Most of the places Where I worked were small private factories, where workers in their 40s and 50s dominated because there was no age limit.
Most factories here implement the piecework wage system, more work, more gain. The unit price is also different for different products. Those who have been in the factory long enough know which products are easy to make and profitable.
Most of the people who do assembly on the assembly line are young people, and the older people pack and operate the machines. The most common are two kinds of machines: one is a CNC machine tool, one is a press. CNC machine tools mainly process products such as metals, presses mainly process products such as plastics. In contrast, CNC machine tools to be a lot of tired, because the metal is very heavy, those parts to be processed in the box, some of the box has about 80 jin, a day to lift up to lift down many times.
Many women in their fifties like to operate these two machines. CNC machines are a little more difficult, a little more dangerous, and most of the time they work standing up. The press is very simple, just sit next to the machine, the press inside add some “material”, and then wait “material” pressed into the standard parts, reach out to take it out of the box on the side can be.
The general operation of CNC machine tool people busy, and the operation of the press people bored to sleep. The people who operate the machine seldom fight and quarrel, but most of the people who operate the machine get hurt, so badly that all their fingers fall off. But they always said that compared with those who worked themselves to death day and night, those who had lost their fingers were lucky to be alive at least.
I’m old and I don’t want to involve them
The factory porter is about sixty years old, we young people call him “Uncle Liu”, older people call him “Lao Liu”. Liu Dashu although white hair, but compared with other peers, figure is tall and strong, perfect for his job – his arches the back every day to have the goods from the warehouse, easily to the assembly shop, the assembly shop to have the goods unloaded again, and then the assembly shop packed goods a case of a box-on-box, neat. Goods are packed in large boxes, usually carried by two people, but Uncle Liu carries them by himself.
In addition, every morning, he had to dump out the garbage in the assembly plant’s garbage can and clean the plant as well.
Uncle Liu said he was like a cow, ploughing when there was land. But we felt that he was not as well paid as a cow.
In summer, the workshop of CNC machine tools and presses to electricity, heat, workers in the workshop like steamed stuffed bun in the steamer. Uncle Liu often works with sweat on his face, letting it drip onto the products in the box. When the boss saw it, he asked him not to sweat on it and let him wipe it with a towel under the faucet. Uncle Liu could only say to the boss: the weather is really too hot, the sweat is not finished, wipe it and immediately came out again.
Uncle Liu once told his boss that he was too tired to carry goods and wanted to have a rest in the afternoon. The boss said that he had been very busy recently, and he would naturally arrange time for Uncle Liu to have a rest. Hearing what the boss said, Uncle Liu didn’t hold his tongue. The boss then said, “You are an employee. If you have a job, you have to do it. Don’t all workers hope to have a job?”
Once, when we finished the work on the assembly line, we went to call Uncle Liu to pull the goods, but no one could be found. When he reached the packing department, workers said he had fainted and collapsed in the warehouse shop. Others saw him foaming at the mouth and he was taken to hospital.
Three days later, Uncle Liu came to work. He said the doctor told him he was just too tired. “Just rest more every day, don’t stay up late at night, exercise more in the morning, and eat more nutrition.” At that time, Uncle Liu retorted, “There is no need to do exercise. Every day, I get up before dawn and walk so far to buy vegetables. Every day, I either move or lift and pull vegetables in the factory, and I exercise more than anyone else. And not just pork, but chicken, duck, fish, and sometimes shrimp!”
Uncle Liu thought the faint was just heatstroke. “Some people my age have already gone to the grave, but I’m still alive and looking at the world.” We say he’s not looking at the world, he’s looking at the factory. He said he went to Hangzhou for a few days during his last vacation. Isn’t that a world view?
When I first arrived at the factory, I asked Uncle Liu how much money he got every month. He said proudly, “Two thousand and five hundred yuan, two days off every month, eight hours of work a day, no overtime at night, and two thousand yuan in year-end bonus during the Spring Festival.”
