China National Seamen Union COSCO Container Lines Committee (COSCON Trade Union) is subject to China National Seamen Union COSCO Committee, governing six basic trade unions. It owns 17,876 members (including seamen and employees from related management organizations), with 2,854 female members. All of the company's employees have joined in the COSCON Trade Union, which is the spokesman and vindicator for the legal benefits of its members and the employees of the company. COSCON Trade Union guides the organizational construction of the basic trade unions, ensuring the rate for the establishment of systems for the employee representative conference to reach 100%, the rate for the establishment of the basic trade union organizations to achieve 100%, the signing rate of the collective agreements to hit 100% and the rate for the publicity of the enterprise businesses to realize 100%.
>> Negotiation system
The company has set up the negotiation system. Under the system, COSCON Trade Union is on behalf of the employees legally to negotiate with the administration of the company for employee benefits in a way of communication and coordination. The negotiation system is based on the principle of regulation compliance, the principle of equality and the principle of the maintenance of harmony and stability. It is used for the realization of the close partnership to promote the harmony and stability of labor relationship to jointly buck for the development of the company by managing to the common understanding on the protection of the legal rights and benefits of the laborers through collective negotiations.
The collective agreements signed by the company and the trade union through negotiations confirmed the company's labor employment, labor pay, work time, break & vacation, social insurance & welfare funds, labor security and sanitation, and the treatment and allocation measures for the redundant employees and employees-for-hire. In addition, it confirmed the term for the collective agreements, the negotiation procedure for the change, termination and pause of the collective agreements, and the rights, obligations, supervision and examination for both parties to fulfill the collective agreements. Finally, it confirmed the contents such as the labor dispute mediation and settlement and liabilities for breach of contract, etc.
The company's distribution and welfare policies and bylaws that will impact the rights and benefits of employees should be negotiated with the trade union and will take effect after they are approved by employee representative conference or its joint conference. Once a labor dispute between the company and employees occurs, the trade union will be consigned by the employees for mediation and settlement and offer legal services. As the important part of COSCO, the company successfully launched initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong in 2005. After it negotiated with the trade union and employees, the company successfully completed the change of the labor contract in July 2005.
>> Enterprise business publicity, employee representative conference system
The company sufficiently implements the system of enterprise business publicity and sets up the “Enterprise Business Publicity Procedure”. A symposium for the top management and employees is held periodically to hear the rational suggestions from employees. The employee representative conference hears and deliberates the company's long-term planning and annual plans and gives the opinions and advices, approves or disapproves the salary & bonus distribution solution and employee benefits-involved important bylaws, decides the plan for the use of the public welfare fund and other employee life welfare-related important items, appraises cadres and brings forward suggestions for encouragement or punishment as well as appointment or deposition, and elects employee representatives as attendees for related organizations.
Democratic Election
The company established the employee democratic management system and holds the employee representative conference once a year. The first session of the fifth employee representative conference was held from Jan. 20 to Jan. 21, 2005. A total of 109 representatives from the COSCON system attended the conference, hearing and reviewing the General Manager's working report in 2005 and hearing and examining the financial working report. With the strong sense of master responsibilities, the employee representatives truly fulfilled their liabilities on the conference to successively make suggestions for the development of the company. The conference received total 11 resolutions from the representatives, democratically apprising the members of the top management & the group and recommending the backup name lists for the posts of leadership in the company. With the serious and responsible spirit, the employee representatives sufficiently considered and voted the employee negotiation representatives for the collective negotiations, the employee representatives for the labor dispute settlement commission and the employee representatives participating in supervision and examination for collective agreements and enterprise business publicity.
>> Learning team
A program called “put employee quality project in practice and create the lean organization” was launched in the company in 2004 for the realization of the idea change from the “lifelong career” to the “lifelong study” by using the employee educational base to strengthen the training. Moreover, the activities for the rational employee suggestions and the group employee skill match are launched under the banner of “I make a suggestion for the safety work and create benefits on my own post”. COSCON ranked No. 2 in the group employee skill match in the system of COSCO. With a theme of “respect, loyalty, liability and execution”, the employee mien lecture match was launched in September 2005. After intensive contest, the 1 st rank award, the 2 nd rank award and the 3 rd rank award were unveiled for the 16 players in the final match. Over 130 employee representatives watched the lecture match.
Employee Mien Lecture Match
After COSCON launched the large container vessels, the management mode of the fleets has changed. Each port division began to contact more and more foreign seamen and communicate with more and more foreign customers and agents. However, the abilities of oral English and communication for the whole COSFRE system cannot keep up with the actual requirements. Thus, the trade union in COSCO China launched the English knowledge contest and enhanced the employee training work to played active role in completely driving the construction of the employee quality project and the improvement of the shipping agency service level.
Books such as the Winner , the Great Game , the Brave in Bearing Responsibility – The most Important Employee Quality to World's Top 500 Enterprises , Fifty Details for a People in all His/Her Life , etc. are recommended and presented to the employees at various levels. In addition, the company widely deploys reading activity as the powerful measure to improve comprehensive employee quality and establish the learning enterprise. Surrounding the theme of “safety is the eternal theme of the enterprise and the biggest benefit of the company”, the company held two phases of the occupational health training class to deploy the training on the knowledge of the occupational health and safety for 162 shipping leaders and safety supervisors at basic level. Furthermore, the company organized the employee symposium under the theme of “regulation compliance and life care” and the “Good Health Cup” labor contest. It advocated all the employees to attach importance to the safety production, strengthen the sense of responsibility, self-consciously abide by the regulations and disciplines, strictly follow the operating procedures and attach importance to the safety culture to construct the harmonious enterprise and promote the family happiness for the joint creation of the safety complexion of “employee healthy, development harmonious”.
