The "Wenling Model" Promoted By Trade Unions

"This year workers' wages are expected to increase by about 10% over last year."

Chen Fuqing's tone affirmed to our reporter.

As the chairman of the trade union of woolen sweater industry in New River Town, Wenling City, Zhejiang, Chen Fuqing will represent 12000 sweater workers in New River town next month, signing the 2010 annual salary consultation agreement.

This will be the eighth wage negotiation agreement he signed.

In the eighth years as chairman of the trade union union, Chen Fuqing, a self employed worker and a 60 year old driver, still rides a bicycle through the streets of New River town.

Bicycle is a witness of Chen Fuqing's work in the 8 years of trade union. Now the bicycle he rode is already "third".

In 8 years, Chen Fuqing had broken two bicycles and had been knocked down by motorcycles with three stitches.

The bicycle also witnessed Chen Fuqing's many cold shoulder when he first became a trade union chairman 8 years ago.

First agreement

"Difficult to see, ugly face, bad words."

Chen Fuqing summed up his initial situation into 9 words.

In early 2003, in order to work out a labor price table acceptable to both employers and employees, Chen Fuqing began to investigate the wage situation of woolen sweater enterprises in New River Town, hoping to get the labor price tables of various factories, which for enterprises.

After encountering many closed doors or cold faces, Chen Fuqing turned to the town government. At last, he held the "wage talk Symposium on the staff and workers of the woollen sweater industry" in June 13th of that year. 13 staff representatives and 8 business owners sat together to negotiate.

Chen Fuqing recalled the negotiation process at that time: we made a labor price table based on 5 types of work and 59 processes, and made a secret offer by the workers to the labor price table, while the boss also reported his wages, and then the two sides discussed the controversial labor price.

"In fact, the difference between the two sides is not big, about 10% of the difference."

Chen Fuqing said, but still came back and forth to negotiate more than ten rounds, and made several adjustments to the labor price standard.

The government must come forward to do the work.

The final determined labor price will be the lowest wage in the industry.

In August 8, 2003, the New River town trade union, representing the staff and workers, signed a trade association with representatives of enterprises.

"The agreement is not easy to come by," Chen Fuqing sighed. The wage level before the signing of the agreement is 680 yuan, and the agreement requires "minimum wage of not less than 800 yuan per month", and wages must be paid from 25 days to 28 days after the month's output settlement. If there is any difficulty, the consultation with the trade union will be postponed appropriately.

"The minimum wage is 800 yuan, which was not easy in the whole country at that time."

Chen Fuqing told reporters.

In order to better implement this successful attempt, in August 2003, the New River town sweater industry union was established, and the first industry union of non-public enterprises began.

Chen Fuqing, vice chairman of the town trade union, served as chairman of the trade union.

Long sleepy

The wage negotiation system in New River town was also forced out.

The woollen sweater factory in New River town is concentrated on both sides of the highway on Lantau Island, as well as many garment industries in China. In the mid 80s of last century, it developed from family workshops, from the initial four or five scale to nearly 100 in 1998, and then to the 116 enterprises at most, nearly 1 billion yuan annual output value and 12000 workers.

Among the workers in Lanzhou woolen sweater industry, 70-80% accounts for other provinces, and labor disputes also continue to pour into the local industry with the experience of migrant workers.

Woolen sweater production has a weak season.

Every April to December is the peak season, and January to April is the off-season.

This instability leads directly to the instability of workers.

Every March and April, workers fly like migratory birds. They fly past in December and fly away like migratory birds.

Whether wages can be settled on time will become the focus of conflict between workers and employers.

The woolen sweater enterprises on Lantau are not large in scale, and some of them only have annual output value of 34 million yuan.

"Money" is not big. "Gas" is not natural.

Chen Fuqing introduced that before 2003, some bosses had to pay their living expenses only at the end of the year in order to "bind" the workers, and the wages were paid at the end of the year.

Therefore, especially when enterprises are in poor management, they often default and deduct wages.

In August and September, the peak season of production is also the frequent occurrence of petitions and stoppages caused by wage problems.

In 2002 alone, the number of petitioners in the sweater industry accounted for 45% of the total town visits.

Unreasonable labor prices and irregular employment often result in frequent job hopping and skilled workers are hard to stabilize.

The shortage of workers in the busy season has become the collective dilemma of the Lanzhou sweater factory and has become a bottleneck restricting the growth and strengthening of the local industry.

However, this situation has been significantly improved after collective wage negotiations. In 2003, the woolen sweater industry in Lantau petitions for labour disputes decreased by 70% compared with the same period in 2002.

