If you’ve ever wondered exactly how the Chinese government works: go to see the film冬月(The Transition Period) by award winning documentary maker Zhou Hao.
For three months at the end of 2007, Zhao followed around Guo Yongcheng, the Party secretary of Gushi county in Henan, recording all aspects of his work from entertaining investors at banquets and karaoke clubs, dealing with petitioners and chairing meeting upon meeting upon meeting. After seven years as the county Party secretary, Guo was being transferred to an administrative position Beijing, and the film documented the final, hectic and often emotional, months of his tenure.
The documentary, screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival last night, provides a fascinating insight into the workings of local government and shows unequivocally that China is still a country ruled by individual officials (人治) rather than one ruled by law (法治).
The way Guo and his government colleagues dealt with the non-payment of wages to migrant construction workers in the county is a text book example of how local governments handle labour disputes – a process described in detail in CLB’s latest research report on the trade unions in China, published today.
Earlier in the film, several migrant workers had petitioned the government demanding the payment of wages in arrears but no wages were forthcoming from the bosses, so just before the Lunar New Year a group of workers blockaded the county government building in Gushi refusing to let Guo enter until he agreed to a meeting.
Five worker representatives were summoned to a meeting where they were given the classic carrot and stick treatment. The officials castigated them for disrupting the work of the government and warned them that if they ever blockaded the government again they would be severely dealt with. The officials then said that because they sympathized with the plight of migrant workers they would resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
They resolved the problem by summoning the construction and labour contractors who owed the wages the next day and berated them one and one, telling them that the central government had ordered all migrant workers’ wage arrears to be cleared before the New Year. The contractors were given 24 hours to come up with the cash. The film did not say however how many of the migrant workers actually got paid.
During the documentary, Party Secretary Guo, a legal scholar, criticized China’s petitions (信访) system, where officials deal with complaints and disputes on a personal and ad hoc basis, for undermining the rule of law. It was ironic then that the position he was to take up in Beijing was with the Petitions Office.