Collective Aphasia During The Change Of State-owned Property Rights Systems

In this paper, collective aphasia of the ordinary workers, which took place in the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) during their management-buy-out(MBO) in City K, becomes the object. The research explores this phenomenon and its social implications during the reform and opening-up in China, especially when the Property Rights Systems (PRSs) of the local SOEs changed since 1997. Organizational analysis and system analysis of Sociology of Law are employed. The organized-action theory is applied here as basic framework, with the investigation of non-structured interviews as the means close to social facts.The emergence of the ordinary workers's collective aphasia among the SOEs is a by-product of the Central government's policies of empowerment and benefit-sharing for local governments and the managers of local SOEs. The local governments and the managers of the local SOEs gamed with the Central government policies or regulations that piloting and modulating the local SOEs'restructuring, seeking more autonomy and interests of themselves. They cleared up the effectiveness of the Constitution and the Central policies or regulations with necessary precautions, distortion, resistance, laissez-faire, etc., an effort to debase local financial burdens and maximize the benefits of small groups. The whole restructuring process of the local SOEs was complicated, say it, the setting down of restructuring scenario, the examination and approving, definition of state-owned property, financial auditing, assets evaluation and transfer of state-owned property, among other things. Local government officials, enterprise managers and intermediary service agencies, jointly adopted a masking mechanism, keeping the ordinary workers in the local SOEs entirely ignorant of the state. The mass could not learn the information related to their SOEs'restructuring, the process involved, missed the shares redistribution of the state-owned property rights. More deplorably, hardly could they receive compensation timely or sufficiently through any channel of their own labour union, the local Communist Party committee, the local people's congress, the local judiciary, the local CPPCC or other local organizations. The workers's progressive aphasia, as a dynamic process, both constitute the reasons for the imbalance of the interests redistribution during the SOEs-restructuring and an inevitable result of further restructuring. The tactics adopted and the amount of relational resources underlying by the leaders from the local government and the SOEs, together with that of their counterpart, the ordinary workers, in their respective fields, decided fundamentally that who benefit, who suffer. Along with which, the deformation of the Constitution, the laws and the government policies, took place. It's imperative to establish a protection mechanism during the SOEs-restructuring. Firstly, the employee congress, labor unions and etc. can not be limited to be furnishings, otherwise, the interests of the ordernary workers will continue to suffer. Secondly, systems such as the Constitution, the laws and the government policies must direct effectively the practice of the SOEs restructuring. It's urgent to study how to effectively supervise, direct and take control of the actions of those small groups of officials, managers and etc.. Unfortunately, as long as the local SOEs in China underwent a PRSs-conversion, a general lack of such protection appeared.The laws, the regulations and the government policies on the local SOEs should reflect fully the spirit of the Constitution, to protect the interest-related should not remain on paper, the spirit of the working class vanguard should not be forgotten. In order to defuse the growing accumulation of social conflicts, avoiding over-indulgence of administrative power that may cause a variety of negative outcomes, maitaining long-term stability of our society, it's urgent to scheme out strategies by and for all of the representatives of the interest-related. Views of the ordinary workers's collective must be taken into account, interests of both employers and employees must be balanced through proper channels. It requires a systems reconstruction, within which, the relevant social forces of the SOEs-related become relatively balanced. These forces would be composed of the local SOEs, and local workers congresses, the labor unions, people's congress, the judiciary, the CPPCC, the local Communist Party committee, local government. It depends greatly on the determination of the Central Communist Party and the State Department whether it will undergo a forceful political reform.The reconstruction of the PRSs and those social forces will help to create a favourable condition for the deepening of the SOEs restructuring, smooth the transition of China's economy, and direct a harmonious social transformation and the prosperity of the whole society in the near future.The structure of this research paper is divided into seven chapters: in addition to the first introductory chapter, and Chapter II, literature review, the main part is composed of five chapters. Through the display of the five aspects, the workers's collective aphasia is revealed during the MBO-restructuring of the local SOEs. During the process, structural stratification is apparent within the SOEs, and social roles of the ordinary workers simply reversed, which constitute the essence of collective aphasia during the MBO-restructuring of China's local SOEs.The third chapter reviews the motivation and basis of change in SOEs'PRSs in the context of East China City K. It is divided into two parts. Firstly, motivation and theoretical support for the transfer of SOEs'PRSs. Secondly, institutional basis. Among them, motivation and theoretical support related to three aspects: early transfer of SOEs'PRSs, a comprehensive reform of the System began, and the supporting theories. The Systems of laws and policies which supported the exchanging of Local SOEs'Property Rights, can not only promote China's productive forces, ensure the restructuring process normative, transparent and procedurally fairful, but also safeguard the legitimate rights of the nation and the ordinary workers.Chapter IV and Chapter V, within the theoretical framework of the French school of organized-action, analyze empirically the four SOEs-restructuring in City K. Accompanied by the basic process including the restructuring scenario of these SOEs, government approval, state assets demarcation, auditing, assessment and exchanges of the SOEs'PRSs, the results of collective aphasia came into being. The four SOEs are Cannery I, H Coking Group, Y Co. in Dongcheng District, L Road Machinery, Ltd..Chapter VI, after MBO-reform of the SOEs, collective aphasia of the ordinary workers appeared again in seeking their relief outside of the SOEs, and in which negative economic and social consequences took place. The collective protest was invalid after Canned Food Factory"I"being bought-out by the Executives, aphasia took place after H Coking Group being jointly bought-out, the numb collective kept silent after Corporation Y and L were bought out. The consequences of which is serious. Many people were generally usurped of the collective economic interests, some government officials and SOEs'executives were increasingly unable to check, the political status of the ordinary workers declined to bottom, income distributed unfairly, domestic demand shrinked and economic crisis approximated.Chapter VII describes the ineffectiveness of the SOEs'PRSs and the relational tactics of the relevant actors in City K, a further analysis of the reasons for the collective aphasia at different stages of the SOEs-restructuring. The ineffectiveness of the SOEs'PRSs lies in two aspects, being unused or being modificated. The main relational tactics of the relevant actors were involved in two aspects: the relational tactics within the SOEs, including that of the SOEs'chief executive to win over the middle managers by bribery or to abandon, to exchange with or make use of the technical staff. That of the middle managers to blindfold,deceive and be authoritarian to the ordinary workers. And that of the workers congresses or the trade unions to be of no use for the ordinary workers. The other aspect of the relational tactics is that between the SOEs'executives and key governmental intermediary, including gifts-giving by the executives and providing shelter by the key governmental intermediary. And that between the SOEs'executives and the key intermediary from the intermediary organizations, including gifts-giving, respecting each other and mutual face-saving. The creation and prevalence of informal PRSs reflected a situation, which had been dominated by the senior managers of the SOEs and some government officials. New rules generated and informal MBO-rules legalized gradually during the SOEs-restructuring. Finally, further research still needs to solve the problem: how to control effectively transgress, getting out of line, and crimes in the creation of SOEs'informal PRSs? The key is to answer: How to maintain a relative balance between the interests of the different groups in the redistribution of SOEs'PRSs. In the practice of the systems of the SOEs'workers congresses and labor unions, We need in particular to strengthen the implementation of the protection measures for the ordinary workers.