China's books and periodicals printing and processing fees have never been a unified standard. This is not only due to the differences in the production costs brought about by the level of regional economic development; at the same time, it is also due to the non-definitive production characteristics of the book, which determines the vast differences in its printing and processing. Therefore, China's publishing industry implements the printing price standard. It has historically been different because of different regions, and most of them have adopted settlement methods based on sub-items of process construction. In the era of planned economy, the printing and printing price of books and magazines were uniformly formulated by the local administrative departments. Both the publishing unit and the printing factory were priced accordingly.
With the gradual establishment of the socialist market economic system, the book publishing industry has changed from the planned production to the production management in the past, and the law of value has begun to be introduced into the field of book production, so that the leverage of prices has begun to be effective in the book production process. However, due to the influence of certain special factors in China's book publishing industry, in a relatively long period of time, its printing labor price standards still mainly rely on the coordination and control of administrative departments. In Hunan Province, the Production Science and Technology Department of the Press and Publications Bureau is responsible for coordinating, revising, and supervising the implementation of unified labor price standards. This system has been followed until the last unified wage schedule enacted in 1999.
With the advent of the new century and the restructuring of Hunan's publishing industry, this system, which has been formulated by the executive branch and unified implementation of wages, has been completely broken. In recent years, settlement and printing processing between Hunan publishing units and book printing companies have taken bilateral consultations. At the same time, in order to facilitate and reduce unnecessary conflicts, all publishing units and printing houses are based on the 1999 labor price standard, and they adopt a non-uniform "discount" method at the time of settlement. The discounts are from 70% to 85%. Not equal.
So, is this kind of settlement method with "discount" of labor prices reasonable? Will there be new conflicts? Here to talk about personal views.
First and foremost, it is most obvious that the following: The discounted working price directly reduces the production cost of the book, so that the publishing unit directly gains new profit margins. Regarding the printing of books and periodicals in Hunan Province, from the end of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, it experienced at least 8 different degrees of adjustment in the wages, the overall increase rate was more than 20%, a few items were raised by 40%, plus the current paper With the dramatic increase in prices, publishers once felt the enormous pressure of rising book production costs, which became an important reason for the sharp rise in book prices during that period. Due to the increase in production costs, the market competitiveness of general books is relatively weakened. In this way, as a publishing unit, it is natural and understandable that it is hoped that reducing the ability to seek greater profit margins in order to win more and more flexible means of winning in the fierce market competition. Therefore, when the printing price is released due to the cancellation of administrative supervision, it will be logical to adopt a “discount†form to reduce production costs.
Secondly, from the point of view of the printing companies, the "discounting" of wages also brings about a positive side. First, with the cancellation of the monitoring system for printing labor rates, Hunan’s administrative distribution of general book printing business and certain restrictions have also been abolished, thus providing direct opportunities for equal competition between the printing and printing industries and improving The production enthusiasm of the “peripheral plantâ€; secondly, with the lifting of certain protective measures within and outside the publishing system, the original survival of the company depends on the promotion of the concept change, strengthening of internal management, and enhancing its competitiveness. It has played a certain role in stimulating and promoting. In this sense, the pressure of “discounting†the labor price, to a certain extent, has stimulated the vitality of the enterprise and turned it into a driving force.
However, it is needless to say that the biggest impact of the discount on workers' prices is the printing company. While publishing units are rushing to new profit margins, the profit margin of the printing industry is bound to shrink further.
This raises two questions: First, is the current printing price reasonable? Second, does the printing price still need to be formulated in a unified manner and unified supervision?
Before answering these two questions, it is necessary for us to make a simple comparison of the institutional characteristics, development process, and economic efficiency of the two industries. According to relevant data, in 1979, the annual profit of the publishing industry in the country was 82.93 million yuan, and the profit of the printing industry (mainly referred to as the designated national printing and publishing company at that time) was 82.37 million yuan, and the ratio between the two parties was basically 1:1; After 1989, the ratio of profits between the two parties became 1:0.37. At this time, the annual profit of the printing industry was only about 1/3 of that of the publishing industry. In another 10 years, that is, in 1998, the ratio of annual profits of both parties was already 1 : 0.013. Judging from the approximate value, in the 20 years, the annual profit of the publishing industry in the country increased from 82.93 million yuan in 1979 to 3.316 billion yuan in 1998; and the annual profit of the printing industry in the same period dropped from 82.37 million yuan to 42.88 million yuan. yuan. In 20 years, a steady increase of 40 times and a decrease of nearly 50%.
