Workers at two more Wal-Mart outlets in China have unionised to bring the total number of trade unions at its outlets in the country to four, state media reported Monday.
On Saturday night 31 employees at a Wal-Mart store in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, convened to announce the establishment of the third trade union in Wal-Mart's Chinese stores, Xinhua news agency said.
A few hours later 12 employees at a Wal-Mart outlet in Shenzhen city in the southern province of Guangdong elected their first trade union committee, according to the agency.
Previously two other unions had been set up, one of them also in Shenzhen, the other in the southeastern province of Fujian.
For the past two years the world's biggest retailer had resisted efforts to set up local unions. These are all affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which was established by the ruling Communist Party and claims some 150 million members.
However Wal-Mart has always maintained its employees were free to set up unions if they wished and insisted it was "in total conformity with Chinese law."
Joining the union offers staff no guarantee against exploitation, with the official trade union often criticized by international labor rights groups for favoring business interests over workers' rights.
China's law bans workers from forming independent unions or organizing collective bargaining outside the official unions.
Wal-Mart has opened 60 stores in 29 cities and is said to employ more than 30,000 people across the country. It arrived in China in 1996.
