State-backed union to push into Big Four

The world’s Big Four accounting firms will watch this year as many of their employees in China unionize through the country’s state-backed union, Reuters reported. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions will target the firms’ some 40,000 employees in the mainland, state media reported last week. The push is more about establishing connections between workers and the Communist Party, not negotiating workers’ rights, said Paul Gillis, a professor of practice at Peking University. “It’s not alarming for the Big Four,” he said. About 91% of foreign firms have unionized nationwide.