However, people have seen such remarks in the media that "the restructuring of state-owned enterprises and the wave of layoffs are the basis for the subsequent economic take-off", state-owned enterprise employees are laid off because they are eager for comfort, "it is far less easy to struggle in the market than in state-owned enterprises" and "most people have a better life after coming out of the wave of layoffs" ...
This argument was quite popular in previous years, but it was unfair to the workers in the laid-off tide.
"Laid-off" is a word with China characteristics.
Laid-off is the word with the highest frequency in the 1990s.
The basic explanation of being laid off refers to leaving the post to perform tasks, which is different from being on the job and being on the job. In the 1990s, the word laid-off took on a unique meaning in China: employees lost their jobs because of bankruptcy or layoffs.
In essence, laid-off workers are unemployed, but there are subtle differences between them: the unemployed terminate their labor relations with enterprises, and the files are transferred to the labor and social security departments in the streets and towns where their household registration is located; Although the laid-off workers are unemployed, they have not terminated their labor relations with the original enterprise, and the file relationship is still in the original enterprise.
Most countries and authorities in the world only have the concept of "unemployment", but not the word "laid-off". As for why the word "laid-off" appeared in China, Southern Weekend in 2004 said: "According to official statistics, a considerable part of the unemployed population and unemployment rate are not counted, such as laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises and hidden unemployed people."
According to the national report on laid-off workers released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in February 2002, from 1998 to 2000, there were 21370,000 laid-off workers in state-owned enterprises nationwide, of which 1998 was 69 1800 at the beginning of the year, an increase of 5.622 million in that year; 1999, 665,438+million people were carried forward from the previous year, and 6186,000 people were added in that year; In 2000, 6.52 million people were carried over from the previous year, and 4.446 million people were added in that year.
Are laid-off workers greedy for comfort and doing nothing?
In recent years, some media and scholars have described laid-off workers as follows: "uneducated, unskilled, lazy, proud, dirty, tired, tired, and with little money, they would rather play cards and mahjong at home, post complaints on the Internet, and immerse themselves in the fantasy of doing nothing in the past." Some people even think that it is the laziness of these workers that led to the closure of a large number of state-owned enterprises and eventually bankruptcy, and they were laid off by themselves.
This statement is extremely unfair to laid-off workers. 1998 the reasons for the "laid-off tide" are as follows: first, the Asian economic crisis has affected China's exports, the factory operating rate is insufficient, and workers have no jobs; Second, China's economic restructuring, the central government proposed "three years to invigorate state-owned enterprises", except for a few large enterprises with resource monopoly advantages, the rest of the hundreds of thousands of enterprises are "shut down and turn around". 2/kloc-0 At the beginning of the 20th century, the rapid economic growth and the rise of Internet enterprises in China were not directly related to laid-off workers.
"Idle around", "love leisure and hate work" and "eating from the same pot and ruining enterprises" ... are all stigmatizing laid-off workers. At that time, many laid-off workers were still technical experts. In "A Story of Twenty-four Cities" filmed by Jia, a worker asked the factory director, "Am I late for more than twenty years? For more than 20 years, which year am I not advanced? " However, to no avail, I was laid off.
● Buy out the length of service and become a passer-by overnight for decades.
Before the "laid-off tide", many employees of state-owned enterprises lived a "unit life", the biggest feature of which was "high welfare and low salary". Eating, drinking, education, medical care and pension were handled by the unit, and individuals did not accumulate any wealth. In many cities where state-owned enterprises are concentrated, factories are almost the main body of the city, such as Fulaerji District, Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province. If the factory area and employee residential area are excluded, there may be only one or two parks left in the whole area. Here, everyone's life is unified when entering and leaving the factory.
The song "Kill Shijiazhuang People" describes the workers of state-owned enterprises more intuitively: "After work at 6 o'clock in the evening, I changed clothes in the pharmaceutical factory, my wife was cooking porridge, and I went to drink a few bottles of beer, so I lived for 30 years until the building collapsed ..."
