Despite that, Guo is confident that the federation will bring all Wal-Mart employees under the aegis of a trade union.

"As for a timetable, it's within the near future," he said.

Joe Hatfield, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Asia, said in a statement: "I fully anticipate working collaboratively with leadership from ACFTU and union organizations at all levels to create a model working relationship." Wal-Mart China also said it has been respecting the "wishes and choices" of its employees to help facilitate the nascent unions.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, opened its first store in China in 1996 and has 28,000 Chinese employees. It has few unions elsewhere in its worldwide operations.

The ACFTU hopes setting up trade unions in Chinese Wal-Mart stores will encourage other foreign investors in China to follow suits.

"After succeeding in this difficult case, our efforts at unionizing employees in other companies will become easier," Guo said.

As of last September, only 18,000 foreign companies out of the total of 78,000 in China had set up trade unions. "There is a long way to go in our goal to setting up trade unions wherever there are workers," added Guo.

Guo yesterday also ruled out the rumour that some ACFTU employees joined the trade unions after receiving "gift money" from local trade union federations and the ACFTU.

"That's nonsense. I've never heard of that," said Guo. But he admitted that Wal-Mart union members did accept "material support" from a local trade union federation to facilitate the setting up of their organizations.

He also said the ACFTU has received some local reports that Wal-Mart plans to retaliate against anyone joining the trade unions.

"We are waiting and seeing," said Guo. "If anything happens, we have legal weapons in our hands."

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)