中国鼓励提前退休以精简国企

Hard-hit Chinese provinces are instituting early retirement to push workers off state sector employment rolls, generating a spate of small protests and further straining local economies in the nation’s rust belt.

中国一些问题严重的省份正在实行提前退休制度，以减少国有部门的劳动者数量。此举引发一波小规模抗议活动，并使中国“锈带”老工业区的地方经济更加紧张。

The move is designed to help capacity cuts in bloated state-run heavy industry companies. It also marks a return to policies from the 1990s, when an estimated 30m workers were dropped from state payrolls and offered subsidies in a practice known as “internal retirement”, which avoided an increase in official unemployment numbers.

此举旨在帮助臃肿的国营重工业企业削减产能。它还标志着重拾20世纪90年代的政策，那时估计有3000万劳动者被国有部门从工资单上除名，同时他们得到补贴，这种做法被称为“内部退休”，它避免了官方失业人数的增加。

At least seven provinces have drawn up plans for workers to take early retirement, Chinese media reported this month. The plans are viewed as a way to comply with Beijing’s directives this year to reduce excess steel and mining capacity without the plant shutdowns that could lead to street protests.

据中国媒体本月报道，至少有七个省已制定了让工人提前退休的计划。这些计划被视为奉行北京方面今年发出的指令，目的是在不导致工厂关停(那可能引发街头抗议)的情况下减少钢铁业和矿业的过剩产能。

“That they are encouraging it now suggests it has gone or is going well and is avoiding unrest,” said Keegan Elmer, researcher for China Labour Bulletin, which tracks workers’ issues.

“他们正在鼓励这种做法，这一点似乎表明，此事迄今或者目前进展良好，避免了出乱子，”关注劳工问题的中国劳工通讯(China Labour Bulletin)研究员基根•埃尔默(Keegan Elmer)表示。

Nevertheless, an increase in protests in October followed a series of large demonstrations early in 2016 when steel and coal capacity cuts were first announced. Most were relatively small involving dozens of affected workers holding signs rather than the mass street marches that authorities fear.

然而，在2016年初爆发一系列大规模示威活动(当时刚刚宣布将削减钢铁和煤炭产能)后，10月份抗议活动又有所增加。多数抗议活动规模较小，通常是数十名受影响的工人举着标语，而不是当局担心的大规模街头游行。

Workers who were laid off or retired early in the 1990s often resurface to protest in provincial capitals or Beijing, usually because compensation has dried up. Many found informal jobs in the intervening years, but are now growing older without adequate state-backed insurance or pensions.

90年代下岗或者被提前退休的工人经常到省会城市甚至北京举行抗议，通常是因为补偿金花光了。许多人在那期间找到了非正式工作，但这批人目前在没有充足国家保险或养老金的状况下步入老年。

“Staff cutbacks become a long-term battle between the companies, governments and the workers. Internal retirement just means kicking the can further down the road. There has been lots of steelworker activism that has gone on for decades,” said Mr Elmer. “All these old sores can easily be brought back to the surface.”

“裁员成为企业、政府和工人之间的长期战斗。内部退休只是意味着把问题踢到未来去解决。钢铁工人的很多维权活动已经进行了几十年，”埃尔默说。“所有这些伤痕都很容易再度撕裂。”

China’s official retirement age is 60 for men. For female civil servants it is 55, for female workers, 50. Early retirement brings that forward by five years, leaving female employees in depressed cities vulnerable to losing their jobs in their mid-40s when they still have dependants at home. Former employees get a stipend but must wait until formal retirement age to claim their pensions.

中国的官方退休年龄为男性60岁。女性公务员为55岁，女性工人为50岁。提前退休意味着在此基础上再提前五年，使经济不景气城市的女性员工在45岁上下、可能仍需要抚养子女的时候就失去工作。前雇员获得一定津贴，但必须等到正式退休年龄才能领取养老金。

In February, labour and human resources minister Yin Weimin encouraged voluntary early retirement as one solution for the struggling steel and coal sectors, and the government said it would allocate Rmb100bn ($14.6bn) to retraining or relocating about 1.8m laid-off workers. Since then the top planning agency has put out a number of notices discouraging early retirement, indicating that there may be disagreement among bureaucracies about the merits of the practice.

今年2月，人力资源和社会保障部部长尹蔚民鼓励自愿提前退休，将这作为困难重重的钢铁和煤炭行业的解决方案之一;同时政府表示将拨出1000亿元人民币(合146亿美元)用于再培训或重新安置约180万下岗工人。自那以来，中国最高规划部门发布了一些不鼓励提前退休的通知，表明官僚机构之间对这种做法的利弊可能存在分歧。

One of the concerns is the rickety state of local pension funds, particularly in industrial areas that are also the centre for the slowdown.

其中一个令人关切的问题是地方养老金捉襟见肘的状态，特别是在经济放缓最明显的工业地区。

“When you look at how [internal retirement] is put into practice, you realise that in the Chinese situation where the development of workers’ organisations is weak and state-owned enterprises are overly powerful, it’s very easy for workers to become the biggest losers,” Liu Dapeng, a law professor at Wuhan University, wrote on a social media blog post.

“当你看看(内部退休)如何落实时，你会发现，工人组织发展疲弱，国有企业过于强大。中国的这种国情意味着，工人很容易沦为最大输家，”武汉大学法学教授Liu Dapeng在社交媒体博客上写道。