从“苦力”到职工——近代上海码头工人日常生活的嬗变

From Coolie to State-Owned Worker: The Evolution of Dockworkers’ Daily Life in Modern Shanghai

码头工人是中国近代城市中典型的“苦力”群体,他们的日常生活缺乏实证研究,近代工人的日常并非铁板一块,其生活和工作各不相同。码头工人入行和职业结构与工头、帮口等因素息息相关,近代以来主要依靠非正式制度对其管理。在围绕以住屋为核心的日常生活中,码头工人一直与租界、帮会和政府等博弈,最终才栖身于城市之中。而随着政权鼎革,其日常生活也发生了结构性的变化,在历经多次改造后,形成了从“苦力”到职工的转变,码头工人的衣食住行开始与国家政治息息相关,其也成为重塑新人的重要典范。此后,工人不仅享有国家的福利待遇,还承担着相应的义务。

Dockworkers were a typical group of hard laborers, or coolies, in modern Chinese cities, yet their daily lives are not empirically studied. The daily lives and work of modern workers were not rigid and in fact varied. Dockworkers’ entry in the career and the occupational structure were closely related to factors such as foremen and gangs, and in modern times they were mainly managed by informal systems. In a daily life centered around housing, dockworkers struggled against the concessions, the gangs and the government before finally settling in the city. As the Communist Party of China replaced the Kuomintang regime, dockworkers’ daily life also underwent structural changes, and after a number of political reforms, their identity changed from coolies to state-owned workers. Their livelihood became closely related to national politics, and they became a typical example of the socialist transformation of the workers. Since then, workers not only enjoyed the welfare benefits of the state, but also assumed the corresponding obligations.