"In 2006, we achieved zero complaints about wage disputes."

Chen Fuqing is proud of this result.

Progress in "consultation"

How to look at the "Wenling model" of wage consultation?

"This is a good phenomenon and a manifestation of fair and fair competition among different interest groups in the society."

Zhong Dajun, a famous economist, said in an interview with our reporter that the "Wenling model" is very good and worth spreading to the whole country.

Zhong Da Jun analyzed that when China increased its openness to the outside world, the whole economy was linked to the world's strong economic bloc.

In this process, China unknowingly became the object of cheap looting.

To a certain extent, this situation has led to a large number of low wage strata in China.

To change this phenomenon, our country must speed up the process of industrialization, and adjust the industrial structure and urban and rural social structure as soon as possible to a reasonable state.

But in this process, if we maintain a low wage state for a long time, it is likely that China's industrialization and modernization will go into a malformed state.

"Wage negotiation mechanism is a kind of progress. Previously, only the boss interest group had the final say, the workers did not have the mechanism to compete with the boss, and now there is a wage consultation mechanism, so the income distribution is fair and reasonable, which is conducive to the long-term development of the whole industry and economy."

Zhong Dajun thinks.

Today, the wage consultation system has been highly valued by state leaders and relevant departments.

In November 26, 2007, Premier Wen made important instructions: "the practice of Wenling can be summarized and promoted."

The National Union recently convened a special meeting to propose that the collective contract system should be implemented in all kinds of trade union enterprises by 2012, and the collective wage consultation should be implemented in an all-round way.

The latest news from the all China Federation of trade unions shows that up to now, 13 provinces have issued documents to promote collective wage consultations, and 23 Provincial People's congresses have formulated local regulations such as "collective contract provisions" or "collective contract regulations".

In addition, the wage regulations drafted by the Ministry of labor and social security will be promulgated within the year, and the terms of the wage consultation system will be included.

From July 1st onwards, Beijing, Henan, Shenzhen, Shaanxi, Anhui, Hainan and other provinces and cities at the same time raise the minimum wage standards, an average increase of more than 20%.

There are 27 provinces or municipalities that have raised or planned to raise minimum wage standards this year.

A nationwide "wage surge" and "wage consultation" are heating up again.

Raise salary space

Accompanied by the booming machinery of the yarn workshop, the staff of Wenling twelfth woolen sweater factory (a pseudonym) described to the newspaper reporters many years ago: "I am a native, and have worked in the woolen sweater industry for 10 years.

8 years ago, my salary was only seven hundred or eight hundred yuan, very low. "

However, Xiao He said that wages would rise a little every year, and trade unions would negotiate prices with enterprises every year.

According to the press, all enterprises involved in wage negotiations in New River town participate in the consultation according to the proportion of 5-10% of each factory worker.

"Now there is not much difference in the wage level of the sweater workers in the whole New River town. The average worker can get more than 2000 yuan, and the most can get four thousand or five thousand yuan."

Xiao He said.

Under the joint efforts of the town government, trade unions and trade associations, the woolen sweater industry in New River town is raising wages for workers at the rate of 5-12% per year.

Because the "agreement" signed by the wage negotiation is submitted to the Municipal Labour and Personnel Bureau for record, the effect is equivalent to the labor contract.

Moreover, it is necessary to constantly revise the wages according to the development and changes of the industry, which means that the "change" is likely to rise or fall.

More than 90% of woollen sweater factories in New River town have been involved in wage negotiations. Local surveys show that wages for local sweater enterprises are almost below the wage standard of the industry, and even most enterprises are higher than the standard 5-10%.

However, the production profit of woolen sweater is limited, coupled with the rising cost of raw materials this year, can the woolen sweater enterprises in New River town still bear large salary increases?

For this problem, Wang Xinfa, President of Wenling woolen sweater Association and Wenling twelfth sweater factory owner, admitted in an interview with our reporter: "business is harder to do now."

90% of the sweaters produced in New River are sold domestically. Wang Xinfa has been making woolen sweater factory since 1992, and has laid a good foundation over the years. Even during the financial crisis, Wang Xinfa's life was not sad.

According to him, last year, the factory was in good condition, without shortage of orders and employment stability, but it was "not very good" in the first half of this year. As for the second half of the year, "the situation is not easy to say."

For reasons, Wang Xinfa also said that it is not clear, but he believes that the wage increase does not have much to do with the quality of the business, "everything is the market economy, the time to rise, so that we can ensure the normal production."

Next month is the most productive season for sweater production. Wang Xinfa said, the most important thing for the boss to consider is to win high profit orders.