Today representatives of the Shanxi-all Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU), the leading organization of trade and industrial unions in Shanxi, China, visited the offices of MoveUP for a meeting and discussion. Their goal was to understand more about how unions in Canada protect labour rights, conduct collective bargaining, and improve workplace health and safety.

Standing Vice-Chairman Mr. Fengping Gao led the delegation of six Shanxi trade union leaders. The meeting began with welcome by MoveUP President David Black, Vice-President Heather Lee, a representative from the Multicultural Committee, and COPE communications staff. The COPE representatives began by giving some background on our union and in particular the work of the Multicultural Committee.

Mr. Gao thanked the COPE representatives for their information and told the other side of the table a bit about the SFTU and its eight million members. SFTU was set up in 1937 and includes 11 city-level union federations, as well as 119 at the county level and 17 industrial unions. Shanxi’s main industries are heavy industry and natural resources.

Both sides found the meeting enlightening and productive. At the end the Shanxi delegation presented COPE President David Black with a plate depicting the Shanxi region. They also presented COPE representative with hand-embroidered table runners. COPE gave the Shanxi delegation some BC VQA ice wine and our red Lunar New Year scarves, which have the MoveUP logo in both English and Chinese.