Now the textile mill is divided into four main production workshops, namely: power workshop, spinning workshop, weaving workshop, dyeing workshop, now the first three workshops have entered the state of production trial operation, only the dyeing workshop is still under construction, because the dyeing workshop does not have high requirements for the machine, mainly to have a certain chemical industry base, and among the traversers, there are not many chemical professionals. Other rooms www.biquge.info the staff lounge, locker room, management office, finished product warehouse, raw material warehouse, equipment warehouse and so on.

Tian Zechu led a group of people to visit each production workshop in turn, and explained to them the situation of each production workshop.

Everyone paid attention to observe, each workshop is not large, and even the machines are not full, but they are well arranged, and all kinds of items are placed in special places, which looks very neat. In addition to the dyeing workshop, the other three production workshops have machines in motion at this time, the machine roars, and the entrance wall of each workshop is pasted with a large production safety code, and there are various slogans, such as "safe production, safe things", "safety responsibility is as big as a mountain", "production safety, everyone is responsible", "fireworks are strictly prohibited" and so on, very eye-catching.

In the spinning workshop and weaving workshop, there are still some workers working on the machine, and on the side of the machine, there are also many spindles that have been spun with yarn paper, as well as woven cloth, of course, there are also people pushing carts back and forth, or supplying raw materials to workers, or collecting finished products, but each is in order, not chaotic at all. At the same time, there are some installation workers in the workshop back and forth, or to observe the running status of the machine, or to guide the operation technology of the workers, even if someone comes to visit, it does not attract any attention, what should be done and what to do?

The workers in the spinning workshop and weaving workshop are basically female workers, which is also a common practice in the textile industry, but Li Hongzhang and others noticed that the female workers were dressed very strangely, all wearing a light gray-blue tight-sleeved long coat, wearing a white sleeve cage on the forearm to the elbow, wearing a white cloth hat, covering almost all the hair, and wearing a white mask on the face, covering the mouth and nose, only revealing a pair of eyes.

In fact, the dress of the textile worker is Tian Zechu's design according to the weaver's uniform he saw in the old time and space, because the weaver's cuffs and elbows are more worn, so wearing the sleeve cage is to reduce the wear and tear of the uniform, and the hair is all covered in the hat to prevent the hair from being rolled into the machine. The fiber content in the weaving workshop is very large, which is very harmful to the human respiratory system, so wearing masks is to protect the respiratory system of employees, and these assemblies are the experience accumulated over time.

After listening to Tian Zechu's explanation, Li Hongzhang and the personnel of the observation group nodded frequently, it seems that overseas Chinese are not indifferent to the textile industry.

Tian Zechu further explained: "At present, all the machinery and equipment used in our textile mill are purchased from France, with a total of 12 steam engines to provide power, 35 looms, 71 looms, and more than 6,000 spindles. In terms of employees, 104 female workers have been recruited, 80 have been trained, 56 male workers have been recruited, and it is expected that about 20 more female workers will be recruited, so that it can be full, and after the dyeing workshop is put into production, it is expected that about 30 more will be recruited, so after the textile factory is put into production, the number of employees will be about 200. It is expected that in about 10 days, the spinning workshop and weaving workshop can run at full capacity, and in about a month, the dyeing workshop can be put into production. ”

Li Hongzhang said: "Director Tian, I don't know what kind of fabric this factory can produce, what is the annual output of cloth, and how profitable is it?"

Tian Zechu said: "Now the textile mill is mainly the production of cotton cloth, according to our estimates, after the textile mill runs full load, the monthly output of cotton cloth is about 6,000 horses, the annual output of 7-80,000 horses, according to the market price, about 15-180,000 taels of silver, excluding various production expenses, gross profit is expected to be 5-60,000 taels of silver, of course, this is the price excluding tax." ”

Li Hongzhang nodded, although the scale of this textile factory is not large, but the output and price are basically reliable, of course he knows the market of cotton cloth, which shows that overseas Chinese have conducted serious market research.

In fact, the current textile mill is only the test of the traverser, of course the traverser will not only create such a small-scale textile factory, but the traverser still lacks the experience of operating the textile factory, and the machine can not rely on imports, sooner or later to achieve self-production, so the first step is not suitable to expand the scale, mainly to accumulate experience, and train personnel, and so on after three or five months of formal operation, and then expand production, the initial plan is to double the scale of the textile mill, the basic actual cloth self-sufficiency, and in the next three years, it is to expand the scale of the textile mill to more than ten times, not only to fully achieve self-sufficiency, but also to sell to the outside world。 Of course, there is no need to say this to Li Hongzhang and his party.

