Reborn Industrial Tycoon

In the production workshop of the electric furnace factory, workers were assembling air fryers, while Li Weidong took Ma Zhongyi on a tour of the workshop.

While walking, Ma Zhongyi said: "Tian Yuming's matter is quite big. I heard that he will lose his hat!"

"Isn't that true? If you want to eat or take cards, you should give a serious warning. Is it so serious?" Li Weidong asked in surprise.

"If it's just about taking cards, it's not so serious. There are other things at stake!" Ma Zhongyi paused and then said; "When the superiors came to investigate, they found that Tian Yuming had embezzled two sums of money.

It is a seed subsidy to farmers, and one payment is irrigation fee to each village."

"He dares to touch farmers' money! He really deserves it." Li Weidong said.

Asking for money and taking cards is an unhealthy trend, but if you dare to take action on farmers' seed subsidies and irrigation fees, you are really touching the red line.

"It seems that this Tian Yuming is finished! But this is a good thing for our factory. At least it is a wake-up call for other cadres in the town, so as not to treat us as soft persimmons in the future!"

Li Weidong changed his voice and continued: "Our products are to be exported to earn foreign exchange, so we must not be sloppy in the quality. If the quality is not up to standard, it will not only destroy the sign of our factory, but also damage the quality of the products made in China."

Shame on you!”

"Weidong, don't worry. As soon as work starts, I will squat in the workshop. No one will dare to be lazy and slippery!" Ma Zhongyi said.

"We must not only ensure quality, but also ensure production. If we ship the goods one day earlier, we will get the payment one day earlier!" Li Weidong continued.

"There is really a problem regarding the production volume. I have to discuss it with you!" Ma Zhongyi continued: "You received an order for more than 40,000 units at the Canton Fair. According to the current progress, we have to produce at least until July.

Only then can all these orders be produced.”

Li Weidong nodded. Township enterprises in the 1980s definitely did not have assembly lines, and the workers' technical proficiency was relatively average, so lower production efficiency was acceptable.

The wages of township and village enterprises are very low, and grassroots township and village enterprises do not have to bear the social security and medical insurance of workers, so labor costs are extremely low, and quantity can completely make up for the lack of assembly line efficiency.

And from an economic point of view, hiring people is more economical than building an assembly line. If you buy a set of assembly line equipment, you can hire hundreds more people for the same money, and the efficiency may be higher than that of an assembly line.

Due to cost reasons, the township and village enterprises at that time were unwilling to upgrade their assembly lines. They would not use machines to do things that could be done by people. Therefore, many township and village enterprises at that time had not high output values, but they often had hundreds of workers.

The government is also happy to see this situation. If more people are hired, even if the wages are lower, working will still make more money than farming. This can solve the surplus labor force in towns and rural areas.

If an enterprise buys a set of machinery and equipment that can replace dozens or hundreds of workers, what should be done about the employment of these dozens or hundreds of workers?

Li Weidong thought for a moment for two seconds, and then said: "Brother Ma, how about this? Let's recruit fifty more people and let them do some of the simplest assembly work first. The more complicated ones should be left to veteran workers.

You are very familiar with all the villages in Xiangyang Town, so I will leave this matter to you."

Ma Zhongyi shook his head: "Weidong, you may be mistaken. What I want to say is not about recruiting people. What I want to tell you is that it will be June soon, and by then our factory will probably have to suspend most of its operations."

Months, the time to complete this order will also be postponed to August!"

"Why do we have to stop work in June? It's not National Day or Labor Day. Is it possible that our factory has to celebrate Children's Day?" Li Weidong asked with some confusion.

"Weidong, you are from the city and don't understand things in our rural areas. Every June is the wheat harvest season. By then, these people in the factory will have to go back to harvest wheat!" Ma Zhongyi explained.

road.

"That's it!" Li Weidong nodded in sudden realization.

Winter wheat is grown in North China. May and June every year is the time to harvest wheat in North China. The specific harvest time will vary from place to place. Basically, the further north you go, the later the wheat harvest time will be.

For example, some areas in southern Jiangsu start harvesting wheat at the end of May, northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong in early June, and northern Hebei in mid-June.

In later generations of China, just drive a harvester and walk around the wheat field, and the wheat will be harvested. Even those retail farmers with small plantings can harvest with small and micro harvesters, and few people use human labor to harvest wheat.

In the rural areas of the 1980s, harvesters were equipment only available on large state-owned farms. The average small farmer could own a walking tractor, even if he was a wealthy man in the countryside. At that time, when the wheat matured, harvesting was all done manually.

After the wheat matures, the sooner it is harvested, the better. If the wheat is harvested too late, the wheat grains will easily fall and the straw will easily lodging, which will increase the difficulty of harvesting and easily cause harvest losses.

Therefore, there is a popular saying among the people: "Nine matures, 10% harvested, 10% harvested, 10% lost", which means that the best time to harvest wheat is when it is nine mature, and waiting until the wheat is fully mature before harvesting will result in 10% loss of wheat.

loss.

In the era of manual harvesting of wheat, during the wheat harvest season, farmers working in cities or towns would all return to their hometowns to harvest wheat. Even many civil servants, public institution personnel and state-owned enterprise employees who passed the examination from rural areas would also

Asking for leave to go home and harvest wheat.

