Guangdong Province will
allow no further rises in pay to employees at the province's monopolistic
industries and companies for the rest of this year, said a salary growth
guideline issued by the provincial Bureau of Labour and Social Security for the
enterprises in the province.
Salaries in the
province will rise by an average of 11 per cent this year, and the companies
that show good profit but are paying lower salaries may increase salaries to a
ceiling of 15 per cent.
But the emergency brake
has been applied at the province's monopolistic industries and companies to
narrow the wealth gap among residents, said an official from Guangdong
Provincial Bureau of Labour and Social Security.
The average salary at the
province's monopolies has reached three times that of the province's average
salary last year, the bureau said.
"The ban on wage growth of
the province's monopolistic industries and companies will help correct the
malpractices in all trades and professions in the whole province," said the
official who refused to be named.
It is the first time the
local government has stopped wage growth of the province's monopolies, which
consist mainly of those in the electricity generating and supply, water supply,
crude oil refining and refined oil sales and some petrochemical
sectors.
Many locals agreed with
the government's move.
Chang Hongjun, a
worker at a foreign-funded company in Guangzhou, said the salaries at the monopolies,
"which are earning excess profit owing to the State's special preferential
policies, are high enough when compared with those of ordinary workers."
"It would not be fair if
the staff from the monopolies enjoyed the same salary increases as the massive
number of ordinary workers," Chang said.
Last year, the salaries
paid to the workers in Guangdong Province totalled 199.11 billion yuan, up
12.4 per cent from 2004.
And
the province's per capita average annual salary came to 23,900 yuan in 2005, up
13.1 per cent
year-on-year.
