The trade union also signed a group contract with the company management, established an aid fund for employees and negotiated salaries.

"I must be responsible for the people who elected me," said He Jinsong, chairman of the trade union of Hucais, a Hong Kong-invested company in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province.

Under the trade union rules, every member with at least one year of employment at Hucais can be a candidate for chairman.

On election day, hundreds of staff, including the general manager, listened to the speeches of the two final competitors, He and another young man. Then the candidates took questions from the audience. More than 500 union members -- 80 percent of the company's staff -- eventually took a secret vote.

Meanwhile in the coastal city of Xiamen, the chairman of the trade union of American Goodrich TAECO Aeronautical Systems (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. has just been ousted by the members, and appointed a new chairman through direct elections.

"Appointing a trade union chairman through direct elections is a meaningful step towards building grassroots democracy after the grassroots elections were carried out in rural China," said Chinese sociologist Lu Xueyi.

"It proves the realization of China's grassroots democracy is being extended from rural to urban areas, from farmers to the working class," Lu said.

To date, a few directly-elected union chairmen have been seen in foreign-invested enterprises in the coastal provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and Shandong, according to Guo Wencai, head of the department of grassroots organization construction of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

The direct election of trade union chairman in enterprises showed the direction of future trade union development, said Guo, and it would spread to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Some bosses were worried that direct elections might raise "competitors," while others welcomed the change, he said.

"I believe it will boost democratic management in the enterprise and arouse the enthusiasm of employees, which will profit the company," said Chan Chengwan, general manager of Hucais Group Co., Ltd.

The working class is regarded as the cornerstone of China's society, and the trade union is the most powerful organization of the working class.

In 2002, China became the world's primary investment target, attracting over US$50 billion in foreign investment. More and more people have found jobs in foreign-invested companies; however industrial relations have also become a controversial and sensitive issue as a result.

China now has 83,900 private and foreign-invested enterprises which have workers congresses. In 9,500 foreign-funded companies, trade union chairmen attend meetings of the board of directors as nonvoting participants.

At the same time, most Chinese enterprises elect trade union chairmen through indirect methods.

(Xinhua News Agency January 27, 2003)