Usually at this time, there will be a short-term labor shortage in cities and towns. Construction sites with a large number of migrant workers, as well as township and village enterprises, simply stop work and wait until the wheat is harvested before starting again.

From today's perspective, it is unbelievable for a company to stop work and let workers go home to do farm work. It is completely inconsistent with common sense in economics. However, at that time, if companies dared not let workers go home to harvest wheat, workers would dare to skip work directly.

Leave.

In the minds of people at that time, returning to the village to harvest wheat was definitely more important than the normal production of the enterprise.

The electric furnace factory will have to face this situation. Once the wheat harvest season comes in June, the workers in the electric furnace factory will go back to their hometowns to harvest wheat. The electric furnace factory will inevitably be shut down for a period of time, and the output will inevitably be affected.

Harvesting wheat in rural areas does not end with just cutting the wheat. In the first round of harvesting and the second round of gleaning, the harvested wheat needs to be transported to the store in a timely manner, stacked quickly while it is not raining, and then returned to the store.

There are stalls and grinding yards, followed by winnowing, drying and returning to warehouses. In some places, distilled wheat is also stacked to make livestock feed for a year.

Waiting for the workers to finish all this, then return to the factory and start work again, it will take at least two weeks. If the weather is unfavorable and it rains a few times, and the harvest is affected, it is possible to waste a month.

of.

"This is considered a force majeure factor!" Li Weidong shook his head helplessly.

Li Weidong wanted to increase production, but he couldn't stop workers from going home to harvest wheat, so he had to find another way.

"Introducing an assembly line?" Li Weidong immediately rejected the idea.

Not to mention that it takes some time to introduce an assembly line, but the cost of introducing an assembly line is much more expensive than hiring one hundred and eighty people.

As for hiring people, water from afar cannot quench the thirst for work. Township enterprises such as electric furnace factories can only hire redundant labor from rural areas, and they must be trained before they can be officially qualified to work in electric furnace factories.

The educational level of these redundant rural laborers is relatively low. Many of them have not even finished elementary school and cannot read a few big words. Training them is a complicated matter.

What's more, what Li Weidong wants to solve now is the problem of workers returning to their hometowns to harvest wheat. Even if they hire migrant workers, they will have to go back to harvest wheat.

"Production capacity can only be increased through management methods." Li Weidong thought to himself.

Thinking of this, Li Weidong said: "Brother Ma, what do you think of us implementing piece-rate wages?"

"Then wages are calculated based on the number of pieces produced?" Ma Zhongyi asked.

"Yes! If you work for one day, you will be given a basic salary of one yuan." Li Weidong stretched out a finger and continued: "In addition, as long as you assemble an air fryer, I will pay you a salary of one yuan, but there are conditions.

It’s quality!”

"One unit costs one yuan. If you assemble five units in one day, wouldn't you be able to earn one hundred and fifty yuan a month? Plus the basic salary of thirty yuan, that's one hundred and eighty yuan. No, it's too high.

Yes!" Ma Zhongyi said with a surprised look on his face.

In 1988, the monthly salary of employees of large state-owned enterprises was only about 150 yuan, which was much higher than the previous two years. This was mainly due to wage increases and state subsidies.

Because in that year, the country implemented price breakthroughs, and the price liberalization caused the prices of various commodities to rise. For example, the price of pork increased by 60%, the price of vegetables increased by 31%, and the price of an 18-inch color TV rose from 1,300 yuan to 1,900 yuan.

Due to rising prices, the state decided to provide part of the subsidies to employees. This kind of subsidy is relatively well implemented in state-owned enterprises and public institutions, but most township and village enterprises will not implement this kind of subsidy.

Therefore, in 1988, wages in state-owned enterprises and public institutions increased significantly, but wages in township and village enterprises remained unchanged.

The piece-rate wage of one yuan per unit given by Li Weidong had already reached the wage level of state-owned enterprise employees at that time, and was three or four times higher than that of other township and village enterprises.

However, Ma Zhongyi disagreed. He felt that the salary was too high.

Li Weidong had no choice but to ask for advice: "Brother Ma, how much do you think the piece rate should be for assembling an air fryer?"

"Just give me two or three cents and you'll be fine!" Ma Zhongyi said.

"No, it's too little. It won't be able to mobilize the enthusiasm of the workers." Li Weidong said.

"Then add 10 cents, 40 cents!" Ma Zhongyi said.

Li Weidong shook his head: "I think I'll give you 80 cents."

"Eighty cents? If you can assemble five units a day, you can earn four yuan, which is one hundred and two yuan a month. No, how can a township enterprise like ours offer such a high salary?" Ma Zhongyi objected again.

.

"Then it's seventy cents, it can't be any lower!" Li Weidong said.

"Seven cents is too high, I'll give you forty cents at most!" Ma Zhongyi still gritted his teeth and refused to let go.

Li Weidong smiled slightly and asked: "Brother Ma, based on seventy cents, a skilled worker should be able to earn one hundred yuan a month, right?"

"Definitely! The workers in our factory who are more skilled can assemble five air fryers in a day. Even the workers with average skills can assemble four in a day. Including the basic salary, they can still earn one hundred and twenty dollars a month.

It’s 1 yuan.” Ma Zhongyi said.

Li Weidong immediately asked: "If you can earn 120 yuan a month, do you think the workers will be willing to go back to their hometowns to harvest wheat?"