Speech by Zhong Hongjiang, Vice Chairman of the ACFTU and Secretary of the Secretariat. September 7th, 2024
Dear President Shmakov, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, friends, Good morning!
Thanks to the warm invitation and hard work of the organizers, today we gathered in the beautiful, modern and dynamic coastal city of Sochi, Russia. On behalf of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), I would like to introduce China and the trade unions in China, as well as the views of Chinese trade unions on the BRICS Trade Union Forum.
The current domestic political and economic situation in China
Under the strong leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China(CPC), China's politics is generally stable, the economy is progressing steadily, the employment is generally stable, the people's livelihood are improving, new development momentum is accelerating, and new progress has been made in high-quality development.
According to the preliminary calculation by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the GDP in the first half of the year was 61.68 trillion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 5.0% at constant prices. In terms of industries, the added value of the primary industry was 3.07 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.5%; The added value of the secondary industry was 23.65 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.8%; The added value of the tertiary industry was 34.96 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.6%.
The employment situation is generally stable, and the urban survey unemployment rate has dropped. In the first half of the year, the national urban survey unemployment rate averaged 5.1%, down 0.1 percentage point from the first quarter and 0.2 percentage point from the same period of last year. The survey unemployment rate in 31 big cities and towns is 4.9%.
At the end of the second quarter, the total rural labor force of migrant workers was 190 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.6%. In the first half of the year, the per capita disposable income of the national residents was 20,700 yuan, a nominal increase of 5.4% year-on-year, and a real increase of 5.3% after deducting the price factor. The national consumer price (CPI) rose by 0.1% year-on-year.
One of the important reasons why China's economy can maintain good growth lies in its high level of opening-up to the outside world. As you may know, in July this year, the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was held in Beijing.
This meeting is of great significance in the political and economic life of China. At the meeting, the issue of further comprehensively deepening reform and promoting Chinese modernization was reviewed. The plenary session deliberated and adopted the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China's Decision on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Modernization, which fully released a clear signal that China will further comprehensively deepen reform, further expand high-level opening-up and further promote high-quality development. China will interact with the world with the attitude of more development and more openness, enhance its openness in expanding international cooperation, share development opportunities and dividends with other countries, create more new opportunities for all countries in the world, and inject more positive energy into global development.
The situation of ACFTU and the current key work
ACFTU is a working-class mass organization led by the CPC, which combines workers voluntarily, and implements the principle of combining industry with local organization. At present, there are 10 national industrial trade unions and 33 provincial-level general trade unions.
Trade unions in China hold a national congress every five years, and elect the executive committee of the ACFTU, the highest leading organ. The executive committee elects a presidium, and the presidium produces a general secretary's office. Founded in 1925, the ACFTU is the leading organ of local trade unions at all levels and national organizations of industrial trade unions.
In October, 2023, the 18th National Congress of ACFTU was successfully held in Beijing, and General Secretary Xi Jinping and other party and state leaders attended the meeting, which fully reflected the important role played by ACFTU in "being loyal to the party's cause and wholeheartedly serving the workers" and the great importance attached by CPC and government to trade union work.
At present, the ACFTU is carrying out special projects and actions around the new employment form of workers' rights protection service, the intelligentilisation of trade unions and the rule of law.
The key works are five Major Projects, five major actions and nine aspects.
"Five Major Projects": the project of ideological and political guidance of the workers and staff, the project of innovative creation of the workers and staff, the project of industrial workers' team, the project of typical benchmark selection, cultivation, demonstration and publicity, and the project of intellectual trade unions; "Five major actions": three-year action to protect workers' rights in the new employment forms, three-year action to build trade unions in non-public enterprises, three-year action to build small-scale third-level trade unions, "12351+" special action to solve problems urgently for workers, and special action to implement supervision according to labour-related laws;
Focus on nine aspects:
First, strengthen the ideological and political guidance of workers, in terms of political, extensive and effective issues;
Second, organize and mobilize employees to make contributions to ensure the effectiveness of the work;
Third, perform the basic duties of rights protection services and solve important, difficult and urgent problems;
Fourth, promote the construction of harmonious labor relations and improve the consultation and coordination mechanism of labor relations;
Fifth, effectively consolidate the grassroots foundation of trade union work and focus on promoting the establishment and entry into force of grassroots trade unions;
Sixth, deepen the legalization of trade union work, ensure the implementation of work and provide intelligent services;
Seventh, strengthen the exchange and cooperation between trade unions and workers, build a platform, strengthen cooperation and optimize publicity;
Eight, speed up the pace of the construction of trade unions' digitalization, provide excellent service, improve efficiency and systematization;
Ninth, improve the level of construction of the cadre team in the trade union system, and focus on emphasizing politics, advancement, and purity.
Views on the theme of the 13th BRICS Trade Union Forum
The theme of the 13th BRICS Trade Union Forum is "Strengthening multilateralism for equitable global development and security", which I fully agree with and attach profound practical significance and value of the times.
First of all, strengthening multilateralism is an inevitable trend in today's world development.
Today, with the deepening of globalization, the interdependence among countries is deepening, and no country can cope with global challenges alone. Only through multilateral cooperation can we effectively deal with global problems and promote world peace and development. As representatives of emerging economies, BRICS countries should continue to hold high the banner of multilateralism, safeguard the international system with the United Nations at the core, resolutely resist acts that undermine the international order and trample on international rules, and promote an equal and orderly world multipolarisation and inclusive economic globalization.
