Ordinary People

After adjusting his schedule, he went to the company headquarters that afternoon.

As soon as he entered the office, Lin Baijie stood up beaming. "Mr. Huang, the money came through."

"Mm. By the way, how are things going with the sanitation company?"

At the mention of business, Lin Baijie hurriedly replied, "Mr. Huang, you wouldn't believe it—we got screwed."

"Are there fewer sanitation workers than there should be? Are there temporary workers?" Huang Xiuyuan wasn't particularly surprised.

Lin Baijie froze, then asked in confusion, "Mr. Huang, you knew about this?"

He smiled. "It's normal. In Shanmei, I'd guess the number of temporary workers is no more than double the number of regular employees. In first- and second-tier cities, there may be four or five temporary workers for every regular employee."

"You were right, Mr. Huang. After I sent people to take over the relevant records, we found there were only 206 regular employees and another 214 temporary workers. A lot of them are old men and women." Lin Baijie gave a rueful smile.

Huang Xiuyuan walked over to his desk, pulled a map from a drawer, and spread it out. It was a map of Shanmei's urban area.

"For now, the city's garbage is being dumped near several villages on the outskirts. Until we finish building the recycling plant, we'll have to keep dumping it as before." On the map, he circled more than a dozen open-air dumps near the streets and townships in red.

"We really have no choice," Lin Baijie said, nodding helplessly.

Huang Xiuyuan continued, "The first thing we need to do is reassure everyone and keep all the sanitation workers on the job. They're earning less than a thousand yuan, aren't they?"

"Regular employees take home 1,100 yuan, and temporary workers get 800. Neither group has social insurance or a housing fund." Lin Baijie could hardly believe it. The wages didn't come close to matching the physical demands of the work.

Huang Xiuyuan wasn't surprised. "We'll assess everyone. Anyone under forty-five will sign a labor contract."

"What about those over forty-five? Do we fire them all?"

"Fire them? How are they supposed to live?" Huang Xiuyuan shook his head. "Keep them as temporary workers. We'll pay for their rural cooperative medical insurance or urban medical insurance each year. We'll also set up a serious illness assistance fund. After insurance pays out, the company will cover ninety percent of the remainder. And arrange a full medical checkup once a year."

Lin Baijie jotted it down in his notebook. "Will this apply to other employees too?"

"The serious illness assistance fund and annual checkup will apply to everyone in the company."

"I understand."

Huang Xiuyuan wasn't finished. "As for wages, raise the sanitation workers' base pay to 1,500 yuan. Make sure they also get overtime pay, a high-temperature allowance, and holiday pay."

"Mr. Huang, won't that make the company's operating costs too high?"

"If you expect the horse to run, you have to feed it. Sure, you can cut costs that way, but people should have some conscience." Huang Xiuyuan gave Lin Baijie a meaningful look.

Lin Baijie had never seen a boss proactively offer workers benefits like these.

"Also, arrange dormitories and a canteen for the sanitation workers. Don't let them take garbage home to pick through. The company will collect it all."

Huang Xiuyuan listed a whole range of benefits, including an internal special pension fund for older employees who had never paid into a pension scheme.

After all, once they were over forty-five, even if they started paying into a pension scheme, they wouldn't have the required fifteen years of contributions by retirement age. There was no point in making sanitation workers in their fifties or sixties pay into one.

It made more sense to set up an internal fund instead.

As Huang Xiuyuan had designed it, this special pension would be reserved for eligible employees and calculated according to their years of service. For every year they worked for the company, they would receive 6,000 yuan. They could choose when to retire, and when they did, the pension would be calculated and paid out in full as a lump sum.

If an employee died in an accident before retiring, their family could inherit the special pension.

March 17.

JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns for $4.81 per share.

Over those two days, Huang Xiuyuan's capital of 100 million US dollars grew to 133.72 million.

Since he hadn't put much effort into trading and had used no leverage, his profits weren't that high. If he had traded with leverage, his profits could have at least doubled.

Of course, trading without leverage had its advantages too. Given what he knew about the economic climate this year, he could basically make a guaranteed profit by shorting the market.

After trading Bear Stearns, he spread his money across different investments, focusing mainly on indices and three or four individual stocks to draw less attention from Wall Street.

A little over a week passed.

After adjusting his schedule, he went with Lin Baijie to Houjing Village in the urban area.

Lin Zifeng, appointed by Suiren Company to manage Blue Era Environmental Management, hurried out of a factory to meet them.

Suiren Company, flush with cash, had bought a factory near the outskirts of Houjing Village in the urban area to serve as the headquarters of its subsidiary, Blue Era.

Blue Era was the subsidiary responsible for sanitation work.

By the time he arrived, the midday sun was blazing. Even in March, a faint breeze still lingered in the air.

Blue Era's headquarters had once been a state-owned hardware and machinery factory. It had been abandoned for almost a decade, and the old equipment inside had either rusted into scrap or been sold off.

The site covered twenty-four mu. It contained two machine workshops, a warehouse, and a four-story office building.

As they entered the factory, they saw cracks and potholes all over the concrete path. Weeds grew along its edges, and two sanitation workers were weeding beneath the blazing sun.

"Zifeng, can the machinery workshops be converted into employee dormitories?"

Lin Zifeng hurriedly replied, "Mr. Huang, the workshops' structure is no longer sound. A lot of the reinforcing bars are exposed and rusted, but the office building is in fairly good condition."

"Then tear them down and start over. Use steel frames with concrete supports and build four dormitory buildings. Move all the sanitation workers here. And don't forget the canteen."

"Understood." Lin Zifeng hurriedly wrote it down in his notebook.

After they had inspected the site for over an hour, the sanitation workers from around the city also returned to the headquarters.

More than four hundred sanitation workers gathered in the small square beside the factory. Uneasy, they whispered among themselves.

The sudden change in management had inevitably made them worry about what the future held.

A heavyset, dark-skinned woman nervously twisted the hem of her clothes with hands covered in calluses and scars. "Old Liu, what's going on?"

"How should I know?" The gaunt old man with a deeply wrinkled face sat in a plastic chair, his cloudy eyes full of bewilderment and worry.

"Did the district say anything?"

"They just told us to follow instructions. That's all."

"They're not going to fire us, are they?"

"Don't overthink it. Fire us? Who else would they find to do the job for such low wages?"

As they sat there, bewildered and uneasy, Lin Zifeng walked over from the office building with Huang Xiuyuan and Lin Baijie.

Lin Zifeng picked up a loudspeaker and clapped his hands. "Everyone, please quiet down. The chairman is here to see you."

The more than four hundred sanitation workers stared at Lin Zifeng and the two men behind him, Huang Xiuyuan and Lin Baijie.

Huang Xiuyuan took the loudspeaker and cleared his throat. "Hello, everyone. I'm Huang Xiuyuan, chairman of Blue Era. I'm here today mainly to..."