Comments on the Report Concerning the Labor Protection and Welfare System and the Implementation of Two Educational Systems
(May 1958)
To Comrade Liu Shaoqi: Please handle this matter.
I have read this document and concur with your views.
[I]
Refers to Liu Shaoqi’s report dated May 25, 1958, addressed to Mao Zedong and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. The report states that, with regard to improving China’s system of labor wages and labor protection and welfare benefits, the Central Committee has decided that the old practices will no longer be followed in industrial enterprises below the county level; instead, each province and autonomous region is to formulate new measures. As for industrial enterprises at or above the county level, I believe that the existing methods should be maintained for the time being within current enterprises and among existing workers, with essentially no changes. However, in newly established enterprises and for newly hired workers, separate new measures could be devised and implemented. Furthermore, I have discussed with Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and comrades from certain provincial and municipal party committees two issues concerning education and labor: first, whether, alongside the current school education system and the labor systems in industrial and mining enterprises as well as government organs, a parallel system of part-time work-and-study schooling and part-time work-and-study employment in industry, mining, and government offices could also be introduced; and second, in addition to organizing urban workers and agricultural cooperatives in production campaigns, family members of workers and women in rural areas, along with other individuals who are only partially able to work, should likewise be mobilized. These two proposals are already being tested in selected units.