Only five dollars? And you're just a cleaner?
Cheng Ersao never expected that her sister would assign her odd jobs and pay her so little. She was extremely unhappy and her face fell.
This time, Cheng Maixiang and Cheng's mother were in charge of recruiting people themselves. In addition to having good professional skills, the most important thing for the recruits was that they had the same temperament as Cheng's mother, working steadily and not cheating. What they disliked most about such people were those who were lazy and wanted to get rich overnight.
When everyone saw Cheng Ersao's look, they understood what she was thinking. She was just relying on the fact that she was a member of the Cheng family and wanted to eat and drink for free in the garment factory and get a high salary.
Before she could say anything, Aunt Xu, Cheng's good friend, said with a smile, "Maizi, there's such a good thing. This job is easy and the money is good. You can buy more than 20 kilograms of grain in a month by doing odd jobs."
"That's right," she said, and Shen Qingyun's wife beside her also echoed, "This job is indeed good. My Gao Liang can do it. Mai Dong's wife, if you don't want to do it, I'll let Gao Liang do it. She can do it well. Besides, this time, she can even earn enough to feed herself."
Gao Liang is a twelve-year-old girl. She is too young to do much work in the fields and can't earn many work points, but this job can indeed support her.
When Shen Qingyun's wife brought this up, the female workers with children at home all rushed to say that they could let their children do this job, and they were even willing to work for a lower salary.
People are like this. Originally, Cheng Ersao felt that although this job was not difficult, it was not presentable and the salary was lower than everyone else's. But after everyone was scrambling for it, Cheng Ersao felt that this job was very popular and could not fall into the hands of others.
"My sister assigned this job to me. Why are you trying to snatch it away?" Cheng Ersao was anxious and quickly said to Cheng Maixiang, "Maizi, I did it."
Cheng Maixiang smiled slightly, "Okay, Second Sister-in-law, get to work quickly. It's that wooden box. If you see any aunt or auntie with too many rags, you can put them in the wooden box."
Three hours passed quickly and everyone went home for lunch. At one o'clock in the afternoon, everyone returned to the garment factory and found several pages of paper on their seats as soon as they sat down.
Aunt Xu picked up the pages and flipped through them. They were covered in dense writing. Unable to read, she was completely bewildered. She held up the pages in her hand and asked curiously, "What are these?"
Shen Qingyun's wife had studied for six or seven years at her parents' home. Although she didn't learn much, she could still recognize a few words. She read it carefully and said, "This looks like a labor contract."
"Employment contract?" Everyone had never heard of this term before and had no idea what it was. "What is a labor contract?"
Shen Qingyun's wife didn't know how to explain it, so she used a rather vague analogy, "It's a contract, like a land deed or something like that."
"Land deed?" a female worker exclaimed. "Body deed?!"
The garment factory was in an uproar!
"No way, the Cheng family wants us to sign a contract to sell ourselves. Doesn't that mean we'll have to work for them for the rest of our lives?"
"How can this be possible? Wouldn't this be like being a long-term laborer for a wealthy landlord in the old society? Absolutely not. I won't sign this rubbish contract."
"Of course we can't sign. If the Cheng family forces us to sign, we'll just quit. The most we'll do is not earn the money, right?"
"Is it enough to just quit? We should go to the brigade headquarters. No, the brigade leader is Cheng Maiqing, who is definitely on the same page with the family. We should go to the commune and report the Cheng family. This is a new society, and they are still trying to restore the old order and exploit us farmers like the landlords of the old society."
Everyone was clamoring to go to the commune when suddenly a loud voice came from outside the door, "Aunties and aunties, a labor contract is not a contract to sell your body. On the contrary, it is something to protect you."
Everyone looked in the direction of the sound and saw Cheng Maixiang, Cheng's mother and Cheng's sister-in-law walked in together. Cheng's mother and Cheng's sister-in-law looked a little embarrassed, but Cheng Maixiang had a smile on her face, as if she didn't care about the turmoil in front of her.
Cheng Maixiang took out another explanatory document and handed it to Shen Qingyun's wife, smiling and saying, "Sister-in-law Shen, this is the explanation of the terms of the labor contract. You can read a labor clause and then read an explanation so that everyone can listen."
Shen Qingyun's wife took the documents from Cheng Maixiang's hand and read the two documents one by one according to her instructions.
Everyone fell silent and listened carefully to Shen Qingyun's wife reading the contract. As they listened, everyone looked at each other, and even Shen Qingyun's wife became more and more surprised.
The contract didn't contain many clauses, and Shen Qingyun's wife finished reading it in less than ten minutes. Everyone was silent for a moment. Suddenly, the aunt from the Qi family who said the contract was a contract to sell her body stammered, "Maizi, is what you wrote true?"
"Of course it's true. I worked overtime and stayed up late to write so much. Is it just to make you aunts happy?"
Cheng Maixiang smiled and said to everyone, "Ladies and gentlemen, these contracts and explanation clauses are in duplicate. After we sign and put our fingerprints on them, I will ask the brigade to stamp them. You keep one copy for yourselves, and the other copy will be kept in the brigade. If anything happens later, we will follow the contract."
Now, the garment factory was in an uproar!
In those days, there was no such thing as a labor contract in the countryside, and many things were based on verbal agreements. There were contract workers in the city, but the contracts they drafted were far less protective of workers than Cheng Maixiang's.
"That's great! Look, this contract says wages are paid on the 10th of every month, with one day off per week. If wages are delayed, you can use this contract to file a complaint with the commune and the county. Now, wages are truly guaranteed!"
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com