Rebirth of Siheyuan starts in the 1980s

Chapter 381 You are willing to carry the burden for me, I am grateful to you before it is too late

"Well, Xiao Cao, we have so many things at hand now, and we haven't finished them yet. Now we want to set up a film studio? Isn't it a bit too adventurous? Why don't we focus on the projects we have at hand first?

Let’s talk again?”

The person who said these words was Li Siming, Factory Director Li, who has the same name as Cao Zhiqiang's brother-in-law but a different surname.

The reason was naturally that Cao Zhiqiang came to him and proposed to apply to the relevant departments to open a film studio in the name of Hongguang Machinery Factory.

Originally, according to Cao Zhiqiang's idea, Director Li should have agreed immediately this time, but who knew that this time Director Li actually questioned it.

Yes, there is no direct denial, just questioning, but this is already a statement of attitude and disapproval.

"Director Li, how can this be a rash move?" Cao Zhiqiang said, "This is to better integrate resources and help the factory transform faster."

Speaking of this, Cao Zhiqiang sighed and said: "Director Li, there are more than 5,000 tertiary industry workers in our factory. You also know the situation of these people. At least two-thirds are leftover from history.

Strictly speaking, for a factory like ours, the large number of tertiary industry personnel has hardly brought any benefits. Instead, it has continuously eroded the resources of our factory and increased the factory's expenditure.

From the perspective of increasing revenue and reducing expenditure, I think it is not an exaggeration to eliminate two-thirds of the personnel in the tertiary industry, or even eliminate them all, which is not a big problem."

"I dare not say that!" Director Li waved his hand quickly.

After that, Director Li subconsciously looked at the door of his office and he was relieved when he found that the door of his office was closed properly and that he and Cao Zhiqiang were the only ones in the entire office.

Afterwards, Factory Director Li sighed and said: "Xiao Cao, yes, I also know that there are too many people in our factory who just take money and do nothing, but like you said, these are all problems left over from history.

These people also contributed to the factory back then. Just because the factory is in difficulty now, can we not discard these meritorious people?

We are not a capitalist country and cannot do this.

If you really dare to do this, if they cause trouble, I, the factory director, will probably step down before I can retire."

Indeed, in state-owned factories during this period, ordinary workers were still a force that cannot be ignored.

In 1983, state-owned enterprise employees were not so easy to deal with.

Dismissing people without any reason will cause public anger. Once public anger is caused, the factory manager will also be blind.

Just like the rectification incident that Hongguang Machinery Factory is facing now. This is actually the government's desire to rectify it.

Ordinarily, Hongguang Machinery Factory is a state-owned enterprise asset and should listen to the government. If the government wants to rectify it, is it not just a matter of words?

But things are not that simple. The most troublesome issue is employee placement.

Among them, the production department of Hongguang Machinery Factory is given to Shougang. This is no problem. The real problem is the huge tertiary industry department.

Since the tertiary industry departments are a burden of Hongguang Machinery Factory, are these departments no longer a burden of the government if they are absorbed by the government?

This is obviously not the case.

If it were capitalism, it would be fine to just lay off workers, but this cannot be done in China at this time, as doing so would cause serious trouble.

But it won't work if we don't lay off employees, transform it into a public institution, and just change the employees' skin.

You must know that the salary income of factory workers during this period may not be much higher than that of government agencies and institutions at the same level. However, due to the special nature of the factory, there are also a large number of factory welfare subsidies, that is, special vouchers, which are not available in government agencies and institutions.

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Apart from anything else, things like food stamps to compensate for job losses and meat stamps for factories are things that government agencies and institutions do not have.

The reason is very simple, that is, state-owned enterprises during this period generally had many brother units. These brother units were spread all over the country, including other factories and township enterprises, and even had mutual help relationships with some people's communes.

To put it bluntly, due to historical reasons, the large state-owned enterprises of this period actually had a closed internal trading circle, which ordinary government agencies could not enter.

Without this internal trading circle, why would state-owned enterprises be more popular than government agencies and public institutions in the more than 20 years from the 1960s to the 1980s? Wouldn't there be more benefits?

