Creation: Political Economy Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
On February 19th, JD.com announced that starting from March 1st this year, it will gradually pay social insurance and housing fund for full-time couriers of JD Waimai, and will pay accident insurance and health medical insurance for part-time couriers. Meituan followed suit, stating that it plans to gradually pay social insurance for full-time and stable part-time couriers starting from the second quarter of 2025. Ele.me also announced the promotion of “new job injury” insurance coverage the next day. On February 22nd, Li Zhong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, also stated, “Due to various reasons, migrant workers, flexible employment personnel, and practitioners of new business formats find it difficult to participate in social insurance. There is a need to actively research and improve policies to lower thresholds, provide insurance subsidies, and other related measures, to include them in social insurance coverage as much as possible.” Suddenly, there was a chorus of praise domestically. From the platforms that originally avoided paying social insurance for delivery workers to the official departments that had ignored this issue for many years, all suddenly echoed the same tune advocating for the inclusion of “flexible employment personnel” into social insurance. Many middle-of-the-road mouthpieces also came out loudly. They either praised JD.com’s conscience discovery or called the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security’s statement a “good policy to protect the rights of practitioners in new business formats.” However, does including “flexible employment populations” into social insurance truly mean that workers’ rights are being improved?
In fact, it is not that “flexible employment personnel” need social insurance, but that social insurance needs “flexible employment personnel.” After the pandemic, the social sector remains in a state of economic depression, with little sign of improvement. Take the catering industry, which has relatively quick capital turnover, lower investment costs, and experienced a “store opening boom” after the pandemic, as an example for analysis. Data from Qichacha shows that in 2024, the total number of registered catering businesses nationwide was 3.574 million, but the number of closures approached 3 million, far exceeding the approximately 1.36 million in 2023. The large number of bankruptcies has worsened unemployment, with many unemployed proletarians flooding into platforms like Meituan to make a living. From January to June 2024 alone, the number of delivery workers in Beijing increased by 49.7% year-on-year. The groups labeled as “flexible employment populations” by middle-of-the-road officials, such as delivery workers and ride-hailing drivers, mostly belong to “indirect employment,” and related companies do not pay social insurance for their employees. The increasing number of “flexible employment populations” has led to a rising rate of social insurance discontinuation. In the social insurance system, the largest proportion is for pension insurance, and by 2022, the number of workers who interrupted their basic pension insurance each year increased from 29.56 million in 2011 to 63.25 million. Meanwhile, due to the increasing proportion of elderly people in China, pension expenditures continue to expand. Even official middle-of-the-road media have to admit that from 2020 to 2035, China’s cumulative pension gap will reach 30.3 trillion yuan. The media openly refer to those who do not participate in social insurance as “leaked,” “disconnected,” or “cut off” fish. The so-called “protection of the rights of practitioners in new business formats” is merely a pretext used by middle-of-the-road officials to deceive, as the real reason for the urgent push to include “flexible employment populations” into social insurance is the deficit in social security funds.
Fundamentally, China’s social security system is just a disguised form of taxation. Paying social insurance does not mean that the working conditions of the vast groups of delivery workers and ride-hailing drivers will improve accordingly. In a discussion organized by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress in March 2024, a delivery worker expressed unwillingness to pay social insurance, citing an extra monthly expense of 700 yuan. Many rural household registration delivery workers, due to their older age, simply cannot meet the required years of social insurance contributions. For them, paying social insurance is a waste of money and cannot provide any security for their later years. Today, the middle-of-the-road officials’ busy expansion of social insurance coverage only means that the ruling class will impose more burdensome taxes and levies on the working people, and these extorted funds often fail to benefit the people at all. The increasing proportion of aging population and inclusion of drugs in insurance catalog are not the real reasons for the annual deficits of medical and pension insurance. The true reason is that all these so-called “social security funds” are used to sustain a small group of parasites. Regarding medical insurance, in 2023, China’s drug centralized procurement amounted to 1.27 trillion yuan, with the cost of traditional Chinese medicine reaching about 260 billion yuan. Many common medicinal ingredients turned into pills, with prices soaring ten or even dozens of times. The “Sour Jujube Seed Granules” included in the medical insurance reimbursement list had a price of 6.3 yuan per gram, while silver costs only 7.2 yuan per gram. Calculated per jin (500 grams), the price of “Sour Jujube Seed Granules” exceeds 3,000 yuan. Western medicines in the procurement catalog are also full of inferior generics with poor efficacy and life-threatening side effects. Many medical insurance funds are not even used for purchasing medicines—recently, many netizens from coastal areas shared experiences of using their personal medical insurance accounts to buy Huawei WATCH D2 at pharmacies, where some pharmacies raised prices, selling the originally priced 2,988 yuan product for 3,188 yuan. The vast medical insurance funds are all divided among monopolistic capital in the medical industry and bureaucratic bourgeoisie. Regarding pension insurance, taking the “big province for civil service exams” Shandong as an example, in Heze City, Chengwu County, the per capita pension for civil servants in 2023 was as high as 7,452 yuan/month, while ordinary workers received only 2,326 yuan/month, and farmers even as little as 175 yuan/month, which is negligible. The huge disparity in pension benefits is astonishing. Meanwhile, the middle-of-the-road officials hypocritically announced, “To better ensure ‘aging with dignity,’” and “retired personnel will see an increase in basic pension by 3% per capita,” but who actually benefits from the increased pensions? Who should be blamed for the pension fund deficits? The facts prove that the problem of social insurance deficits cannot be solved simply by expanding coverage and forcing semi-unemployed proletarians to pay. As long as the social security system continues to serve a small group of parasites, it will keep “deficit” forever. Any attempt to rescue this “deficit” only means greater disaster for the working people. Those who hope to secure their health and later life by relying on the so-called “social security system” of the exploiting class will find their illusions shattered: “aging with dignity” only belongs to the exploiting class. Only by eliminating the parasites can one truly save their later years.
https://www.shui5.cn/article/0e/46252.html
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