China's Troubled Workers

Abstract

For financial managers monitoring trade from the tall towers of Wall Street, China's high-growth economy inspires awe and investments. To the men and women employed on the factory floor of the People's Republic, however, the economic scene looks grimly different. China's workers are in trouble, some in deep trouble. Since their inauguration in 1978, Deng Xiaoping's economic re forms have wrought vast changes in the nation's labor force. While diversifying the types of enterprises in China, the reforms have exac erbated labor problems across all of them: state-owned firms, joint ventures, urban, township, and village collectives, domestic private firms, and foreign-funded enterprises. A key innovation of Deng's socialism with Chinese characteristics was that some people would get rich first. But most workers, the supposed masters of the country, are still waiting for their share. Some economists claim that the workers' day will come with fur ther growth, but double-digit growth rates do not necessarily trans late into a better life for workers. After a decided improvement in living standards during the first half of the 1980s, income inequal ity has widened, with workers' social status declining apace. In 1978, 27 percent of the members of the National People's Congress were worker representatives. Their numbers declined to 15 percent in 1983,12 percent in 1988, and 11 percent today. Worse yet, many so