Drive to End ‘Monopoly Welfare’.docVIP

Drive to End ?Monopoly Welfare? nIn China, monopoly industries often provide substantial non-salary benefits to their employees, but critics argue that such practices are unfair and should be abolished Lin Bin works for a telecommunications company in a coastal city in north China. In the view of many people, he has quite a nice job, because the telecom industry is a monopoly industry in China. Lin said he makes 3,000 yuan a month, which is fairly high compared with the income of other local people. He lives in the apartment the company provided him for free after graduation from university, and his telephone service is free because he works in the industry. In addition, the amount he receives in holiday bonuses is a considerable sum. Thus, Lin is the only one of his classmates who has bought a new apartment with cash after three years of work. Dong Ying is a retired employee of a communications company but she still enjoys industry benefits. Her phone number is a special number provided by the communications company, which she has been using for 15 years gratis. There are similar employee benefits among airlines in China. Each employee receives two or more free plane tickets every year to any destination served by the airline, which can also be used by close relatives. The estimated value of this benefit is about 4,000 yuan. Such benefits provided by monopoly industries are dubbed “monopoly welfare.” Even in the banking industry, which is undergoing reform, such “welfare” still exists.省略, the biggest benefit in the industry is that banks sell apartments they have built to their employees at prices well below the market value. In some big cities, the sales price is even below the government-set minimum. So, employees can buy apartments during the construction period, and then sell them at market rates, contributing to the high cost of housing. In some places, employees, particularly managers, can obtain low-interest or interest-free loans to fi