At this time, one of the members of the observation group asked, "Can you tell us about the wages of the employees in your factory?"

Tian Zechu said: "Because our textile factory has not been officially put into production, so the current employees are probationary, the monthly salary is 1 tael of silver, and so on three months later, the general staff will be according to the technical level, the salary is divided into three levels, the first class worker is 1.2 taels of silver, the second class worker is 1.8 taels of silver, the third class worker is 2.5 taels of silver, and then up is the team leader, department head, but in a short period of time no one will be promoted to these positions." We have a weekly work system, one day off a week, but take turns to rest to ensure that production does not stop. The daily working schedule is from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a one-hour meal break at noon, and a short break between work. ”

Tian Zechu's words aroused the interest of many people in the observation group, and immediately another person said: "Do you also arrange work on a weekly basis?"

At this time, Qin Zheng said with a smile: "Actually, we have already implemented the weekly work system before, and now we are just following the previous habits. ”

It turns out that this work system has caused a lot of controversy among the traversers, 6 working days a week, 11 hours a day work system, not only textile factories, but also all factories under the traverser, are the implementation of this work arrangement, but many traversers are accused of "sweatshops", "evil capitalists", "vampires" and so on, some people ask to change to a 5 working days a week, 8 hours a day work system, and even some people ask for all workers to handle five social insurances and one housing fund, maternity leave, annual leave and other benefits.

However, the Executive Committee eventually approved a "11-hour work week, 6 working days per week" system, with no benefits other than employee salaries. The reason is very simple, in this era, the 11-hour work system is already quite relaxed, in Europe and the United States, 12 hours a day, or even 14 hours, is a very common thing. In fact, the so-called sweatshops of the old time and space can be regarded as high welfare in this era.

In fact, the 8-hour work week was first developed by the utopian socialist Robert ?? Owen presented it in August 1817. He invented a slogan at the time: 8 hours of labor, 8 hours of leisure, 8 hours of rest. and made it an important part of the "ideal society" system he envisioned. It also became an important demand of the workers' movement later.

In 1877, the U.S. Congress, under strong pressure from the labor movement, was forced to enact an eight-hour workday law. But the capitalists in the United States simply ignored this, and the law did not provide coercive measures, so it became a dead letter. Although workers from various countries went on strike and marched to demand the implementation of the eight-hour working day, they were unsuccessful, and the eight-hour working day was only established in the major capitalist countries around the 50s of the 20th century.

The eight-hour working day cannot be implemented in this era, and the reason is very simple, because although this era has entered the era of large-scale machine production, manpower is still the most basic production labor, and capitalist competition has entered the competition between countries, and whoever lags behind in this competition means being eliminated by this era. This point could not be clearer in the political economy textbooks of the old time and space, because capitalism has developed from the stage of free competition to the stage of imperialism, and in order to stimulate the rapid development of their own economies, the capitalists can only continuously adopt methods to increase the labor time and labor intensity to brutally exploit the workers in order to squeeze more surplus value and maintain this high-speed capitalist machine.

In this respect, the exploitation of their own workers by the late-developing countries is brutal, because in this competition, the first-developing countries have already achieved a large lead, so that the late-developing countries can only rely on more and harder work and more brutal exploitation than the first-developed countries in the absence of technological breakthroughs.

Japan is one of the most typical examples, in 1900, Japan's raw silk exports rose to the world's first, becoming Japan's main source of foreign exchange earnings, but the development of Japan's textile industry, is based on the almost cruel narrowing of domestic employees, in the old time and space in the 80s of the 20th century, there is a Japanese electricity [Yemailing], is in the context of 1903, through the tragic experience of a group of Japanese female textile workers, completely reproduce the reality of the Japanese textile industry in this era.

Although the traverser has far more advanced technology than this era, it is difficult that for a considerable period of time, these advanced technologies cannot be transformed into productive forces, and can only rely on the technology of this era to complete the primitive accumulation, and in this case, it can only be like other countries, the domestic workers are narrowed, and the implementation of the eight-hour work week is basically looking for death. Otherwise, workers from other countries work 12 hours a day, or even 14 hours, while their own workers only work 8 hours a day, so why catch up with other countries, industrialization, modernization, not falling from the sky out of thin air, but relying on little by little hard work to accumulate.

Only when the traverser has a certain amount of industrial technology accumulation, and transforms some of the advanced technology he has mastered into productive forces, and forms a certain technological advantage over other countries, can it be possible to implement the eight-hour working day and other welfare systems, and before that, only sweatshops can complete the primitive accumulation, and there is no other way.