In other words, as an ordinary state-owned enterprise employee, my monthly salary may be about the same as that of a government cadre, which is 40 yuan, but as a factory employee, I can receive coupons every month, such as food stamps to make up for the difference, meat coupons to make up for the difference, etc.

, but there are many more cadres than your agency.

In the early 1980s, tickets had not been completely abolished, so people with more tickets were more popular than those with fewer tickets.

In other words, if Hongguang Machinery Factory is unprepared, it will be rectified and the tertiary industry will be directly turned into a public institution. Unless you increase wages significantly or reissue the same tickets as during the factory period, otherwise, the original

If a large number of factory workers suddenly and comprehensively reduce their welfare benefits, there will definitely be trouble.

As long as there are too many people and there is trouble, the relevant leaders will definitely not be able to take advantage of it.

Therefore, this requires a buffer and attention to methods.

What method? It's very simple, just blow the air and slowly change it.

Just like now, it is said that the factory needs to be rectified, which makes everyone panic.

Then the financial subsidy is reduced by half, so that the monthly income of factory workers is directly halved.

In this case, even if the factory does not lack special food stamps or meat stamps to make up for the difference, the loss of half of the money will still make the majority of employees feel heartbroken.

But there is no way. If there is less money, it will be less. At this time, the factory has not been split up and rectified, and it is still there. Therefore, the target of employees' anger can only be the factory, and it can only be cadres such as the factory director. They think that the cadres are incompetent.

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If the factory director doesn't want to take the blame, he should explain the matter clearly. For example, he should explain the fact that the factory's performance is not good and it has been receiving financial subsidies. Then he should explain that the government is also in difficulty and cannot continue to support people.

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In this way, the majority of workers will feel ashamed, stop making trouble, and quietly accept the fact that their wages are reduced by half.

After all, half the salary is better than no salary at all.

Then, for six months, the factory was split up, the production department was transferred to Shougang, and wages immediately returned to their original wages. This will make the majority of employees grateful to the new factory.

As for the tertiary industry departments that have been merged into the government, their wages will also be raised, but they will not be restored to the original state, and the number of tickets and the like will also be reduced. But as long as it is better than the original situation of cutting their wages in half, then everyone will still be there.

will be satisfied.

This means cutting it in half first, venting everyone's resentment, and then raising it by another 20% after the limelight has passed. Naturally, you will only receive praise.

But in fact, looking at it as a whole, this still cuts everyone's salary by 30%. If other benefits are added, the cuts will only be even more.

However, by reducing wages through this method, the majority of employees will not be dissatisfied, but will be happy and grateful. This is a problem with the method.

At that time, everyone will only vent their resentment on the original old leader, thinking that the old leader is incompetent and will not blame themselves.

Director Li knew this very well, so he was so worried before, because he knew that if he didn't handle it well, he would be the one taking the blame.

In fact, throughout the reform of state-owned enterprises in the 1980s, there were many scapegoats like Factory Director Li, and he was no exception.

Is there any way to break the situation?

Of course there is.

In fact, the government wants to rectify the Hongguang Machinery Factory at this time. Basically, it is not trying to steal the wealth of the Hongguang Machinery Factory.

On the contrary, the government's rectification of Hongguang Machinery Factory is to stop losses in time.

Because Hongguang Machinery Factory is a state-owned enterprise, if it cannot turn over profits to the government, it will in turn eat into the government's finances, which is equivalent to a heavy burden for the government.

It would be okay if the government had money, it wouldn't be that bad, but now the government is also poor, otherwise what kind of reform would it have?

Therefore, the purpose of rectifying Hongguang Machinery Factory is not to spend a large amount of fiscal revenue every year into the bottomless pit of Hongguang Machinery Factory, and to reduce fiscal expenditures.

Therefore, if Hongguang Machinery Factory can stand out on its own without seeking to make money again, even if it is responsible for its own profits and losses and can pay its own employees' salaries, then it is a good factory and a good unit. Why should it continue to make improvements?

If by any chance this factory can not only be responsible for its own profits and losses, but also provide additional funds to the government, then it will be a star enterprise, and it must brag about it and let everyone learn from it.

