The daily worker., 1927-06-20
HOW The CHINESE WORKERS PUT
THEIR TRADE UNIONS TO WORK

Among the triumphs Of the Chi
nese Nationalist movement during the
past five years, none is more re-
markable than the demonstrations of
labor solidarity and the amazing ca
pacity of the Chinese to use the wea-
pons of the western labor world. The
workers in Britain and the United
States have been trying out the strike
and the boycott for more than cen
tury. In the hands Of all except the
most militant and skilled of the west
ern trade unionists, both of these
labor weapons are used, for the most
part, with Indifferent success.
The workers Of China have been
using the strike and the boycott for
a very short time. The first real
strike was that of Hong Kong in
1922. Yet during the ensuing years,
the Chinese workers have demon
strated, in one strike after another,
that they can use the strike weapon
as effectively as any of their west
ern fellow workers.
The boycott is older, as a weapon
Of the Chinese masses. Still its use
in industrial disputes is new for the
Chinese. Here, as in the use of the
strike, the masses of Chinese workers
have shown themselves wonderfully
effective.
Colonel Malone has recently COM
pleted an investigation of the Chinese
labor organizations for the British
Independent Labor Party. Here are
some of his more important findings:
The Modern Trade Union Move
ment is said to have originated in
the South, when DR.. Sun Yat-sen and
the Kuomintang were first established
at Canton; although the earliest in
dustrial strike on a large scale took
place at the steel works of the Han
yehping Cbmpany near Hankow in
the summer of 1919, when the work
ers won their demand for increased
wages. In the same year 26 trade
unions were set up IN Canton and the
movement spread to Hong Kong. A
short but successful strike of over
5000 factory and shipyard workers
in Hong Kong in 1920 gave great
impetus to organization and unions
Of all kinds began to be formed. Lat
or, in January 1922, the great Sea-
mems Strike, of seamen at Hong
Kong and Canton, lasting 56 days
and ending in the recognition of the
Seamen's Union and increases in
8 wages, stimulated the whole move
ment and led to the formation Of
unions in various parts of the coun-
try.
The organization Of trade union
lists on the railways began with a
Conference of Railwaymen in Peking
in 1922, and the strike of the rail-
waymen ON the Peking- -Hankow line,
in the course Of which many of the
strikers were shot down by WI Pei
fu and their leaders arrested and
executed, had a great effect on the
workers in North and Middle China
and a number of unions were organ
lied at Hankow and Wuchang. In
Shanghai also the movement, which
had existed in a struggling condition
since the years of the Great War,
when propaganda office was es-
tablished in 1916, went ahead during
1922, when it is alleged that over
go unions were established in that
city. As National Movement, how
ever, trade unionism dates only from
the Shanghai shootings of May 30,
1925.
The following is list of the num-
her of trade unions and trade union
members which / received from an
organizer in China in June 1926.
Since then, with the arrival of the
Cantonese Army in the Wuhan cities
(Hankow, Wuchang and Hanyang),
numbers of unions have been formed
in those cities and probably at least
$4,000 should be added to the num-
bers on the following list
Statistics of the Chinese Trade