A Valiant Life

Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations

In the conference room.

An employee was prepared to serve tea. However, there were too many migrant workers and he didn’t have time to prepare so much tea.

The reporters were standing at the back of the room as they filmed the scenes.

It was as if a small ceremony was going to take place.

Lin Fan asked, “Leader Wang, what do you think we should do now?”

“That…” Leader Wang hesitated for a moment. “Master Lin, could you tell me what is going on? Once I understand the situation, I would be able to think of a solution.”

“Young Zhao, explain to him,” Lin Fan roughly knew the situation but he was still unclear about the general happenings.

Young Zhao was a little nervous. It was the first time he had seen such a powerful and influential leader. However, since the matter involved people’s salaries, he wanted to speak up about it.

He told him everything and didn’t hide anything from him.

After that, Leader Wang remained silent. It was a difficult situation.

The people that were directly in charge of the migrant workers were chief labor contractors, they belonged to the labor services companies. The people that were in charge of labor services companies were those from the construction companies. These construction companies were taken care of by the real estate developers.

It wasn’t that he had never encountered a situation like this. The money was difficult to obtain since he wouldn’t know who to get it from as there were many layers of relationships.

If he were to look for the labour services company’s managers, they could just claim that they didn’t take any money. Those companies above them could also claim the same thing.

It would be even more troublesome to deal with the construction companies. There were a lot of managers and they would all push the blame to one another. They wouldn’t have a proper closure.

Lin Fan asked, “Leader, if we were to reach such a situation, what would the Ministry of Manpower do?”

Leader Wang replied, “Usually, we serve as the supervisors. If people were to not give salaries, they would usually be dealt with by arbitration. If they can resolve it before that happens, they can resolve the problem by communication means. Usually, the arbitration process would take at least two years. When that happens, the New Year would probably be over. I suggest them to resolve it by communicating with one another.”

Lin Fan felt that the situation was a little complicated. He didn’t know what to say about some of the things.

However, it was true that people that owed money could behave like bosses.

If you were to ask for money, you’d have to be polite and courteous.

Ding ding!

Then, Lin Fan’s phone rang.

Lin Fan gestured for everyone to keep quiet before answering the call.

“Hello, who is this?”

The person on the phone sounded furious. He said, “Master Lin, do you think that there’s a need for that?”

“Who are you?” Lin Fan asked. Did the fella have some kind of illness? He spoke with such a bad tone even without introducing himself.

“I am the manager of a Mainland real estate project. Did you have to publicise that online? You knew that this would affect our company. You could have discussed it with us. Furthermore, the problem with their salaries has nothing to do with us. We have already sent the money to the relevant authorities. You should look for the construction companies and the labor services companies instead,” Manager Wu was so furious that he was going to kill someone.

The impact of the problem was great. It affected a lot of housing units. A lot of people feedbacked that they wanted to refund their housing units.

After they looked into the situation, they realized that someone had been scolding them on Weibo and that person was an influential one.

He was clearly trying to mess with them.

Lin Fan smiled, “Didn’t I look for you before? Did you want to discuss it with me? Don’t even speak about the labor services companies. He didn’t say anything about their salaries.”

Manager Wu replied, “What does he have to do with our company if he is broke? If you want money, you should ask him and not us. Can you be reasonable?”

Lin Fan replied, “Sorry, I am unreasonable at times. I only look for those that are responsible for this. This plot of land was developed by your real estate company. Hence, you are the person that is responsible for this. Now that the workers are not getting their salaries, who else am I supposed to look for? As for your communication with the labor services companies, that is your own problem. Am I right?”

Manager Wu replied, “That is not really logical. We have already signed a contract with the relevant sub-companies. It doesn’t concern us. Do you understand?”

“Sorry, I don’t really understand. I am just here for the money. As for how you are going to discuss with the sub-companies, that is your problem,” Lin Fan said.

“You should be looking for the labor services companies, do you understand?” Manager Wu was a little furious. He felt that this fella was unreasonable.

Lin Fan was initially calm but he was getting pretty fed up too.

“Alright, don’t try to push the blame away. I’ll just ask this: are you going to give them their salaries?”

“We have no money, how are we going to do that?” Manager Wu said angrily.

“Alright, that’s what you said. I’m not going to do anything now, I’ll see how you guys are going to last,” Lin Fan said.

*beep*

He immediately hung up.

Manager Wu was so furious that he didn’t know what to say. He immediately called the construction company.

“Chief Liu, what do you mean by that? Why are you looking for the labor services company? Didn’t we give the money to them? Why didn’t you give them their salaries?” Manager Wu said angrily.

Chief Liu was stunned, “Hey, Chief Wu, what do you mean by that? How could the labor services company not give them their salaries? The funds that your company gave are not according to the contract we signed. It was supposed to be $20 million but you only gave $15 million. How are we going to give the remaining amount?”

Manager Wu replied, “I don’t care about that. You should know what is happening on Weibo. It has a great impact on us. Quickly contact the labor services company. I don’t want this matter to blow up. If our boss were to find out about this, you can forget about taking this project.”

“That’s it, I’ll hang up now.”

Chief Liu of the construction company was furious. What was he talking about? However, he still called the labor services company.

When the call got through, he shouted, “What is wrong with you? Didn’t I give you the money? Why didn’t you give it to the workers? Do you know that the matter has been blown up? Even the Ministry of Manpower is involved in this now. If your company can’t do it, let us know. We can switch companies.”

“Chief Liu, listen to me. We are having trouble handling this too. We were supposed to get $15 million but you only gave us $8 million. How are we going to pay the workers after paying for the materials and logistics?”

They were really helpless and every company deducted their pay by a little. In the end, there wasn’t any money left for the workers.

“I don’t care what is it, you have to pay them their salaries by today,” Chief Liu said.

The manager of the labor services company replied, “Chief Liu, we really have no money here. What are we going to pay them with? Unless you give us the remaining amount of the $15 million and we will give them their pay.”

Chief Liu was furious after hearing that. If he were to give them everything, what were they supposed to earn?

“What do you mean by that?” Chief Liu said unhappily.

The manager replied, “I don’t really mean anything else. You have to understand our situation here. We don’t even have enough money and we have nothing left. I can’t just pay them out of my own pocket, right?”

Chief Liu replied, “What’s wrong with that? Which project doesn’t require any additional inflow of money? You should pay them first and we can reimburse you the amount next time.”

“If that is the case, it would be meaningless. I’m quitting this project. I will handle the finances accordingly. You can hire someone else.”

Chief Liu replied, “Alright, alright. It gets troublesome every New Year.”

…