Being laid off changed all this. At first, enterprises also paid the laid-off fee, but later many enterprises simply ignored it. At that time, a key point of the reform of state-owned enterprises was "reducing staff and increasing efficiency" (reducing redundant staff and improving enterprise efficiency). Although the employees are laid off, they are still attached to the unit, and the purpose of "downsizing" has not been achieved. Therefore, in order to really slim down, many state-owned enterprises adopted an important means-"buy out the length of service": according to the length of employees' working hours, they paid tens of thousands of yuan in resettlement compensation at one time, and employees left the enterprise and no longer enjoyed any wages and benefits from the enterprise.
In fact, it is illegal to buy out the length of service. At that time, the labor law stipulated that if an enterprise terminates the labor relationship with its employees, employees can enjoy social security benefits such as unemployment insurance, endowment insurance and medical insurance according to law, even if they cannot be re-employed quickly. You can't end the relationship with employees by "buying out the length of service". 1999, Notice of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security on Implementing the Two Provisions, Expanding the Coverage of Social Insurance and Strengthening the Collection of Grass-roots Funds stipulates: "No unit may terminate the social insurance relationship of its employees by' buying out the length of service'."
However, in practice, the practice of "buying out the length of service" is everywhere, so that it becomes the default fact. Many employers even forcibly "buy out the length of service". Time Weekly reported that in July 2000, the fifth floor of Lushi County Public Security Bureau in Henan Province held a staff meeting of oil companies, and the leaders at the meeting threatened that "no one is allowed to leave the house unless a settlement contract is signed", forcing the old workers who are about to retire in three months, one year, three years and five years to be laid off.
In a study of employees of state-owned enterprises in Shenyang in 2009, 2 1 interviewees were randomly selected, of which 1 1 interviewees were forced to buy out, 6 people were semi-forced and semi-voluntary, and only 4 people voluntarily chose to buy out services.
At that time, the price of a year's service varied from about 2000 yuan in the northeast to 1000 yuan in Jiangsu and Zhejiang-that is, a worker with 20 years' service was pushed onto the road with tens of thousands of yuan.
What is the life of laid-off workers like?
At that time, workers who bought out their seniority could get tens of thousands of dollars at a time, which was not a small sum, but it was still not enough for those who were unable to find a new job in their 40 s and 50 s. What's more, many laid-off workers with poor benefits have no chance to get the money at all, so they can only live on "minimum living allowance".
From 65438 to 0998, the "living allowance" for laid-off workers in Shenyang was a monthly 240 yuan, which could only be paid for two years. After that, if life is difficult to maintain, you can apply for the "minimum living allowance" of the civil affairs system, 205 yuan per month. It's not easy to get this 205 yuan. As long as there are electrical appliances at home, no matter how old or broken, you can't apply for subsistence allowances.
According to media reports at that time, Tiexi District, Shenyang, a laid-off town, where the farmers' market in the workers' village, pork is 50 cents cheaper than other parts of Shenyang, and eggs are 2-3 cents less. Even so, sales are still very small.
Columnist Wu Xiaobo also wrote such a thing in his article: "A family's husband and wife are laid off, and life is very difficult. One day, my son who was in middle school came home and said that the school would hold a sports meeting. The teacher asked him to wear sports shoes. I really can't afford shoes at home. At dinner, the wife began to complain that her husband was incompetent. Her husband buried himself in eating and didn't say a word. His wife complained. Her husband put down his chopsticks, silently walked to the balcony and jumped down. "
● How difficult is it for laid-off workers to get re-employed?
Many people question: Why do laid-off workers prefer subsistence allowances to going out to work and re-employment?
