Boat, workers

Fx:  Boat horn

01.00.00.00

carrying parcels

on sticks

Jane Hutcheon:  In the south western city of Chongqing, an army of stick men shoulder the spoils of China's new rich.

00.11

Fx:  Boat horn

They are peasants and the dregs of the work force, trying to stay afloat in an inconstant sea of economic change.

00.26

These days the streets are filling with a new class of people - jobless or under-employed in a country where the problem is barely supposed to exist.

Map of China

Two men standing watching crowd go by, they confront woman, carry her steel pipes

Liu and Zhang are part of the new class of urban battlers, here to pick up any work they can find in a system that is supposed to provide for everyone.  There's fierce competition for every last cent.

01.01

Zhang:  One steel pipe will cost you 30 cents.

Woman:  What?  30 cents?

Liu:  Are you worried about 30 cents?

Woman:  Bastard.  You want 30 cents, he wants 30 cents.  I'll carry them on my own.

Liu:  Okay, we two will carry them, but you can just give us 30 cents altogether, all right?  This way please.

Jane Hutcheon:  In one week, Liu and Zhang earn between five and twelve dollars, little more than human workhorses.  It's a stark reminder of China's experiment with the free market.

Group of men at back of truck,

A transition that is yet to emerge from the tunnel.

men standing on

street, people

Fx:  Voices

on street

Jane Hutcheon:  The stick army and those whose plight is so obvious on the streets - are part of China's dangerous dilemma.  If the country wants the status of an economic super-power it must push more people onto the streets. 

01.59

But doing so betrays the ideals of socialism, and something the government fears even more - creates the potential for massive instability and unrest.

Man carrying shirts, interview with man (Zwang), pan to interview with another man (Liu)

Zhang:  In the city, people need us to carry huge amounts of goods in and out.  It's not easy for people who don't have a stable job to make money.  We walk around the city and look for work all day long.

Liu:  Wherever we find work, we'll go there.

People walking on streets, guards, people walking

In China, working for a state enterprise means a lifetime of stability and support.  It was a system designed by the Communists to keep workers loyal.

02.55

through gates and

down street,

Every day of her adult life, Xie Daihua has walked through these gates and straight to her workspace. 

People working in factory, Xie Daihua working machine, close

Xie is one of thirteen thousand workers in China's biggest State motorcycle factory.

ups of machine

Xie Daihua:  Ever since I started working in this factory, my work, as you saw today has been as a lathe operator. 

Our factory in different ways provides us with lots of benefits -  good study, work and living.  It provides us with a good environment.

Xie Daihua working on machine

Jane Hutcheon:  Though she makes only a little more than the average wage, Xie couldn't imagine life any other way. 

04.00

Xie Daihua walking along street, shopping, building

Her livelihood and her family's is in the hands of the factory.

It's a glittering example of what's known as the iron-rice bowl; China's cradle-to-grave system of benevolent employment.

Xia Daihua:  Well, first of all, the factory provides us with cheap housing. 

04.23

Interview with Xia Daihua

Where the medical system is concerned, if we go to the doctor in the factory, we pay just 10% of the fee; the factory will pay the rest. 

With schooling we just pay a portion of the tuition fee for my son and for water and electricity, the factory pays.

Music, singing

Xia Daihua and family singing with karoke machine

Jane Hutcheon:  They are all factory faithfuls; Xie's husband is a salesman.  When her son graduates, he's likely to work for the factory too.

05.03

Xie is a model for how the state system was supposed to work; a success story.  "We wouldn't be allowed to film anything else.

Cityscapes,

But this sprawling mass tells an entirely different story.  The Chongqing Electrical Engineering Factory dominates an entire valley as it has done for 90 years.

05.31

This giant plant is desperately seeking foreign investment to modernise its production lines and according to its vice-director, keep its workers employed.

Xiao Fuming:  We don't have enough capital, that's the main problem. 

Interview with Xiao Fuming

We are also seeking foreign investment.  If we get this we'd develop rapidly.  We're looking for investment from Australia, Japan, the United States and Germany.

Woman working,

Jane Hutcheon:  The workers are a constant drain on the factory's finances and Vice-director Xiao is under pressure to make new products which often don't sell, just so he can hang on to his eleven thousand workers.

