REPEATED labour troubles in Sichuan and other provinces have forced the party leadership to have second thoughts on revising the status of workers as 'the masters of the state'.
Chinese sources said a group of reform-minded cadres had suggested workers be officially reclassified as no more than 'hired employees' whose status, salaries and perks would be determined by the forces of supply and demand.
The result was that workers would be treated in the same way as commodities in the marketplace.
The cadres, some of them close to President Jiang Zemin, were confident a politically acceptable version of their proposals would be adopted by the forthcoming 15th party congress.
They pointed out in internal discussions that measures to reform state-owned enterprises, such as dismissing excess labourers, could not go ahead if workers still enjoyed the status of masters of the country.
Recent instances of labour unrest, however, have provided the leftists, or remnant Maoists, with a pretext to press their opposition to 'downgrading' the status of workers.
A labour source said yesterday the ideologues had mounted a new campaign to protect their rights.