I have heard from people on the assembly line that, except in the office, no one in the packing department or assembly line has ever received a year-end bonus, including stretching. A few days ago, a few new workers came into the factory, and the boss was in the workshop at that time. Those people asked the boss whether there was any year-end bonus during the Spring Festival. The boss directly said, “You have earned all the money, so where is there any year-end bonus?”
One day, Uncle Liu said happily that his boss gave him a salary increase of 300 yuan per month. He said that now he had an extra 3,600 yuan every year, which would be enough for him to go home for the Spring Festival.
But just two months after the pay rise, Uncle Liu quarreled with the manager and was replaced. After two days of being angry, Uncle Liu had to go to the packing department to dry pack and learn from scratch.
During that time, I was sick and asked for leave to go home. When he returned to the factory, he saw Uncle Liu sitting on a stool in the packing department, with thick white gauze wrapped around his feet and a walking stick on each side of the stool. Once in a while, stand up and move, holding the crutches tightly in both hands, as if they were afraid of running away. The left foot lands on the ground, and the right foot is slightly bent and lifted. With every small step forward of the left foot, the crutches move forward cautiously, and the right foot seems to be a redundant burden.
When I asked him why he was hurt, he said that the packers had dropped the box and he slipped on it and fell down.
“On flat ground like this?”
“Alas! You don’t understand, I am dozens of years old, bones can’t compare with you young people, if you fall down, you will be fine. I am old and my bones break at the slightest touch.”
“So the boss drove you to the hospital?”
“No, it was the supervisor, and several other people, and I couldn’t move, and they sent me to be put in plaster. My son and his wife came to see me the other day.”
“How much did the boss give you in compensation?”
“Including medical expenses, twenty-four thousand dollars. In fact, we are the kind of people, there are also people at home, why do you want to go out to suffer such a suffering, do you not? However, if I can, I can earn some money by myself. Even if I earn dozens of yuan a day, I can still live by myself. I really don’t want to involve them.”
Uncle Liu didn’t work after he hurt his foot. The boss was concerned that it was inconvenient for him to go up and down the stairs, so he asked his staff to clean out a small room in the workshop where there were sundries.
I ask Uncle Liu to say, not still have Li Embroider aunt to be in, she can take care of you. He says Li Embroider aunt body also is not very good, oneself also trouble her so.
Li Embroidery and Uncle Liu were a temporary couple in the factory. Uncle Liu told us how he met his wife when he was young. They were still in free love at that time. His wife died of cancer. Before she died, she told him to find another woman who could live. Uncle Liu said that his grave had been repaired, next to his wife’s, and that when he died, he would be buried next to her.
Later, he met Li Embroider in his hometown, The husband of Li Embroider married not long before derailed, Li Embroider says that the little third wants to give her money, call her to divorce with her husband, she says she just does not leave.
During uncle Liu’s work-related injury, Li Embroidery had to go to work, wash clothes and cook food. Every morning when I go to work, I see Li Embroidery bring Uncle Liu breakfast, usually noodles with egg and tomato soup. Originally, Li Embroidery wanted to accompany Uncle Liu to the hospital for dressing change, but Uncle Liu disagreed, saying that she was afraid of delaying Li Embroidery to earn money. We asked the factory why not drive to send, Li Embroidery said the boss said they were too busy, no time.
After a few months ‘rest, Uncle Liu’s feet got better. Every morning, Li Embroidery went to the factory early to pack up, Uncle Liu moved like a snail to buy vegetables, and met the factory workers, they would help Uncle Liu to pick up vegetables.
The New Year’s Day holiday, Uncle Liu’s feet almost good, took Li Embroidery out to play for a few days. When they came back, Li Embroider had a gold necklace around her neck and a gold bracelet on her right hand. Some workers in the factory asked, “Lao Liu, did you buy Lao Li’s necklace and bracelet?”
“Yes, besides me, who else could it be?
