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| The Impact of Role Conflicts on Chinese Enterprise Trade Unions’ Performance and Relevant Implications |
| CHEN Weizheng，REN Han，ZHU Jiuhua，CHEN Xirui，CHEN Yuling |
| 1. Sichunag University， Chengdu， China; 2. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia |
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Abstract Based on the analysis of relevant Chinese laws and the review of related literatures, this study examines three roles which CETUs play，that is, preserving social stability (weiwen)，maintaining normal production order (weixu)，and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of workers (weiquan). These three roles represent three types of responsibilities and expectations from three different entities—government，employers and employees. Therefore, CETUs are facing role conflicts in labour disputes and these role conflicts have a negative impact on their performance of functions. To verify this supposition, 30.3 hours of interviews were conducted with a total of 36 interviewees including trade union cadres, managers and employees from 9 Chinese enterprises. Through axial coding and content analysis, the interview results have been explored to analyze the negative impacts of CETUs’ role conflicts on their function performance both at the organization level of CETUs and at the individual level of union cadres. The results of this study suggest that CETUs should take weiquan (for workers’ rights) as a priority and fundamental responsibility over weiwen (for social stability) and weixu (for production order), and therefore CETUs should be relatively independent to enterprise management to prevent CETUs becoming “unions of administration/management” or “unions of owners”, which may help CETUs to reduce role conflicts and have a full play to their functions.
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Received: 26 October 2015
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2016, Vol. 13 
