A Chinese Wal-Mart store said two weeks ago that it would become the company's first unionized shop in that country. Since then unions have formed at four more Wal-Marts.
Wal-Mart sees its concession in China as part of the political precondition to expanding its stores there.
"The Communist Party of China still runs China and they told them to do this. George Bush isn't going to say that," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of history at UC Santa Barbara and editor of the book "Wal-Mart: The Face of 21st Century Capitalism."
"Wal-Mart thinks it will win by taking a hard line in the U.S., and it is winning," Lichtenstein said.
The company, which has more than 6,600 stores worldwide, plans to open 20 more stores in China this year.
Although Wal-Mart has opposed unionization efforts in North America, it has inherited organized labor groups and unionized workers in several of its international operations, including Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Germany, where the company said last week that it would no longer operate.
China is not the first country in which Wal-Mart has been forced to recognize unions. Two stores in Quebec, Canada -- one of which the company has since shuttered -- voted to establish unions.
And in Britain, the company last month caved to pressure from truckers and warehouse workers at its ASDA stores. They had threatened to strike if the company would not allow their union to expand its bargaining role.
Among foreign firms with Chinese investments, about 20% to 30% of their workplaces in that country are unionized, experts said.
Paris-based Carrefour, the leading retailer in China and Wal-Mart's biggest global competitor, says 70% of its Chinese workers are unionized.
Christian Roquigny, the store manager of a Carrefour in Urumqi, China, said he didn't understand the commotion about unionizing at Wal-Mart.
"Really, the union in China belongs to the [Communist] Party," said Roquigny, whose 79-employee store is unionized. "They never interfere in the daily management as long as we follow Chinese labor laws. They are not a strong force as in France."
If Wal-Mart had not tried to thwart the unions for so long, there would not have been much of an issue, said Anita Chan, a visiting fellow at the Contemporary China Center at Australian National University.
Wal-Mart might have resisted the union because it didn't want to pay 2% of its Chinese payroll to the organization, which is required for trade union activities, she said.
Not all experts on Chinese labor took a cynical view of the company's announcement.
"There's an opportunity here to improve the situation for workers," said Susan Aaronson, a professor at the University of North Carolina's business school and an expert in corporate social responsibility and global trade. "Wal-Mart can move markets. A step forward for Wal-Mart, even if it's a baby step, can have huge market impact."
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Goldman reported from Los Angeles and Lee from Shanghai.
