All-China Federation of Trade Unions migrant worker vice chairman admits he is most afraid of speaking on stage
54-year-old migrant worker Ju Xiaolin was elected vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions this year, and people's way of addressing Ju Xiaolin also changed from Master Ju to Chairman Ju.
Ju Xiaolin is still not used to this form of address. After his election as vice chairman, old workmates he had not seen for years decided to celebrate for him. "Master Ju, no, I should say Chairman Ju, come on, bottoms up."
Ju Xiaolin laughed: "Just call me Master Ju." As he spoke, he raised the plain boiled water in front of him, clinked glasses with his workmates, took a sip, and rubbed his hands back and forth on his trousers. Over the past six months, Ju Xiaolin has deeply felt the challenges brought by his dual identity as a "migrant worker" and "vice chairman."
Ju Xiaolin, 1.6 m tall, speaks with an authentic northern Shaanxi accent and has a smooth, bright forehead. Whenever he sees his workmates, he always smiles broadly. In the past, when he was elected a national model worker from being an ordinary worker, the leaders of his work unit held a celebration for him, and he responded to the leaders' congratulatory toasts only with plain boiled water.
After all the toasting and chatting, the workmates' conversation still came back to Ju Xiaolin. "Now that you've suddenly become vice chairman, don't forget your workmates." Ju Xiaolin smiled: "Whenever I have the chance, I will speak up more for the migrant worker community."
From migrant worker to national celebrity
In 1962, Ju Xiaolin was born in Ducheng Village, Zhujiazhuang Town, Qishan County, Baoji City. This is a small mountain village. After failing the college entrance examination in 1979, he originally wanted to retake it, but there were still 6 siblings in the family, so Ju Xiaolin gave up the plan to retake the exam.
During the 1987 Spring Festival, Ju Xiaolin's brother-in-law brought back news that the electrification engineering bureau of the Ministry of Railways where he worked planned to recruit a group of contract workers for a term of three years. Ju Xiaolin felt that working for a state-owned enterprise was always better than sifting sand and painting in his hometown, so he became an overhead contact line worker in Class 2, Team 2, Section 3, Division 1 of the electrification bureau.
In Ju Xiaolin's view, this was the best opportunity in his life, so much so that after 29 years, he still remembers the day he first started work: March 1, 1987.
The work crew Ju Xiaolin belonged to was tasked with installing railway overhead contact lines, which provide power to locomotives and are the main artery for railway speed increases.
Overhead contact line construction is not like ordinary electrical work. It involves many specialized tasks such as electric power, electric motors, and mechanical drawing, and is highly technical. The wires were like spider webs, and the construction drawings were like sealed books. Ju Xiaolin, with only a high school education, suddenly felt like "a blind person with open eyes." The utility poles were like tall buildings, and working at height was like acrobatics. For the first time, Ju Xiaolin resented being too short. After a month of training, he was sent to the construction site of the Beijing-to-Datong double-track line. From then on, drawings, books, and notebooks became the 3 treasures Ju Xiaolin always carried with him. When his workmates saw him writing and drawing in his notebook, they advised him: "This is the technician's job. You're a migrant worker, what are you fussing around for?"
The overhead contact line has an accessory, the counterweight rod. Workers had to stand on a 2-3 m support post and align the 25 kg counterweight hanging on the pulley with the groove and push it onto the counterweight rod. For Ju Xiaolin, who is 1.6 m tall, this was too difficult.
When education is insufficient, diligence makes up for it. His father loved painting, and Ju Xiaolin had been influenced by it since childhood and also had some foundation in drawing. He drew all the overhead contact line components he could not remember clearly and memorized them repeatedly. The team leader assigned him one task each day, and he wrote the construction standards in his notebook. After work at night, he read them silently several times to remember them.
Most of his workmates' impression of Ju Xiaolin was that he was quiet and simple-looking. In his work unit, he was almost the most inconspicuous one. He did not smoke, did not drink, did not play cards, and his only hobby was eating Qishan saozi noodles from his hometown. But it was exactly this inconspicuous migrant worker who, over 20 years, won almost every award a worker could win: the National May 1 Labor Medal, the National Model Worker award, and the China Skills Award.
Participating in 140 events a year
In 2006, Li Hongjiang, section chief of the Sixth Network Section of China Railway Electrification Bureau, led a team to inspect Lingjiaoshan Station on the Qiancao line. Ju Xiaolin was wiring at the time. Li Hongjiang discovered that Ju Xiaolin's wiring method was different from the traditional method. Ju Xiaolin told him that this was a wiring method he had figured out himself. Li Hongjiang asked him to organize all the methods. Two months later, he compiled 40 innovative methods and named them "Good Experiences and Good Methods for Overhead Contact Line Construction." At the end of that year, he was rated by the Sixth Network Section as an individual pacesetter in economic innovation. This was the first major honor Ju Xiaolin had received in nearly 20 years since joining the job. "At that time I was really happy. Thinking that these methods of mine could be used by other workmates, I felt I had gained face."
But this manuscript was written in Shaanxi dialect, and only Ju Xiaolin himself could understand it. His work unit hoped he would reorganize it into a book. Writing a book was a huge challenge for Ju Xiaolin, who had only a high school education, so he specially took a university graduate in his work crew as his teacher. Whenever he encountered technical terms he did not understand, he looked them up and asked about them. After more than three years, notes of hundreds of thousands of words were ultimately condensed into a manuscript of more than 100,000 words, "Experience and Methods in Overhead Contact Line Construction." Today, this book has become the "operation bible" for workmates on the job.
In April 2009, Ju Xiaolin received the first national grand award of his life, the "National May 1 Labor Medal." That year, he became a worker representative of the company. After that, he also became a regular recipient of the work unit's "advanced worker" title and successively won "Economic and Technological Innovation Pacesetter," "Technical Innovation Expert," "Model Worker," and "Advanced Individual of Knowledge-Based Workers." From then on, he became a celebrity in the company, his benefits improved, he lived with the deputy work foreman, and his monthly salary was about 3000 yuan.
All kinds of awards came surging in like a tide, and Ju Xiaolin received so many awards that his hands were tired. In April 2010, he was selected as a Beijing Municipal Model Worker. At the end of 2010, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security commended the winners of the national "10th China Skills Award," and Ju Xiaolin, as a representative of migrant workers, was among them. When a leader of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission learned that a "celebrity" like Ju Xiaolin still had not had his staffing problem resolved, he demanded that Ju Xiaolin be given a "worker" establishment post. For the first time, Ju Xiaolin became a "public employee" eating public grain. He was rated as a senior technician and could receive some subsidies, and his monthly salary rose to 6000 yuan.
Before "July 1" in 2012, Ju Xiaolin became one of the 100 "National Outstanding Communist Party Members in Pioneering and Striving for Excellence" commended by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. On July 3, 2012, at the 11th Beijing Municipal Party Congress, Ju Xiaolin was elected as a delegate to the 18th National Congress. At that time, it had been only 4 years since Ju Xiaolin joined the Party.