Police keep hands off
Chinese workers seize managers to save jobs
By Deirdre
Griswold
Factory closings, once a rare occurrence, are on the rise
in the People's Republic of China as the government attempts
to modernize industry and the infrastructure. There are
reports in the Western media of angry demonstrations by
workers protesting the loss not only of their jobs but of
social services connected to their employment.
One such incident occurred in Tianjin in August. Workers
at the Meite Packaging Factory began protesting at the plant
gates when they heard that the company planned to shut down
and relocate the plant. Originally a state-owned firm making
pipes, it had become a joint venture packaging beverages and
then, in a final restructuring, was bought out completely by
the Ball Corp. of Broomfield, Ohio.
Even after many days of protests, the new managers refused
to meet with the workers. Maybe these managers believed the
U.S. news media, which have been constantly telling us that
workers in China are docile and have no rights. If so, they
got a big surprise.
According to the Aug. 31 New York Times, the workers--most
of them middle-aged--marched into the plant and seized six
foreign managers, including one from the United States. They
held them hostage for 40 hours, until they had won some
improvements in severance pay.
"The police did not enter the factory during the ordeal,
calling it an 'internal' matter," reported the Times.
This incident tells us a lot about the situation in China
today.
It reconfirms that what the Chinese leaders call "market
socialism," to the extent that it allows private ownership
and foreign capitalist investment, brings back to the country
the evil social effects of capitalism along with the
technology that China wants. This is a great danger to the
socialist spirit of the people--their solidarity, their
willingness to struggle in the interests of China's
development and future generations.
But it also shows something very important about the
Chinese state. Even though the socialist state that arose
from China's revolution now allows two competing modes of
production--public ownership and private ownership--it is not
comfortable in the role of enforcer for bourgeois property
rights, especially when the private owners represent foreign
interests.
So the state did not rush in and end the hostage situation
by force, as happens so often in capitalist countries.
Is a job a right?
In recent decades, many millions of workers in the
capitalist world have seen their jobs disappear as companies
close down, move away or restructure. The immediate reason
given is often the need to incorporate new technologies to
improve productivity and efficiency. But for the workers who
lose their jobs, there's no gain in either area. It's the
bosses' profits that are being protected and enhanced, not
the workers' ability to earn a living.
In the United States, the more conscious workers have
fought to have their jobs considered a legal property right
that cannot just be taken away unilaterally by management.
The courts, however, have sided with the bosses.
It's not that the courts better understand what is
"right." It's that the courts are bourgeois courts, and
rarely if ever rule in a way that threatens capitalist
property. To them, jobs belong to the owners of the companies
to dispose of as they see fit. The only right the workers
have is to sell their labor power to the bosses. That is, if
the bosses are in the market to buy.
Workers in China have had a very different history ever
since the Communist Party, at the head of a huge army of
peasants and workers, defeated the rule of the landlords and
imperialist-backed capitalists in 1949. China was in the
throes of a social transformation. The goal was a society
where the land and the factories would belong to the people.
It was assumed that everyone had not only the duty but the
right to work and to share equitably in the fruits of their
common labor.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese belonged to work units--in
agriculture, industry and the services--that not only
guaranteed them a job but also provided access to food,
shelter, education and medical care.
As the Times article admits, "Until a decade ago, nearly
all urban Chinese workers received housing, health care and
pensions through state jobs." These are benefits that workers
in the most advanced capitalist countries have not been able
to win.
All this was a monumental task, not only because of
China's vast population, but because of its extreme
underdevelopment compared to the imperialist dominators of
the planet. The Chinese people made heroic efforts to raise
their standard of living. Gains were made, but the hostility
of the imperialists made it nearly impossible to get the
scientific and technological expertise, much less the plant
and equipment, that were propelling forward the capitalist
countries in a second industrial revolution.
In the 1970s, after a sharp internal struggle, China's
leaders embarked on a new course that allowed aspects of
capitalism to grow as a way of developing the country. Now
the "iron rice bowl" of social guarantees has been broken as
enterprises deemed "inefficient" by the government are shut
down.
But along with the growth of capitalist forces in China
comes a rising class struggle by the workers. Their anguish
can be seen in this incident at the Meite enterprise. Also
discernible, however, is the possibility that this new
unfolding struggle by the masses, so clearly directed against
capitalist norms, can eventually push forward China's
socialist revolution to a new level.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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