BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A report released on Thursday by the Information Office of China's State Council said the United States restricted workers' right to unionize.

    The union membership fell by 326,000 in the United States in 2006, bringing the percentage of employees in unions to 12 percent, down from 20 percent in 1983, said the report entitled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007."

    "Workers' right to unionize has been restricted in the United States," it said.

    Employer resistance stopped 53 percent of nonunion workers from joining a union, the report cited the New York Times as saying.

    According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, when Wal-Mart stores faced unionization drives, the company often broke the law by, for example, eavesdropping on workers, training surveillance cameras on them and firing those who favored unions, the report said.