‘Why didn’t you buy it for her before?
“Don’t you see? It’s just like those young people who fall in love. They don’t know if it’s true until they’ve gone through some hardship. A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
How come I can’t get my hand back
There was a time when I was assembling on the assembly line and Aunt Zhang was packing in the packing department. She often came to me to get my products, and she got to know each other. Aunt Zhang looked about fifty years old, with a round face full of wrinkles. She was short and cheerful, and in her youth she would have been a bird and a person.
Aunt Zhang came to the factory before dawn and worked overtime until one or two in the morning.
But after the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, I didn’t see Aunt Zhang come to work for several days, piled so many goods, and no one came to pick them up, until one morning when I was on the way back from buying vegetables, I saw her take her grandson to school. Zhang carries a small schoolbag over her right shoulder, while her left hand rests on a white bandage hanging from her neck. When I asked her what was wrong with her hand, she didn’t give me an immediate answer. She just said that the child would be late for school and she would talk to me about the injury when she returned to the factory.
After returning to work, Aunt Zhang told me that her hand was injured by the battery, which hurt her bones.
Most of the torches produced in our factory are of various styles, and the most profitable one is the one with the largest size. The matching battery is as big as an adult’s fist, so the piece-rate of packing this kind of large battery is also higher. When workers pack products, they wrap the batteries and torches together with a packing card and then tape them firmly.
A box of batteries is about 30 jin, which requires workers to go to the warehouse and pull it back to the packaging workshop by car. Others always pull it back several times, but Aunt Zhang always pulls all the batteries in one time in order to save some time to pack more goods.
That day, as usual, Zhang unloaded the batteries and piled them high on the packed table. Then she sat down, resting her arms on the table. At that moment, the battery case fell down and hit her hand, shattering the phone on the table.
She said she cried in pain, but did not cry out, especially helpless. At that time, it was time to get off work and almost all the people in the factory had left. Just at that moment, Uncle Liu came with the goods and saw it, so she quickly went up and put the batteries on the ground one by one.
Aunt Zhang went to ask the boss for medical expenses after her hand was injured. The boss says this does not belong to inductrial injury, pure be she oneself carelessly do.
Her son took her to the hospital for treatment and almost cried when he saw Aunt Zhang’s hands. After he came back with the hospital to zhang Aunt opened the cost list to find the boss, said, this is belong to the injury, as long as the injury in the factory are called industrial injury! But the boss how all don’t pay medical expenses, still say to him, so many people pack up, your mother will get hurt, how others don’t get hurt?
The two had a big fight about it.
Fortunately, because her son is a skilled worker, the boss is somewhat worried that he will not be able to find someone to replace him soon after he stops working here, so he finally paid the cost of treatment for Aunt Zhang.
After a year, Aunt Zhang’s hands are good and she starts packing again.
There are still a lot of workers on the assembly line who have not come back. And the packaging department of the people almost all come, the goods more people, a little out of the goods, they will rob. Some packaging workers simply ran to the assembly line to guard, the assembly of a pick up one. As a result, the assembly staff was disturbed, and the production speed was even slower than usual. The supervisor was so angry that he had to tell the packers to go back to sleep first. “When the products are piled up, they can be divided into different parts for packing together!”
In fact, the packing department used to stipulate that, but there were always workers who broke their word and often came to pack the goods in advance. From then on, even if the assembly line down the goods can not keep up, we would rather keep in the factory.
Many of the workers in the packing department rented houses outside, but Aunt Zhang was the only one who lived in the factory. Every day, as soon as the renter came back from dinner, Aunt Zhang had packed all the assembled products into piles, so people quarreled with her every day.
Everyone in the packaging department has a knife to remove the battery case, and the sharper the blade gets. However, after coming back from the Spring Festival, the blade rusted a little bit, so they felt that the knife was not weighing their hands, which slowed down the packing speed. To make the blades faster, they all ran to the warehouse, each getting a shiny new blade.