It is precisely because of this that Director Li began to look for various ways to save Hongguang Machinery Factory and promoted Cao Zhiqiang in an unusual way.

Because after much thought, Director Li couldn't think of anyone else besides Cao Zhiqiang who could solve the wage gap at Hongguang Machinery Factory.

This is not to say that Hongguang Machinery Factory only has a wage gap, but that the wage gap cannot be delayed for a moment, unlike other gaps such as water and electricity, which can continue to be owed.

Anyway, everyone owes money now.

Hongguang Machinery Factory owes money to others, and others also owe Hongguang Machinery Factory money. It is just a triangular debt. No one should laugh at anyone.

In addition, it is a planned economy, and there will definitely be no shortage of energy and raw materials, because they are all uniformly allocated from above.

So it seems that the factory's biggest funding gap is raw materials and energy, but in fact there is no shortage of these things and it is still running normally.

On the contrary, workers' wages seem to be very small. There is really nothing we can do about it.

Workers’ wages are in cash and cannot be paid through internal fictitious IOUs.

This is also why Cao Zhiqiang’s loan from Hongguang Publishing House was able to save Hongguang Machinery Factory.

Because Cao Zhiqiang's publishing house only needs to pay half of the wages of the workers in the machinery factory.

If the factory is also responsible for the raw materials and energy bills, then it cannot afford to kill Cao Zhiqiang.

"Director Li." Cao Zhiqiang sighed, "Regardless of whether publishing houses or convenience kiosks are in full swing now, in fact, the number of people these projects can attract is very limited.

As for the convenience kiosk project, in the long run, it can indeed attract a large number of people.

Theoretically, this convenience kiosk project alone can absorb all the tertiary industry personnel in our factory, turning these tertiary industry departments that only have no access to the outside into new profit growth points, allowing the tertiary industry personnel to support themselves while also

It can also feed back and strengthen the factory.

But this cannot be accomplished overnight, there is a gradual expansion process.

Moreover, the convenience kiosk project is actually based on policies. Once the government stops it, it will be all in vain.

Therefore, we cannot put our eggs in one basket, we must bloom more and prepare with more hands.

Setting up a film studio is a new project I thought of for the factory.

You see, as long as the film studio is completed, it can be regarded as a subsidiary company of our factory. In this way, at least we can get rid of the big burden of the art troupe, which only spends money but does not make money.

Once the new film studio makes money, it goes without saying that if it doesn't make money, we won't suffer a loss if we spin off a separate film studio and let the government take over the film studio and transform it from an enterprise to a business, don't you think?"

"Well..." Director Li touched his chin, "That's the truth, but we are not stupid. If something really goes wrong, our main factory won't just ignore it. It will be difficult to explain."

"That's good." Cao Zhiqiang said.

"If you are still worried, director, then transform the film factory into a contract management model, like a publishing house, and contract it to me for personal management, or like China Audio and Video Company, adopt a public-private joint-stock model, and I will still be responsible.

I am personally responsible and I personally guarantee it, so you should believe it, right?"

Director Li looked at Cao Zhiqiang and suddenly smiled: "Xiao Cao, tell me the truth, what do you think? Or do you think the film studio is really up to something? Can it really make a lot of money?"

Cao Zhiqiang also laughed: "Director, you should know better than me whether the film studio makes money or not."

"That's right." Director Li nodded, "It's because I understand very well. I know very well that today's film studios don't make any money at all, they all rely on finances, so I don't want you to suffer a loss."

Indeed, in the era of unified purchasing and marketing, all domestic film studios do not need to consider commercial benefits at all.

All it takes is for the script to be approved and the project to be approved, and then the higher-ups will allocate funds to start filming. After filming is completed, they will be sold directly to China Film Company for distribution and screening through a buyout.

The buyout price for this movie varies, and the price depends entirely on the preferences of the leaders of China Film Company.

In other words, during the entire process of making a movie, the studio does not need to consider cost accounting or box office efficiency at all, so the result is that almost 80% of movie studios operate at a loss.

