Employee representatives of Hongyuan catering company hold a conference to collectively negotiate with the employer to raise wages. [PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY]

Almost every employee working at the Hongyuan catering company got a pay rise this year, thanks to a collective bargaining session at a workers conference on April 13 - the sixth such negotiation at the business since 2004.

The Hongyuan catering company, which manages eight restaurants in the capital named Nanmenshuanrou (Instant-boiled Mutton in South Gate), has more than 500 employees.

Some 60 employee representatives attended the latest workers' conference held almost three months ago.

Ma Teng, who is from Gansu province and works in the kitchen, was among them and said six job categories in the kitchen should be remunerated according to their workloads.

"It is core work in the restaurant to cut mutton and workers who cut mutton should be paid more than workers who wash vegetables," Ma said during the conference.

His suggestion was accepted and workers cutting mutton were in line for a raise of 200 yuan a month.

Other workers also proposed suggestions for how employees should be rewarded but only some of them were accepted.

One suggestion that was not acted upon was a call for workers who classify bones to be regarded as skilled workers and paid more.

"We made decisions about pay raises at the conference and they were sent to the labor authority in Chongwen district to be put on record," said Zhang Shuying, chairwoman of the trade union at the company.

The company is a trailblazer, having been selected by the Chongwen trade union in 2004 to take part in the fledgling collective bargaining system with employees. Since then, the process has become an important part of the workers conference every year.

"At the very beginning, employees did not understand the collective bargaining system and did not want to attend," Zhang said.

She said the first workers conference in 2004 lasted just four hours and only about 30 representatives from a workforce of more than 800 attended.

"We only received about 30 suggestions during the four hours. Employees' low awareness of collective bargaining had an adverse impact on the process," Zhang told METRO.

Employees, many of whom have only a primary school education, simply could not believe that they could bargain with their bosses about their wages, Zhang said.

Since then, the trade union has worked hard to educate workers about the process and to encourage them to offer suggestions and ideas.

Zhang said employees have become better informed during the six years that collective bargaining has been in place at the company and they now realize they can get real benefits from the process.

However, whether a pay raise is agreed to or not is still down to the employer.

At the end of last year - the time when workers conferences are ordinarily held - the employer explained that business was not going very well and postponed the conference to April, Zhang said.

She said pay can not be talked about without the employer's permission.

"Only when the employer shows his active attitude to talk about a raise can we grasp the opportunity to organize employees to bargain," Zhang said.

"If the employer does not plan to talk about wages, employees and the trade union cannot demand a raise."

The situation is different to the rough bargaining found in State-owned enterprises and Zhang said it would be unreasonable to expect the same model that works there to work in small privately-owned companies.

She said employees have to understand that they must leave room for employers to make a profit.

"We must find the balance between employees and employers," Zhang said. "Employers also want to make sure the wage they are paying is not lower than the competitors in the industry."

CHINA DAILY