by the neighbourhood committees’ interventions last week, the government is keen to end the unrest.

中國官員表示，他們不支持沃爾瑪常德門店勞資糾紛的任何一方，並堅稱，要求獲得更多賠償的沃爾瑪前員工可以通過法律渠道維權。但居委會上週的干預表明，政府希望了結這些糾紛。

The Yue Yuen Industrial strike, over alleged underpayment of social security benefits, involved tens of thousands of workers, illustrating the potential power of China’s fragmented but rapidly evolving labour movement.

裕元工業的罷工事件涉及數萬名員工，他們指控該公司沒有爲員工足額繳納社保。這起事件顯示出中國零散但正迅速壯大的工人運動的潛在威力。

The country’s only officially sanctioned union, the normally reticent All China Federation of Trade Unions, has traditionally urged workers to seek compromise in disputes with management, even if its members are unhappy with the outcome. The Changde dispute has attracted global attention, largely because of the unusually pugnacious approach taken by the store’s ACFTU branch.

中國唯一得到官方批准的工會——中華全國總工會(All China Federation of Trade Unions)，通常不會做出什麼大動作。該組織一直敦促員工在與管理層的糾紛中尋求妥協，即便工會會員對妥協結果感到不滿意。常德事件引起了全球關注，這主要是因爲沃爾瑪工會採取了不同尋常的積極抗爭策略。

“With the economy slowing and workers more conscious of their legal rights, labour disputes will become even more common,” says Pang Kun, a labour rights lawyer not involved in the Walmart case. “But the internal political climate and the government’s emphasis on ‘stability maintenance’ means that worker protests are likely to be suppressed as soon as they arise.”

“隨着經濟放緩以及員工維護自身合法權益的意識增強，勞資糾紛將變得更爲普遍，”並未參與此次沃爾瑪糾紛的勞動者維權律師龐琨表示，“但國內政治氣候以及政府對‘維穩’的重視意味着，勞動者抗議一旦冒頭，就很可能會被壓下去。”

The Changde case came to a head at an arbitration hearing on May 27 when the head of the outlet’s union, Huang Xingguo, squared off against Walmart’s lawyers from King & Wood Mallesons, an elite Chinese law firm. The retailer had offered workers one month’s pay for every year served, plus another month’s salary. About 60 of the store’s original 130 employees have accepted the offer.

常德糾紛在5月27日的一場仲裁聽證會上達到高潮，當時沃爾瑪常德店工會主席黃興國，與代表沃爾瑪的中國本土精銳律師事務所金杜律師事務所(King & Wood Mallesons)的律師當庭交鋒。沃爾瑪此前的賠償方案是“N+1”，N爲在沃爾瑪工作了多少個年頭，補償“N+1”個月工資。在該門店最初的130名員工中，有大約60人接受了這一補償方案。

Most of the workers at the hearing were women who came dressed in their red Walmart shirts. “Walmart says it values its employees,” Zhou Jun, one of the employees, said as she waited for the session to begin. “But as soon as they don’t need you, they just discard you.”

參加那次聽證會的沃爾瑪前員工大多爲女性，她們到場時都身穿沃爾瑪的紅色襯衣。“沃爾瑪說它重視員工，”員工周君（音譯）在等待開庭時表示，“但一旦他們不需要你了，他們就會把你拋棄。”

Ms Zhou and her colleagues formed a kind of Greek chorus through the three-hour hearing, which was attended by the Financial Times. They murmured or chuckled appreciatively when they felt that Mr Huang, aided by two lawyers, had scored rhetorical points in their debate with Walmart’s legal team, and sometimes hissed at their opponents’ arguments.

在長達3個小時的聽證會，周君與她的同事們就像一個希臘合唱團（Greek chorus，希臘戲劇中由十幾人至50人組成的合唱團，負責合唱或合念旁白——譯者注）。英國《金融時報》也參加了聽證會。每當他們覺得，在兩位律師的幫助下，黃興國在與沃爾瑪律師團隊的辯論中得分時，他們就會低聲贊同或輕笑，有時他們還會在對方陳述時發出噓聲。

Walmart insists that it strictly adhered to its legal obligations in closing about 20 underperforming outlets – part of a restructuring in which it intends to open another 110 stores and hire 19,000 more workers.

沃爾瑪堅持認爲，自己在關閉約20家業績不佳的門店時嚴格履行了法律義務。關閉這些門店是沃爾瑪重組計劃的一部分，該計劃還包括再開110家門店並聘用1.9萬名新員工。