ABSTRACT
The demand of around 10,000 former town and township temporary personnel to be included in the pension insurance programme was both legally justified under the Labour Law and in conflict with the existing specific regulations on social insurance. These people had been laid off by the town and township government over the years. While the municipal and county governments had no financial resources for this purpose, meeting their demands could trigger a chain reaction from other related groups. But the demand had become stronger and stronger and the contradiction had become increasingly acute. As a result, increasingly disharmonious and destabilizing factors were brewing at the rural grassroots level. How to solve this issue, how to exercise administration according to law and how to fulfil the political responsibility of ruling the country for the people and building a socialist harmonious society had become a practical issue for the Ziyang municipal Party committee and government.
