On The Group Of Clerk During The Republic Of China(1920—1945)

The clerks is considered as a much influential occupation group in modern China, the clerks which had a large segment of the population had an important influence on urban development, business prosperity and the period of the Republic of China's politics, the vigorous clerk movements became an important part of social mobilization in the20s.As an occupation group, most of the clerks had a certain level of education, Educational history and staff position are evenly matched. Positions,varied jobs and shops performance were related to the salary of the clerks,and they had a great influence on the conditions of clerk life.Institutionalized management standardized the job, life of the clerks, and the clerks had gradually become a disciplined, organized social group.And based on this conclusion,they formed their own occupation and identities.But the clerks'identities and the belonging to the shops were weakened because of the "human" style in the management system, they often aired their grievances by saying something about salaries, the clerks had conformity mentality since the complex relationships among the profession.They had to take part in group activities, or they would be isolated from the professional culture with the group atmosphere. The building of social image from the exaggerated propaganda, prejudiced opinions and sex discrimination, but not the bad habits of the clerks and their different angle of views.The influence of the clerks group were showed by the emergence of the media which focus on the clerks,and the newspaper literati's ideals about concerning the foot of the society and disciplining the clerks to "revolution" path at the same time. Of course, what the newspaper media disclosed was the clerks'life should be that more editors hoped, and the " reproduction" of the clerks'life was actually the result that the editors, the readers and the described (maybe the last two coincided) made concessions.It reflected the clerks'living construction or reconstruction by the three. However,there were some contradictions between the newspaper literati's direction of reforming the clerks and the clerks'own initiative. The newspaper literati concerned the clerks'life, put particular emphasis on the normative content of life, moreover, the clerks focused on the amateur life,the interest and availability.The union for the clerks is a legal platform for the clerks to express their requests, the sounds of the bottom got much attention and affirmation in social circles because of it. But the stirring persons in Union were mostly not ordinary clerks, they were even not clerks,and the union hardly represented the rights and interests of the ordinary clerks. In addition, the union was still in the rough, how to orientate their saying and class identities depended on living concept and ideology of the elites. There was much controversy in the Kuomintang about the clerks'identity,the clerk union's membership and how to administer the members.And there were different attitudes on if the clerks should build their union among the union headquarters, Chamber of Commerce,association of the commerce and the worker department,the commerce department of the Kuomintang party organizations at different levels.The policies of Kuomintang central executive committee were blowing hot and cold.All this affected the function and autonomic effects of clerk union. The Communist Party have two methods about the clerks,one was in the KMT ruled area, there they were concerned about the daily life of the clerks,waken them from the life difficult to class hardships.The other was in the Communist ruled area,there the class conflict and political mobilization of the clerks were exaggerated, the clerks became an abstract symbol in the working class.The political participation of the clerks had both passive cooperation and active participation, and it appeared that it on depend on the state power. The clerks'economic struggle concentrated on raising wages, improving the working environment, limited the rights of the shopper dismiss the clerks,etc. And most of the movements were on the way of radical strike.To deal with disputes between the clerks and the owner,the national government had no established policy consideration,sometimes pressing clerk to cater to the shopkeeper, sometimes pressing the bias clerk.But it is difficult to solve labor disputes, sometimes even sharpened the contradictions.The relief of the clerks consisted mostly of the unemployment relief,it included profession introduction,assisting the travel expenses, relief on official business,etc.Clerk education was mainly vocational training,it included children education and vocational training.Clerk safeguard was mainly to save to respond to risks,in the same time to try to attend social insurance and the team mutual aid. Social relief activities that the clerks attended included direct donations, raising funds for the charity through recreational activities, it had a certain obligatory.