Guo Yuhua, a professor of sociology in Tsinghua University, conducted a special survey on nearly 1000 laid-off workers in Shenyang and Changchun in 2004. Her survey at that time showed that the average age of laid-off workers was 42 years old, of which 45 to 49 years old accounted for the largest proportion, accounting for 30. 1%, followed by 40 to 44 years old, accounting for 26.9%. Guo Yuhua once said in an interview with CCTV: "It is very difficult for these people to find jobs again. In fact, most of them can't find jobs. Even their children have problems with their initial employment after graduation. How can you get these people to find jobs again? "
For some people, it is not easy to try to do some small business. For laid-off workers, Shenyang once stipulated that laid-off workers can "reduce the industrial and commercial management fee for one year" when doing business, but the condition is that laid-off workers must be engaged in individual business for the first time. For many laid-off workers who have no entrepreneurial experience, if they fail to start a business several times, they have to pay various taxes and fees: industrial and commercial management fees, booth rental fees, health fees, newspaper fees, fire protection fees ... together, at that time, hundreds of dollars per month.
In areas with developed private economy such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, re-employment is easier; When the laid-off tide broke out in the old industrial base, it almost spread to the whole city. At this time, where are the small business customers?
At that time, there was a spontaneously organized labor market in the city where the laid-off tide broke out. Job seekers have signs on their chests that say what they are good at, such as "plumber" and "electrician". As soon as someone passes by, the job seeker asks, "You don't need anyone, you don't need anyone, you can do anything!" " For men with no skills, what they do most is security guards and doormen.
For women, re-employment is more bitter. In recent years, there is a story circulating in Shenyang: "Many family members of workers in Tiexi District are laid off and have no life, and their wives are forced to go to bathing places to do flesh business. In the evening, their husbands carried her outside with their broken bicycles, while their wives came in. More than a dozen old people smoked stuffy cigarettes outside, got off work in the middle of the night, and then silently drove them back by car. The locals in Shenyang call it' Ninja Turtle'. "
This kind of life even directly affects the next generation of laid-off workers. The third episode of the documentary Tiexi District, Yanfen Street, describes the young people living in Tiexi District at that time, almost all of whom were children of laid-off workers. Parents are laid off and their income is meager; Young people don't have much education, and they lost the opportunity to take over their jobs. They do nothing every day and are at a loss for the future.
Nowadays, laid-off workers have to worry about providing for the aged.
The laid-off workers who were laid off more than ten years ago are now approaching retirement age. Their lives have not become better as some people say, but they have to worry about providing for the elderly.
Since 1995, China has formally established an endowment insurance model combining social pooling with individual accounts, and finally determined the contribution ratio of 8% for individuals and 20% for enterprises in 2005. However, for laid-off workers, many companies stopped paying insurance for them from the day they were laid off. If they pay back the money, they have to bear all 28% of the expenses.
Although some local governments have introduced policies such as relaxing the payment period and exempting late payment fees, it still needs tens of thousands of yuan to pay back the pension insurance for more than ten years, which is undoubtedly an astronomical figure for many people who have no normal income after being laid off.
In fact, the issue of social security has attracted the attention of some economists and officials since the beginning of the wave of laid-off. 1998 or so, the World Bank and the State Council Economic Restructuring Office estimated the amount of social security debt respectively, and the relatively close figure was 2 trillion. Including Wu Jinglian, Zhou Xiaochuan, Lin Yifu, and Liu Zhongli, the finance minister, all put forward that "unless the debt owed by this old-age insurance is solved, the new old-age insurance system will not work normally, and establishing a social safety net and maintaining social stability will become empty talk."
Wu Xiaobo mentioned in his column: "At the beginning of 2000, the State Office for Economic Restructuring designed a plan to allocate nearly 2 trillion yuan of state-owned assets to realize the social security personal accounts of old employees. However, after several twists and turns, the plan finally failed. The reason for the opponents is that' turning state-owned assets into private assets of employees is obviously the loss of state-owned assets'. "
Later, when attending a forum, Wu Xiaobo met an economist who opposed the 2 trillion distribution plan. He asked, ten years later, what is the reflection on the ideas of that year? While eating, the economist replied faintly, "It's all over."
Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.