06.26

Interview with Xiao Fuming

Jane Hutcheon:  Why does your factory choose to manufacture so many products?

Xiao Fuming:  Because we have a lot of workers here, therefore we have to manufacture many products.

Close up work, man smoking, wide shots factory

Jane Hutcheon:  It's this notion that prevents most state factories from surviving in the real world of competition. 

06.56

As a result, since the economic reforms began, the State sector has become a tightening noose around the economy's neck, soaking up funds from the Central Government and the banking system.

Hutcheon interviewing Hu Jiquan

Even the planners know enterprises like this can't survive.

Super:

HU JIQUAN

Economic Planning Commission

Hu Jiquan:  Our proportion of state-owned enterprises is still high but their mode of operation was designed for the planned economy in the past.  It's not suited to the market economy which China's reforms are heading towards.

Factory operating, workers working

Jane Hutcheon:  Last year, all over China the number of bankruptcies exceeded the total for the previous seven years.  Almost one in two enterprises are in the red.  Most economists agree it's just the tip of the iceberg.

07.59

It's China's dilemma. As more enterprises become insolvent, more workers lose their jobs , the greater the fear of social upheaval.

08.14

Hutcheon getting in taxi, taxi driver driving taxi

Jane Hutcheon:  Qin drives a taxi seven days a week to keep his wife and child fed and clothed.  He's lucky enough to have found work in the three years since his transportation company went bust.

08.37

This wasn't supposed to happen to a state-owned enterprise. 

Jane Hutcheon::  He and his friends were so angry, they did what was previously unthinkable.

Interview with Qin

Qin:  In 1995 when I didn't have a job and stayed at home, some of my friends came to my home and asked me to go with them to the municipal government. 

There were 70 or 80 people and they blocked the traffic.  There was nothing the police could do.  We blocked the road for nearly two hours and then left.

Playing Mahjong

It's Sunday afternoon and there's not much to do, but it could be any day of the week, because this is what laid off workers do almost every day.

09.39

Woman:  We don't have anything to do so we have to play mah-jong.

Woman:  If I don't make a mistake, I'll be very happy.

Man:  I should have waited for that tile, see, now I've lost the game.

Jane Hutcheon:  Mrs Xia and her sons were laid off from a steel factory. 

10.17

Old Mrs Li is too old to work.  Her husband is in poor health and her eldest son is jobless.  He was laid off four years ago.

She sits and watches the others without a hint of the frustration and disappointment she feels.

Woman:  Some people are very rich now, some people have almost a million.  But there are others who can't afford their food, like me. It's very common. 

10.41

Interview with woman

In Mao's era, we didn't have these kind of people.  Everyone had a job, there were no very rich or extremely poor people.  I'm totally confused.

Interview with young man

Son:  I don't want help, I just want the government to provide me with a job.  I don't care whether it's a good work unit or a bad one.

Young man doing chores

Jane Hutcheon:  Old Mrs Li's son worries for his family's future.  He tries to help out by doing the chores. 

11.15

The ailing steel factory where he once worked pays him seven dollars a month to stay at home. 

His wife has regular but poorly paid work.  The household earns less than 23 dollars a month.

Young man

Son:  If we don't have jobs and have to hang around all day, what are we supposed to do with our dollars.  It's not even enough to buy cigarettes, what about eating.  We can't afford water or electricity.

People of my age won't break the law - but it's hard to say about the young people.

Interview with woman

Woman:  I'm really angry!  Some old people have already gone to the municipal government and demonstrated there.  We stood on the road, but up to now there's been no reply.

Fx:  Wind chimes

Rocks, men working

Jane Hutcheon:  For almost 30 years China has protected millions of workers under the state umbrella.  But the real world of market competition doesn't need so many work horses.

12.21

The choice is to continue the pretence of near-full employment or a swift effort to wipe out its debt ridden industries.  The risk is in creating widespread instability and unrest.

Dock workers, men carrying things, men standing around

The prospect of thousands of jobless workers is an option no one wants to contemplate. And China's idle millions have already reached a burgeoning mass who feel abandoned and cheated.

The socialist dream has failed them. The market can't afford them and their government can do nothing for them.

ENDS

13.25