SUMMARY

The period of neo-liberalism in the 1980s and post-Cold War context of the 1990s have challenged trade unions throughout the world. With the onset of market reforms from 1978 onwards, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) began to revitalise its activities. However, reform and WTO entry have posed new challenges to the functioning and legitimacy of the ACFTU. This article analyses the nature of the challenges facing the ACFTU in the reform context and traces its gradual attempts at internal reform. The key argument in the article is that the ACFTU is shifting from being an incorporated organisation to a state corporatist entity. Furthermore, though WTO entry has accentuated the need for the ACFTU to become more active in representing workers, the ACFTU is unlikely to reshape itself institutionally to guarantee either the protection of workers or social stability. From the 1980s onwards trade unions in most countries have experienced declining memberships and diminishing power. The rise of hegemonic neo-liberalism in the 1980s and the subsequent end to the Cold War combined to vindicate the inevitability of market economies and the concomitant supremacy of liberal democracy. In the context of the increasing internationalisation of production and ever-confident global capital, the task of enforcing international and national conventions and laws on employment rights has become even more difficult. The concepts of class and class analysis seem increasingly irrelevant as ne