SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- China's state-affiliated labor union said Friday it expects U.S. fast-food companies McDonald's and KFC to set up branches in some outlets in southern China within this year.þþHang Yuan, a spokeswoman for the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, said the group has been discussing the issue of setting up such organizations with McDonald's China and Yum Brands Inc., which operates KFC and Pizza Hut.þþThe ACFTU, the national umbrella group for government-approved unions, is in the midst of a campaign to boost the group's presence in foreign companies, which employ some 25 million people in China but until recently resisted allowing labor organizing.þþ''We have never given up our efforts to talk foreign companies into setting up workers' unions,'' Hang said. ''Their Guangdong branches have given us the very promising response that they will set up union branches within this year,'' she said in a telephone interview from the trade federation's headquarters in Beijing.þþMcDonald's China spokesman George Gu could not immediately be reached. A spokeswoman for Yum said she could not comment immediately on the issue.þþBut pressure on the fast-food giants has mounted since a Chinese newspaper reported that the companies underpay their part-time workers in some areas of China by up to 40 percent below minimum wage of about $1 an hour.þþChinese labor officials have launched investigations, while the companies have said they are seeking clarification of recently amended labor laws to ensure compliance.þþChina does not allow workers to organize independently, requiring all such activities to take place under the oversight of the ACFTU. Labor activists are frequently jailed and harassed.þþIn recent years the organization, long considered more an ally of state-controlled management than of workers, has lobbied foreign companies to allow the creation of union cells in their China operations. The ACFTU says its goal is to prevent worker-management confrontations. þþ
Source: NY Times