Otherwise, we would not have continued to reform the film system. In the 1980s, we would have turned film studios from public institutions into enterprises and implemented independent accounting.

In essence, the corporate reform of film studios in the early 1980s, or to be precise, started in 1984, is the same as the reform situation faced by Hongguang Machinery Factory now. It is an act of government departments to reduce expenditures and shed burdens.

Because before 1984, except for a few studios such as Bayi Film Studio, almost all film studios were public institutions directly under the government, usually directly under the Ministry of Culture or the local cultural bureau.

Therefore, the reason why Director Li did not immediately agree to Cao Zhiqiang's establishment of a film studio was because he knew that this thing was now purely a money-loser.

Don't say it's easy to divest subordinate units, that's all nonsense.

These days, the relationship between the head office of a state-owned enterprise and its subsidiaries is very close, and can even be said to be parallel.

It is impossible for something to happen to a subsidiary company, and the head office has no responsibility at all. It would be difficult to distance ourselves from the relationship.

More often than not, when a subsidiary company suffers a loss, the head office is responsible for taking care of the problem. This also results in a large number of state-owned enterprise subsidiaries being extravagant and wasteful.

In the reform of state-owned enterprises in the 1980s, one of the important reform directions was to eliminate a large number of subsidiaries that were purely losing money.

Therefore, Director Li does not want to set up a subsidiary film studio that loses money, because that would be equivalent to carrying the burden of losing money again.

"Don't worry, Director Li." Cao Zhiqiang patted his chest, "I'm not bragging. Since I started my career, how often have you seen me lose money? How often have you not seen me make money? It's just a matter of making more or less.

As for the movie studio, believe me, once this thing is done, it will be very successful and profitable.

Even if you don’t make much money, it is a good promotional window and should never be thrown away easily.

Moreover, changes are happening everywhere now. In my opinion, in a few years, film studios will soon usher in changes.

Once the film studios usher in changes and can be responsible for their own profits and losses like those in Xiangjiang, then a new era will come.

By then, with my ability, I can definitely make our film studio the most profitable and famous one.

But once the film studio can make a lot of money, the entry conditions will definitely become more difficult, and it will be extremely difficult for us to get in by then.

It is better to enter now and get the qualification of a film studio.

Even if you are not making money now, or even losing money, as long as the loss is not severe and you wait patiently, the clouds will clear one day.

Again, if you are worried, Director Li, you can completely contract it to me, or cooperate in the form of a joint-stock system.

As long as I'm here, I guarantee there won't be any problems.

Even if you lose money, it’s still mine and I can afford it!”

Director Li thought for a while: "Well, since you said that, what else can I say? Let's do it.

However, forget about the joint-stock system, just like that publishing house, let's contract it to you to run it.

I don’t expect this film studio to make much money. As long as you can pay off the wages of all the employees who have been incorporated into the film studio, you will be considered a success.”

Cao Zhiqiang smiled: "Then we have made an agreement, and we are not allowed to go back on it."

Director Li laughed and scolded: "What's the point of regretting this? You're willing to carry the burden for me. I'm grateful to you before it's too late.

Besides, I am getting old, and this factory will be handed over to you sooner or later. If you are not afraid, what should I be afraid of?"

Cao Zhiqiang nodded and said seriously: "Director Li, you are a person who truly thinks about the factory. I really admire you!"

Director Li sighed: "I have worked in this factory for most of my life. It would be a lie to say that I have no feelings, but sometimes, it doesn't mean that you have feelings... forget it, let's not talk about it!"

Having said this, Director Li put his hands behind his back and said, "Xiao Cao, I have always believed in your vision and ability.

If someone asked me to set up a movie studio, I would have kicked him out a long time ago, but since it was you who begged me, I will believe you this time.

Let's do this. I'll go find the old director right now, and then go with him to find the leader of the Ministry of Culture. We must get a quotation for the film studio.

Just wait patiently and don't be in a hurry.

Anyway, the movie studio thing is not a big deal, I guarantee it will happen.

Now that the college entrance examination is approaching, you should just prepare for the exam at home with peace of mind during this period, and don’t worry about other things."

(End of chapter)