All-China Federation of Trade Unions

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The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is a federation of over 1.7 million trade unions operating within the People's Republic of China. It currently includes 302 million workers, making it the largest trade union in the world. The ACFTU is divided into 31 regional federations and 10 national industrial unions. Its current chairman is Wang Dongming, whom is also the Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

History

The Federation was founded on 1 May 1925, when the "Second National Labor Congress" of China convened in Canton with 277 delegates representing 540,000 workers, and adopted the Constitution of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. In 1927, the union was censored and restricted by the bourgeois nationalist dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek during that regimes period of mass crackdowns on communist aligned movements.

When the communists eventually took power, Comrade Mao Zedong established the union as the sole national labor union. The union was briefly dissolved during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in favor of revolutionary committees, but it returned soon after, convening once again in 1978.