First communist branch for capitalist icon Wal-Mart

IT could be the ultimate marriage of two ideologies. Wal-Mart, the capitalist retailer for the masses, now has its first communist branch.

Earlier this month, Communist Party and Communist Youth League branches and a trade union were set up at a Wal-Mart outlet in the north-eastern industrial city of Shenyang, a staffer in the store’s communications department said yesterday.

A bastion of private business, Wal-Mart Stores 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 labour federation to allow unions in its outlets in China, where it has 30,000 employees.

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

Shenyang Wal-Mart has only two party members and 16 Communist Youth League members out of its 389 employees, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. But the Xinhua report stressed that the branch’s function would be to promote better business.

The party and youth league branches “will encourage members to play an exemplary role in doing a good job and that will be helpful to business development,” it quoted Chen Lie, a Communist Party district leader in Shenyang, as saying.

Chen said the groups would not interfere with management or operations of the retailer, which is based in Bentonville, Ark.

At Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, international division spokeswoman Beth Keck said the party branch opening was a routine matter. “It our understanding that party members and the party have routinely organised branches in enterprises in China and we respect their right to do so.”

Ms 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 there or what the branch in Shenyang would be doing.