A Mix of Party Line, Product Lines

Wal-Mart, capitalist retailer for the masses, now has its own Communist Party branch in China.

This month, Communist Party and Communist Youth League branches and a trade union were set up at a Wal-Mart store in the northeastern industrial city of Shenyang.

A bastion of private enterprise, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has fought efforts to form unions elsewhere in its worldwide operations. But in recent weeks it said it agreed to work with the state-sanctioned labor federation and accept unions in its outlets in China, where it has 30,000 employees.

It was not clear how the party branch would operate or whether it had an office in the Shenyang store.

At Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., international division spokeswoman Beth Keck said the party presence was a routine matter.

“It is our understanding that party members and the party have routinely organized branches in enterprises in China and we respect their right to do so,” she said.

Keck declined to comment when asked if the party branch opening was related to the recent spread of official Chinese trade unions at Wal-Mart stores or what the branch in Shenyang would be doing.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions has been campaigning for several years to set up party-controlled unions in Wal-Mart stores as well as at other foreign-invested companies, reportedly at the behest of President Hu Jintao.

Wal-Mart, which has 60 stores in 30 Chinese cities, resisted for two years before employees in the southeastern city of Quanzhou successfully voted to create a union in late July.

Shenyang’s Wal-Mart has only two party members and 16 Communist Youth League members among its 389 employees, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.