Looking for the first generation of migrant workers
In Spring Festival travel rush in 1992, migrant workers flooded into Guangdong. Ye Jianqiang
Some people say that the first generation of migrant workers are like the "third generation" college students who just resumed the college entrance examination. Although they are very different in age, they are unique among the migrant workers. Today, more than 20 years later, where are they "falling"?
Who is the first generation of migrant workers?
According to the idea in advance: the first generation of migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta should have worked in the Pearl River Delta in the early 1980s, so the reporter found Tan Zhiqiang, director of the Economic and Trade Office of Humen Town, Dongguan City. He was puzzled: I can’t find it, but there was one in the early 1990s!
Faced with the same problem, Tang Zhiping, a former director of Taiping Handbag Factory, thought for a long time: after the factory was established in 1978, it was almost all Humen people in the factory. Only around 1986, due to the expansion of the factory’s business and insufficient manpower, they recruited some migrant workers in Jiangxi. By the time he left the factory in 1990, there were only more than 100 migrant workers, but three years later, Taiping Factory was basically migrant workers.
After 1990, the name of "migrant workers" instead of "migrant workers" became popular in the media, and "migrant workers’ tide", "Spring Festival travel rush" and "public security" became a big problem in the Pearl River Delta and even the whole country. Tan Zhiqiang said that in fact, the first generation of migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta should be the group of farmers who came out of (most of) rural areas in eastern Guangdong and western Guangdong in the 1980s and worked in Shekou, Shenzhen and Shanhaiguan, Shenzhen.
Tan Zhiqiang said that among the existing 1 million migrant workers in Humen Town, the post-80s account for the vast majority. If they are counted as the second generation of migrant workers, then the post-60s and post-70s are the first generation in the last century, while the post-70s account for the majority of the migrant workers in the early 1990s.
Where will the first generation of migrant workers go?
Since 2001, every year on May 12th, Lao Liang always got together with 50 workers from Gushi County, Henan Province to Dongguan on May 12th, 1991. "I have never been here, and now there are fewer and fewer." Lao Liang, who is still working hard in Dongguan, said that of those 50 people, it is estimated that 30% started their own businesses, 30% stayed in the enterprise and the rest went home.
Cheng Xiaolei, who came in the same car as Lao Liang, is now an executive of a certain enterprise. He said that although the majority of migrant workers in their generation went home, very few really returned to the farmland to do farm work, and most of them opened stores and started businesses at home, and most of them moved to county towns or towns to build houses and became urban people.
Yijin first opened his own shoe factory in Houjie, Dongguan, and returned to his hometown Gushi County a few years ago to open three shoe factories. As the country’s most populous county, the vast majority of investment in Gushi County is made by migrant workers in the county who go home to start businesses, and they also "match the bridge". Before the Spring Festival every year, the main leaders of the county will personally go to Dongguan and Shenzhen in the Pearl River Delta to entertain the "hometown elders". It is said that most of the banquets are the first generation of migrant workers.
Last year, after the implementation of the new Labor Contract Law, Lao Peng of Chongqing ended his 16-year working career in Dongguan. Although the boss closed the factory and gave him tens of thousands of yuan in length of service compensation, he was still reluctant to part. It is said that in the past year or so, among the thousands of factories that moved and closed down in the Pearl River Delta, most of them really went home.
When two generations of migrant workers meet
Most of the first generation of migrant workers who stay in the Pearl River Delta today have become managers. When they met the second generation of migrant workers, they were somewhat puzzled.
In the interview, most entrepreneurs of the first generation of migrant workers are talking about the current enterprise management, and the first one is that workers are difficult to manage. Cheng Xiaolei said that when they first entered the factory, they wanted military training to do morning exercises, but now workers think that doing exercises is after work, and they don’t count working hours and don’t pay wages. This is disrespect for employees’ freedom, so they complained to brand customers. Now the factory simply canceled doing exercises and military training.
