At an official meeting on promoting rural migrant workers' participation in occupational injury insurance convened in early September in Shenzhen, Guangdong, Vice Minister of Labour and Social Security Hu Xiaoyi said that "in the work of promoting rural migrant workers' participation in industrial injury insurance, we need to do a good job of explaining policies, as well as promotion and mobilisation, guiding companies to participate voluntarily. We also need to deploy mandatory methods to supervise and urge companies' legal participation." Hu also announced that, by July 2006, the number of persons participating in occupational injury insurance nationwide had surpassed 90 million. Among those, the number of migrant workers participating in occupational injury insurance had reached 18.71 million, an increase of 6,194,500 compared to the end of last year.
The above statistics indicate that, on one hand, social security departments at all levels of the Chinese government have adopted measures to increase the scope of coverage of occupational injury insurance. On the other hand, comparing the huge employed population in China with the equally huge ranks of employed migrant workers, the above statistics confirm that the government still faces a formidable task in promoting the expansion of occupational injury insurance coverage. According to statistics published by the Ministry of Health on 7 January 2005, there were over 16 million enterprises in China involved in toxic and harmful materials, and the number of persons endangered on the job numbered over 200 million. The 18.71 million migrant workers participating in occupational injury insurance only comprises 15.6% of the 120 million migrant workers employed in the cities. Between 2004 and 2005, China Labour Bulletin investigated the compensation process for approximately 100 silicosis victims from seven jewellery-processing firms in Guangdong and admitted some of the silicosis cases from four of the companies into China Labour Bulletin's Case Intervention Programme (for details, see "DEADLY DUST: The Silicosis Epidemic among Guangdong Jewellery Workers and the Defects of China's Occupational Illness Prevention and Compensation System" at http://www.clb.org.hk/fs/view/downloadables/Deadly_Dust_Dec2005.pdf). We discovered that none of the Guangdong gem-processing factories involved in these compensation cases provided occupational injury insurance for their workers.
China's occupational injury insurance system is an inherently mandatory system. The "Regulations on Occupational Injury Insurance" promulgated by the State Council on 27 April 2003 clearly stipulated that every type of enterprise within China must provide occupational injury insurance and collect an occupational injury insurance premium on behalf of workers (Article Two). "Guiding companies to participate voluntarily and deploying mandatory methods," in the words of the Vice Minister of Labour and Social Security, are not contained in the meaning of this provision. But, three years after the promulgation of the regulations, only 15.6 percent of all migrant workers are participating in occupational injury insurance. This percentage indicates that severe problems exist with the Chinese government at every level using administrative methods to restructure labour-management relations. In other words, the government's ability to govern is currently encountering a serious challenge from private enterprise owners.
In an article entitled "The Four Great Roadblocks to Social Insurance for Rural Migrant Workers in High-Risk Industries," published in the 15th issue of China Comment Biweekly in 2006, a publication of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party Central Committee, a Shanxi Province official responsible for social insurance acknowledged that the government entities in charge of occupational injury insurance are facing huge resistance in the collection of occupational injury insurance premiums. Although the premium-collecting entities have corresponding powers of administrative punishment to respond to enterprises that do not pay the premiums or participate in the insurance, in fact they have almost no ability to control enterprises that do not participate. The Shanxi provincial government has in the past issued mandatory rules providing that no safe production permits be issued to coal mines that do not pay occupational injury insurance premiums for miners. But the majority of the privately-contracted mines have not continued paying the insurance premiums for miners after obtaining their safe production permits. After the occurrence of an injury accident on the job, mine owners typically settle privately with the miners, and a few of them even abscond. It is very difficult for the government social security agencies responsible for occupational injury insurance to conduct effective monitoring and management under these circumstances. The dilemmas encountered in the implementation of the occupational injury insurance system demonstrate that there has already been serious deterioration in the government's ability to govern.
At the "Special Seminar on Improving the Ability to Construct a Harmonious Socialist Society among the Primary Leadership at the Provincial Ministerial Level" convened by the Communist Party Central Committee on 19 February 2005, Party Central Committee General Secretary Hu Jintao mentioned in his published remarks the question of how to strengthen the Communist Party's "ability to govern," naming the construction of a harmonious socialist society as an important aspect of strengthening the Communist Party's ability to govern. At the Sixth Plenum of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that concluded on 11 October 2006, the Central Committee put forth nine goals related to the construction of a harmonious socialist society, including "the people's rights will be conscientiously respected and guaranteed." It must be said that, at a time when China is riddled with social crises and the Communist Party's ability to govern is weakening by the day, it is truly a blessing for the Chinese people, especially those at the bottom rung of society, when the Central Committee puts forward a goal to establish a harmonious society and makes it the primary aspect of strengthening the ability to govern. At the same time, however, we must note that the construction of a harmonious society in a situation in which a civil society has not fully emerged, whether the goal is a way of improving the Communist Party's ability to govern or it is accomplished by relying on the Communist Party's ability to govern, it is merely a beautiful promise by the ruling party to people in society. To state it simply, the restructuring of China's economy, due to the inhibiting impact on civil society created by the delay in reforming the political system in a rapidly and lopsidedly developing market economy, resulted in all central government mandates lacking the cooperation of the lowest levels of society in their implementation process and encountering stiff resistance from local governments and interest groups.
Since the current central government administration came to power in 2002, it has been trying to redress the "economic government" role played by several previous administrations and has formulated and issued a series of policies aimed at protecting "social equity and justice," including some policies involving labour relations, such as policies guaranteeing migrant workers' rights, making the government responsible for pursuing migrant workers' back wages, mandating the rectification of coal mine safety processes, and strengthening urban residents' minimum living standard security system and social insurance system. The actual impacts of these policies, however, have not been as predicted. This point has been proven, as described above, by the results emerging in the occupational injury insurance system three years after the State Council's promulgation of the "Regulations on Occupational Injury Insurance."
Therefore, with regard to the Chinese Communist Party's ability to govern, regardless whether constructing a harmonious socialist society is viewed as a means to improve the ability to govern, or as a goal of governance, a fully-developed civil society should be the foundation, and adequate room should be given to nurture such a society, including full freedom of speech and to form associations, effective monitoring of public opinion, and broad citizen participation. Only upon this foundation is there any hope of improving the government's ability to govern and can a harmonious society be anticipated.
18 October 2006