After changing the blades, the packing speed was indeed faster, but before the glittering blades were put in the hands to cover the heat, three of the six people who went to change the blades were cut — two minor injuries, one serious injury, and Aunt Zhang was the one who was hurt the most.
Aunt Zhang hurt her wrist, she was wearing a long-sleeved dress, in order to work quickly, she rolled up the sleeve of the dress that day, so the blade directly cut the wrist, bleeding a lot, the injury was serious enough to alarm the boss, he came out from the office to have a look, asked someone to drive Aunt Zhang to the hospital for stitches.
On Saturday, Aunt Zhang and Li Embroidery came to play with me. Aunt Zhang sighed to me that she was so unlucky in her life. She was always the one who got hurt. Everyone else had money but she didn’t. I say you work in such a hurry, it’s like robbing gold. It looks scary. You’re bound to get hurt.
Aunt Zhang showed me the picture in her mobile phone, which was of her house. She said her house was the most luxurious in her hometown. Then he opened the sleeve of his left hand to show me that there was a long scar. The skin covering the scar was much thinner than the skin covering the other parts, and it was a little white.
Aunt Zhang said she worked day and night for more than 20 years to repair the house. Her son told her not to go to work. She was not earning any money, but she was hurt a lot. But she said as long as she could still move, she would look for work, over her dead body.
Apart from building a house, most of the money Zhang earned from her part-time job went to her daughter-in-law. The daughter-in-law went back to her hometown to give birth and told Aunt Zhang that if she was not given money, she would abort the baby.
Later, Aunt Zhang’s son did not continue to work in the factory, Aunt Zhang is still. The boss asked Aunt Zhang to stay here, wait for the hand is good, continue packing.
I didn’t see Aunt Zhang’s hands get better until I left the factory.
No more leather gloves
Liang Jingxiu lives in the dormitory like me, and her family has been working here for eight or nine years, six at the factory alone.
She was the first one among us to get up. Every day at most, at 5:30, she would take the clothes of the whole family to the faucet and wash them. Even if it was not bright in winter, she would take a big flashlight to wash clothes. Every time I went to meet her water, she always complained that the water is too cold, with gloves, it is inconvenient to wring clothes, do not wear gloves, hands will be cold and swollen.
Once the laundry was done, she had to go to the vegetable market and buy breakfast for her daughter-in-law, who was taking care of the children.
But for a while, Liang seemed to disappear, and All I could see was her family. It was not until I returned from the night shift for breakfast that I suddenly met her on the stairs of my dormitory.
She was wearing the same long black down jacket and the same thick black leggings, but her trainers had been replaced by fluffy slippers and she looked haggard. Her hair, which had not been long or short, had been combed and tied up at all, but that day it was as wild as the unfinished nests of the birds in the branches.
Her daughter-in-law, Liu Shanshan, was holding her left hand, which was wearing a black leather glove, and her right hand was gripping the muff of the glove as if afraid it would suddenly disappear. The palm of her left hand was laid across the palm of her daughter-in-law’s, but the fingers of the glove were hanging down flat as if empty.
Normally, we meet each other will say hello, but that day she did not.
When I returned to the factory after dinner, before I had time to sit down, a worker asked me if I knew Liang Jingxiu’s hand was hurt. Liang Jingxiu’s work in the factory was to press the switch of the flashlight and to use the electric bead button to test the flashlight. The machine she used was not big and relied on human power. It would not be dangerous if she dozed off while working — I could not understand how that kind of machine could make one hand completely without fingers.
The workmates told me that the hand was not hurt in this factory, but in another factory.
At noon on Sunday, My workmate and I went shopping. We met Liang Jingxiu’s husband and his grandson in the sun. We chatted for a while before we realized how Liang jingxiu was hurt.
Liang’s family has had little to do for the first two months. Her family expense is big, rested for half a month, see money go out every day not see money go in, the in the mind is particularly not practical. The husband discussed with his family that he would go to another factory to find a temporary worker and work there until the factory was in stock. Then he would come back and work here.