Cheng Xiaolei is the person in charge of personnel training in a large Taiwan-funded shoe factory. He said that the first generation of migrant workers were born and raised in the countryside and went to the city for survival; Although the "post-80 s" grew up in the countryside, most of their parents worked in the city, and they had no worries about food and clothing at home, and they developed an independent personality from an early age; The "post-90 s" were born in the city and studied in the city. They are all urbanites with registered permanent residence in the countryside! Up to now, will the three generations of migrant workers be the same?
And Lao Liang’s conclusion is: at that time, we were waiting for three people in one position, but now we are waiting for one person in two positions; In the past, it was a "tide of migrant workers", but now it is a "shortage of migrant workers"-the job market has changed!
Three first-generation workers
Most of the first generation of migrant workers have taken a curtain call to the south and returned to their hometown. However, talking to the left-behind among them is not only about recalling the past, but also about thinking and precipitating the experience of the first generation of migrant workers, because the second and even third generation of migrant workers are still moving south.
The trip of the former is the teacher of the latter.
A, from migrant workers to foreign executives
Li Xingguo, 40, came to a shoe factory in Dongguan from his hometown 17 years ago. "At that time, we had to pass the exam when we entered the factory." Because of his hard work, Li Xingguo was elected as a reserve cadre.
Li Xingguo has never changed his company, from a wage earner to a workshop leader and workshop director. In 2003, he was sent to Vietnam and Indonesia by the company to take charge of the management of the new factory, and he has become a veritable international corporate executive.
"There are many better opportunities and temptations, but I can’t bear to give up. This is also a typical feature of our generation of migrant workers, loyal and responsible. "
Li Xingguo said that when he works in China, he works for the sake of work. When I came abroad, I felt more responsible: because I am a foreign company, I often have to consider the image problem. "This is also the strength of the second generation of migrant workers in China."
B, I work for myself
In April 1991, a Taiwan-funded shoe factory went to Gushi County, Henan Province to recruit workers. More than 3,000 people signed up and only 50 people were recruited. Lao Liang took the fifth place.
Lao Liang did a good job in the factory, from the official to the workshop director. But in 1996, after arguing and fighting with a Taiwan Province executive, he resigned.
At the end of 1998, in Wushi Industrial Zone, sanxiang town, Zhongshan, near Baoyuan Shoes Factory, Lao Liang set up a night market stall selling stewed vegetables. I earned hundreds of thousands in a year and a half.
However, the trees attracted the wind, and there was no license to set up a stall. Soon, Lao Liang’s pot-stewed vegetable stall closed. At this time, Lao Liang took a photo of a dozen acres of open space in the town and opened an open-air barbecue. The business was very hot, but it was closed again because of incomplete procedures.
In 2000, Lao Liang contracted a 250-square-meter pavement to open a restaurant. This time, the business procedures were complete and the monthly profit was more than 20,000. Lao Liang earned his first bucket of gold.
In 2003, Lao Liang registered another company specializing in logistics and automobile service. A year later, the number of vehicles under his name reached several hundred. He closed the hotel and began to focus on the company’s business.
Speaking of the change from wage earners to bosses over the past ten years, Lao Liang felt: working is not as good as serving wage earners!
C, "persistence" makes migrant girls worth more than 100 million.
In July 1989, 16-year-old Wang Xinhuai took advantage of his mother’s travel expenses from selling soybeans and came to Dongguan with 100 fellow villagers from Henan to start working.
Two meals a day, 13 hours’ work, four months later, the sisters who came with them walked most of the time, and arel persisted. At the end of the year, 800 yuan, which she sent home, propped up three tile houses at home.
Three years later, arel jumped to another toy factory and became the group leader. In the toy factory, she learned the secret of order processing.
"Being a working girl for a lifetime is definitely impossible." Arel, who knows this well, rented a factory and started a simple processing after working as a working girl for eight years. "At that time, Dongguan was full of factories. As long as there was a little personal connection, many people chose to do it themselves, and it was not difficult to earn money." Arel’s business is getting bigger and bigger, and now he is already a boss with a net worth of over 100 million yuan. She said that in the past, I worked for Taiwanese businessmen and Hong Kong businessmen, but now we invite Taiwan Province people and Hong Kong people to help us manage our enterprises, and I, a working girl, will also go global.