Previously, during my work and wage-seeking process, I gained some insights. I believe that fighting for wages and struggling against the bourgeoisie can be somewhat helpful to everyone. Therefore, I am sharing this here in hopes of providing some assistance to everyone’s struggles. If there are immature or incorrect viewpoints, everyone can also offer opinions for criticism. The specifics are as follows:
Why can the proletariat, as a class representing new productive relations, oppose the bourgeoisie? I think it is because only the proletariat can break the private ownership system (which is different from the petty bourgeoisie, whose existence depends on private property), and break the wage labor system. Their class interests are not much different from the direction of historical progress. Therefore, in the wage-seeking struggle, the more the proletariat workers can overcome the constraints of capitalism (such as private ownership concepts, legalism), the more powerful they become in the process of wage demands, and thus the more likely they are to win.
In Nazi China, if one relies solely on legal means to seek wages, the procedures are not only complicated and tedious, but ultimately may not yield good results for the laborers. First, there’s the recognition of evidence, then the long wait for arbitration and court hearings, which takes about two or three months. Ordinary proletarians simply cannot afford to wait. Moreover, if the bourgeoisie does not accept the arbitration results, the proletariat must further apply to the court for a hearing, which also takes two or three months. The proletariat spends countless efforts in this process, but the final result is only to recover what they should have already received, while many capitalist enterprises may not suffer any loss during this process.
Furthermore, the so-called “Labor Law” in Nazi China is itself a reactionary law. From a historical perspective, China did not have a so-called labor law because, in the past, China was a socialist country where the working class was the master of the state, and there was no slavery or wage system. Therefore, there was no need for a labor law to regulate the so-called labor-capital relations. The labor law appeared in the 1990s, mainly to reconcile and cover up the intensifying class contradictions at that time. Since then, it has officially negated the rights of workers under socialism, and re-established, based on the power comparison between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in fascist Chinese society, a so-called labor law in legal form. This itself is a humiliation to socialist China and Chinese workers. In terms of actual content, it is also very reactionary. I have thought before that intermediaries and black factories that owe wages are no different from scams or thefts. Why can’t they be criminalized? Later, I realized the difference between these two laws: theft and fraud are crimes where there is no employment relationship between the victim and the offender. Owed wages are not much different in content. The biggest difference is that the offender is the dominant party in the employment relationship—capitalists—while the victim is the subordinate party—workers. This is what they call regulating labor-capital relations.
Therefore, promoting the so-called legal struggle, like the May Fourth Labor Committee, is completely wrong. Such actions cannot significantly improve workers’ treatment and also suppress the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat. (In fact, I believe that most Chinese workers do not understand that labor law itself is just a piece of paper.)
This means that the more one breaks through the scope of capitalist wage labor system and exceeds the private ownership system, the greater the impact and achievements in wage disputes. For example, my recent wage claim is like this: I combine legal and illegal struggles. My first approach was not to go to the labor bureau but to directly confront the factory’s HR department. This action, on the surface, seems like a legal struggle because it does not violate Nazi criminal law, but fundamentally differs from labor arbitration. It somewhat exceeds the capitalist framework. According to legalists, the factory premises belong to the capitalists, and complaining about the factory’s misconduct in the HR department is considered provocation and troublemaking, so it cannot be done. But my idea is different. I want to use this more direct method to cause trouble and damage to the factory, thereby intensifying contradictions between the factory and intermediaries, expanding Marxist influence among workers, and strengthening my resolve in wage disputes. My thinking at that time was not just about my wages but about the rights of the entire working class, the proletariat. Therefore, I no longer fight based on employment but instead oppose and accuse the employment system itself. This makes my approach more effective, more revolutionary, and more impactful than so-called legal struggles.
This also reflects a dialectical point: if a person only cares about their wages, they have no strength because they are only fighting for themselves. But if a person considers not just their wages but the entire class and the historical mission of the proletariat, they will become more determined, and their methods will be more correct and revolutionary.
