Reform Of State-Owned Enterprises And Transition Of Old Industrial Workers

This paper aims at exploring the transformation of old industrial workers in China from Danwei to labor market by a case study. The case is from a large-scale state-owned enterprise in Northeast. In period of market transition, the reform of economic system has accelerated transition of economic and social system, and has changed relations between social groups. In this historical process, the old industrial workers experience a great transformation. Then, how to explain the transformation? To answer this question, the paper quotes the theory of working-class formation in the west. The paper considers that the old industrial workers experience a process of class re-formation during the reform of labor relations, wage system, social security system and welfare system.Why to say it is a process of class re-formation? Because under plan economic system, the state had fostered a working-calss group who had special status and rank. The paper considers that the special working-calss group hadn't brought out class consciousness in labor relations. Identity with status and Danwei replaced their class consciousness. During the breakup of the status and Danwei system, the working-class group organized by status has disintegrated in the reform. They gradually come into being a new urban underclass group. The reason to name them a underclass group is not only about all of them are poor but also they become a group in possession of subject consciousness and ability of collective action. The paper narrates that the subject consciousness roots in their cognition to two kinds of rights and interest in the progress of status transition. One kind of right and interest is the privileges that industrial working-class hold in Danwei system, another is the rights that laws and social policies endow with in the progress of status transition. So, the paper points out the identity and conciousness of the old industrial working-class don't orign from the relation of exploitation between capital and labor, but it roots in the process of deprivation of rights which are except labor. However, the paper also points out that the class re-formation is only a special phenomenon in especial era, its character of class is not successive between generations. So the urban underclass composed by these old industrial workers will disappear along with the breakup of Danwei and status system and the improvement of laws and labor market.