After several days of searching, I finally found a factory that used machines. If I worked overtime, a man could earn 150 yuan a day, which was half the wage in our factory. At first, it was her husband who went there with his eldest son, but later Liang said she was too bored to be alone at home and wanted to do it too. The husband disagreed, saying he was afraid the machine would hurt her hand, but in the end he could not defeat his wife.
The day after Her visit, Liang had an accident — the fingers on her left hand were all cut off by the machine, and many of the factory’s timid workers were scared out of their jobs.
The boss was angry and told Her it was the first time she had been injured after just one day’s work. It seems that Liang Jingxiu was injured on purpose.
After Her hand was injured, the other employer initially only paid medical expenses, and the compensation was not intended to be paid — liang was a temporary worker anyway, without a contract. Or the husband told the boss, if not to pay compensation, then a lawsuit, “no money to borrow to play, not to borrow to fight loans.”
The boss didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so he finally gave Her 20,000 yuan in compensation and told her family to continue working there.
As the Spring Festival approached, our factory was also busy. There was no one at the station Where Liang Jingxiu used to work. The boss asked her to work here, but she did not come. When none of them worked in our factory, they could not live in the dormitory, so they went out to rent a house.
After Liang Jingxiu hand is a little better, did not enter a factory again, also no longer wash clothes, every day to other factories to get some small parts to do at home, she said that such a day to earn 30 yuan, is always better than staying at home what do not do much, a month down, “his living expenses are at least enough. Later, I met her again. We said hello to each other, and she seemed to be in a better mood than before, except for the black glove she wore on her left hand.
The woman who loves to snatch life most is tired to death
Cheng was fifty years old and fat from head to toe. Although she was less than 1.6 meters tall, no one in the factory dared to offend her. She spent nearly two decades in Zhejiang, working on an assembly line when she was young, and less than three months when she switched to a press machine to make product parts as she got older.
One day, Cheng Sanying went to find the villagers to play, listen to the villagers said, the operation of CNC machine tools more money than the press. The factory she worked in only had presses, so she resigned and went to a factory with CNC machine tools.
The director of the workshop of the new factory said that she was asked to do the assembly because the woman could do it faster than the man. She worked on the assembly line for a month for two thousand and five hundred yuan. After work, she went to the supervisor, said that the day she entered the factory, the boss said that the guaranteed salary was three thousand yuan, even if there is no three thousand yuan, will also give her three thousand yuan.
The next time she was paid she did receive three thousand dollars, not more or less.
When Cheng Sanying again to inquire, the operation of CNC machining product parts, the salary is much more than the assembler, then to tell the director, she used to “use nearly six years of ‘NUMERICAL control’, know very well about CNC machine tools. The boss didn’t know that she had only done assembly and overpressuring, so she agreed.
In general, new to the operation of CNC machine tools are specially trained to teach novice people, the people in the factory called “master”. Master’s salary is a monthly salary, generally between five thousand and six thousand. Because Cheng Sanying lied, the director of the NUMERICAL control workshop to the “master” said, the workers came this time is a “numerical control” very familiar with the people, do not need to teach.
The workshop director gave Cheng Sanying some raw materials to be processed, but she looked at the machines, did not know where to start. She secretly watched nearby workers how to use, she learned how to use, the end of the day work, the assembly line people want to use her parts, found that all broken – this of course not to let the boss know, because the boss will only scold the director of the workshop and “master” – employees do wrong, the boss only to find the leadership of the staff.
Cheng sanying shirk responsibility to the workshop director, said, from the beginning to now, “the master” did not have a look at the parts she processed, “even if it is familiar with the machine, will do the wrong rework, let alone I started to do it”.
Workshop director said, you are not to tell the boss that the use of CNC machine tools have been used for more than six years? ‘Not every factory has the same CNC machine tools,’ Mr. Cheng said.