In 20 years, there is such a wide disparity in profitability. Of course, there are many reasons why we can explain this, such as the incomparableness of knowledge-intensive industries and labor-intensive industries; the rapid development of the knowledge economy is the characteristics of the present era. However, as two closely-linked industries (especially where Hunan once had a "one-stop" relationship), the development process is so different, but it is not just a simple distinction between "knowledge" and "labor." Explained. There is still a deep problem in this: that is, the difference in the two industries in the system, and thus bring a huge gap in the market's competitive position.
We know that due to certain special factors, the state still imposes a strict examination and approval system on the establishment of publishing units. Although today's publishing industry has generally implemented enterprise management and moved toward the market, it still has monopolistic advantages that cannot be compared with general enterprises in its production and operation. The printing industry is exactly the opposite. As a book printing and printing company in the processing and production industry, it is even more fragile than general production companies - relying solely on "processing with incoming materials" without any independent production and management rights, and thus its economic efficiency depends entirely on the size of the business. And the price of processing. In other words, its survival and development can only rely on its natural partner - the publishing industry. In the era of planned economy, the two decisive factors of the printing business and the labor price standard were solved because of administrative management and regulation. Therefore, the difference between the two parties was not significant. In 1984, the profitability of China's printing industry was once higher than 11% of the publishing industry. However, as the publishing industry has undergone a fundamental shift from a production type to a production-oriented type, and has obtained the pricing power granted by the country, and subsequently granted the right to issue, it has also obtained a series of preferential policies such as taxation and academic publication subsidies, which have been stabilized. ,Rapid development. In contrast, the printing industry is beginning to decline sharply. Since the national book printing industry broke through the profit and profit margin of 200 million yuan in 1985, it fell all the way and never looked back. In 1994, even the entire industry suffered a total loss of 12.7 million yuan. Its fragile industry characteristics are fully revealed. As a direct factor in this situation, we can find evidence from the changes in publishing pricing and printing wages. In 1988, the average national book price (including low-priced student textbooks) was 0.23 yuan per sheet, and in 10 years after 1998, the average national book price rose to 1.07 yuan per sheet, which was 4.6 times that of 1988. However, the overall increase in the printing price of books and periodicals was less than 60%. It should be noted that this is still the difference in the implementation of the administrative supervision system. As far as the liberalization of labor prices and the lifting of supervision, especially after the appearance of “discountsâ€, there is no need to go into details on the impact of printing companies.
Some people may say that this is a market economy. It is normal to win and lose. It is true that market competition is cruel. Here, we do not intend to judge whether the differences in the respective systems of the two industries entering the market are compatible with the market rules and the merits of their self-management. However, it must be put forward: Is there fair and just competition in the business activities of these two different systems but which are naturally linked? In other words, is the status of both parties equal in the process of business interaction? Is wages a tool that can be used in both sides of the competition? Is the current wage standard consistent with objective reality? Frankly speaking, the author's answer is negative. The reason is that although the two industries of book publishing and printing and processing are all moving toward the market, in a certain sense, there can be no "competition" between the two, and even less equal competition exists. On the one hand, publishing and printing are natural allies, and no one is inseparable from it; on the other hand, the publishing party is in the hands of the necessities for the printing industry to survive. At this stage, since the publishing market has not really been fully liberalized, when one side is in the absolute position of deciding the survival and development of the other, is it possible for the two parties to compete equally?
To sum up, from the phenomenon of “discounting†of printing labor costs, a serious topic emerges: Under the conditions of market economy, do certain industries with special properties still need certain administrative supervision mechanisms? In recent years, people have been constantly informed of the implementation of price demonstration mechanisms such as water supply, electricity supply, taxis, medical care, pharmaceuticals, agricultural resources, and transportation. A common principle of the introduction of these systems is to implement the necessary administrative supervision and supervision of the people in the business activities of those industries and departments that are in a special status, which is conducive to an orderly and healthy development of the market economy. Therefore, the necessary administrative supervision is not only a negation of market economy and market competition, but also a perfection and promotion of the market economy system. Similarly, it is also necessary to confess that some of the interest relations between the publishing and printing industries, such as the processing of wages, are objectively, fairly and uniformly coordinated and supervised. At the very least, a labor price demonstration and coordination mechanism should be established. In this way, under the objective background of today's publishing industry and printing industry, we can establish the principle of fair dealing with the socialist market economy so as to prevent and eliminate certain artificial and unfair factors in business interactions so as to promote editing and printing. , send, and provide for the overall, coordinated and healthy development of this publishing industry.