Secondly, trade unions should devote themselves to safeguarding world peace and development.
The realization of workers' rights and interests is inseparable from a peaceful international and domestic environment and sustained economic and social development, and trade union organizations in various countries should devote themselves to safeguarding world peace and development. Trade union organizations strive to improve workers' living conditions and working environment, maintain the harmony and stability of labor relations, help reduce inequality and social conflicts, and create a more stable social foundation for maintaining world peace and security. The BRICS Trade Union Forum provides a multilateral exchange platform for trade unions of various countries to jointly discuss and solve global problems. We should actively participate in the discussion of the forum, learn from each other, jointly promote the development of trade unions and make positive contributions to the realization of world peace and development.
We believe that promoting the building of a community of human destiny is the best solution to achieve peace and development. Building a community of human destiny aims at building a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness, tolerance, cleanliness and beauty, takes promoting global governance through consultation, joint construction and sharing as the realization path, takes practicing the common values of all mankind as the universal adherence, takes promoting the construction of new international relations as the basic support, takes the implementation of global development initiatives, global security initiatives and global civilization initiatives as the strategic guidance, and takes the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road as the practical platform to push all countries to work together to meet challenges and promote common prosperity.
Views on the expansion of BRICS and the absorption of new members
BRICS countries are an important force in shaping the international pattern. Since the establishment of the BRICS cooperation mechanism, BRICS countries have always adhered to the BRICS spirit of openness, tolerance, cooperation and win-win, independently chosen the development path, jointly defended the right to development, and jointly moved toward modernization, which represents the direction of human society and will surely profoundly affect the world development process.
The expansion at the beginning of this year created a milestone in the development of the BRICS mechanism and opened a new era of "global South" uniting and strengthening itself. The expanded "Big BRIC" will surely push the global governance system towards a fair and reasonable direction, and will surely enhance the representation and voice of the "Global South" in international affairs.
Since its establishment in 2012, the BRICS Trade Union Forum has actively carried out dialogues with government agencies in various countries, continuously strengthened exchanges and cooperation among trade unions in BRICS countries, and constantly United trade union partners in friendly countries, with its growing influence, which has attracted the attention of the international labor movement community.
China Trade Union is an active advocate and promoter of the BRICS Trade Union Forum. It hosted the BRICS Trade Union Forum twice in 2017 and 2022, and played an active role in promoting trade union cooperation in BRICS countries. We highly appreciate the decision of the BRICS countries to expand their membership and recruit new member countries, and we also expect the trade unions of new member countries to join the BRICS Trade Union Forum. We warmly welcome the trade union organizations in Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia, which will formally join the BRICS Trade Union Forum.
We believe that the BRICS Trade Union Forum will provide more opportunities and platforms for new member organizations to participate in global labor governance. On the basis of the principles of equality, mutual respect, openness, inclusiveness and constructive cooperation, China trade unions are willing to continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation with all member organizations of the BRICS Trade Union Forum and jointly promote the sustained and healthy development of the BRICS International Trade Union Forum.
Trade unions in BRICS countries should play an active role in BRICS cooperation mechanism.
As representatives and defenders of workers' rights and interests, the trade unions in BRICS countries should shoulder their due missions and responsibilities. In this regard, the China Trade Union put forward the following initiatives:
(i) Trade unions in BRICS countries should promote the upgrading of workers' skills. In order to meet the challenges brought by the development of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and climate change, the trade unions in BRICS countries should urge all parties to increase the vocational skills training of workers, promote the realization of inclusive and equal lifelong vocational skills training, and continuously improve the employment competitiveness of workers. Trade union organizations can also improve workers' skills and creativity by organizing skills training and labor competitions, and promote sustained and high-quality economic development.
(ii) Trade unions in BRICS countries should be committed to safeguarding the right of employees to development. The rights to subsistence and development are the primary basic human rights.
Trade unions in BRICS countries should safeguard social fairness and justice, promote people's all-round development, respect and protect workers' right to development, and promote the realization of workers' extensive, fair and true human rights. We call on the international labor community to pay attention to the right to development of emerging market countries and developing countries, and oppose any use of human rights issues to promote biased and unfair values, ideologies, political standards and development models, and to interfere in the labor affairs of other countries, especially developing countries, on the pretext of human rights issues.
(iii) The trade unions of BRICS countries should be committed to promoting the common aspiration of BRICS countries. Trade unions in BRICS countries should be committed to strengthening exchanges and mutual learning among BRICS countries. Through exchanges and cooperation, we will promote mutual learning and mutual learning between trade unions and workers in member countries, enhance understanding and friendship between trade unions, workers and people in member countries, and lay a solid public opinion foundation for the development of BRICS cooperation mechanisms.
(iv) Trade unions in BRICS countries should be committed to promoting the reform and improvement of the global governance system. Strengthening global governance is the right choice for the international community to share development opportunities and meet global challenges. Trade unions in BRICS countries should uphold the BRICS spirit of openness, tolerance, win-win cooperation, support "BRIC+"cooperation, promote the expansion process of BRICS countries, allow more countries to join the BRICS family, gather wisdom and pool strength, and promote the development of global governance in a more just and reasonable direction.
I wish all colleagues and friends a happy work and good health. I wish the forum a complete success!
Thank you!