The workshop director finally also get three ying have no way, just did not give her a wage that day.
After working for a month, Cheng Sanying was familiar with the operation of CNC machine tools.
She began to work every day before dawn, and by the time the other workers arrived in the morning, she had earned more than fifty dollars. A month later, her salary was the highest among the workers, more than seven thousand yuan.
In almost every factory, the summer is the off-season, when piece-wage workers often fight over goods. If you can’t beat it, call your husband or son the next day.
In addition to people on the assembly lines, people in the CNC machine tool workshops were also scrambling for goods. Cheng Sanying does not rob with them, she is to go to work early, under normal circumstances, at three o ‘clock in the morning to the workshop, when the summer goods are less, is also twelve clock off.
When she did this many times, other workers felt it was unfair and complained to the boss. The boss stressed the unified time to work, but Chengsanying is still the same as before, the goods do not stop. Sometimes, if the workshop director in the evening to make the next day’s goods ready, Cheng Sanying simply not off work, directly overnight. The others saw it and followed suit.
So, the workshop to work became a mess: the day is often no goods to do, the workers sleep, at night when the goods, we do all night, if the night goods did not finish, we continue to do during the day, until finished. Sometimes you have to take two days off before you get a new one.
Those who are young and unmarried, however, do not mind, do not have to go out shopping, see the sea. Those who are married and have children fight over the goods every day, especially those who have children at school. Sometimes it’s like fighting.
Chengsan ying home although what the burden is not. But she grabs more than anyone else. She told her workmates that her son had been beaten up on the sly because he had fought for goods in the factory without winning.
As soon as summer passed, it ushered in the busy season and the factory became busier and busier.
Chengsanying in the factory for so many years, of course, in the production of products to choose the highest unit price to do.
In winter, some workers have to go back to their hometowns, so it is the busiest time in the factory. Employees thought that At this time, Chengsanying would go to work on time, but on the contrary, she was even busier. Especially when she encountered products with high unit price, she didn’t even have time to eat, and the time spent in eating and drinking water was too wasted for her.
In Zhejiang, it is so cold in winter that the water tap cannot be turned on in the morning. Only by pouring some hot water can the water tap melt the ice. When the weather was cold, some people were late for work every day. However, Cheng Sanying went to the workshop at three o ‘clock. At the latest, at half past four, he kept working day and night as before.
Once came a product with the highest price, Cheng Sang-ying took advantage of the night when the workers all left, and hid the product. Later, a worker went to find it, she stood up and slapped the other man twice in the face, so that the man’s nosebleed came out. The next day, she quit.
Waiting for the approaching of the Spring Festival, the factory is more busy, everyone is working overtime. One Sunday evening around nine o ‘clock, Cheng SAN Ying carried her finished parts to the stack point, then sat down beside the machine in front of her and fell asleep.
At the end of the day, all but the night shift were gone.
At work the next day, her co-worker next to her saw her lying on the ground. “Don’t tell me you didn’t go to bed last night,” he said. See Cheng SAN Ying to have no response, the workmate side reach out to wake her up while saying: “how can sleep here in bed sleep comfortable?”
But she found that Cheng SAN Ying’s body was cold and stiff, and was too frightened to speak at that time. She was so frightened that she ran to the assembly shop, drank some water and recovered herself. Then she hurriedly told the people on the assembly line, “It seems that Cheng Sanying can’t survive now.”
One moment it was full of people, the next it was all gone. That day the factory staff are very quiet, the chat voice is low, no one to rob the product, but also courtesy to each other.
The boss contacted Cheng’s family and they came to get the body back. The post-mortem said it was hard work. The family members demanded compensation from the boss, but no one in the factory knew whether the boss had given them this compensation.
Later, the factory stipulated that people could go to work at most ten minutes earlier and leave work at night at most ten minutes later. Those who went to work early would be dismissed. Those who stayed behind for half a day at the end of work would not go the next day and would be directly packed up and left.
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