WITHIN one week Foxconn announced two sweeping pay raises for its employees at its Shenzhen plant.

The scope of the raises is unprecedented, exceeding previous raises during the past 10 years put together.

During the past decade, the manufacturer has been slavishly following the minimal wages set by the local government.

Don't worry, Foxconn is not packing up. The giant's balance sheet could well withstand the writeoffs.

Yes, fresh scandal is plaguing a Yantai-based Foxconn plant, but it is probably time to look beyond Foxconn.

By all accounts Foxconn pay is quite competitive, with the additional attraction that it always pays on time.

But the numerous other plants not threatened with fatal jumps are unlikely to follow in Foxconn's steps. They are more likely to continue to exploit the lower limits of legal wages.

An even bigger concern is that rising wages cannot possibly match or rise faster than the costs of living.

During the past four weeks, the People's Daily has published a series of four articles discussing China's alarming wealth disparity.

The first article published on May 17 points out that wage raises lag far behind growth in government and corporate income.

According to Jia Kang, an official from the Ministry of Finance, from 1993 to 2007, government income as a share of GDP gained 3.13 percent, the capital returns for enterprises grew 6.6 percent, while the share of residents' income dropped by 9.8 percent.

Resident income takes into account the wages, appreciation from assets, and self-employment.

The next article published on May 24 showed that while resident income accounts for an ever smaller proportion of GDP, the wages are very unevenly distributed, with income in some sectors far above the average.

The article uses Zhao Gang and two of his former classmates to exemplify the alarming differences.

Zhao is a division manager at a state-controlled financial group, whose take-home salary plus subsidies exceeds 1 million yuan (US$146,000).

One of his senior middle school classmates working at a well-performing manufacturing company in central China is making 40,000 yuan a year.

"About a third of my income goes to housing loans, another third to child's tuition and medical expenses for parents, leaving very little for 'expanding consumption' as advocated by the government!" he said.

One of Zhao's elementary school classmates is still working on a farm and also does odd jobs - altogether earning only 20,000 yuan a year.

The three people clearly demonstrate the gaping divides euphemized by the bland term "average wages."

In specific, the urban-rural divide further widens, with the urban-rural income ratio growing from 2.6:1 in 1997 to 3.33:1 in 2010.

Income at monopolizing sectors also far exceed the average.

According to Li Shi, a researcher from Beijing Normal University, as late as the 1980s and 1990s, the pay level at financial, power, and telecommunications sectors were still roughly comparable to the average level at manufacturing.

Today, as their monopoly status consolidates, the wages in these sectors are about five to 10 times those in other non-monopoly sectors.

Within individual enterprise, too, the wages and welfare are steadily concentrating in the hands of the few.

In 2008, for centrally administered enterprises the per capita welfare expenses averaged 3,387 yuan. But actually the most privileged gets 44,600 yuan, about 300 times higher than the 149 yuan minimum.

A pay cap circular considered by the Ministry of Finance suggests that SOE financial companies' highest salary should not exceed 2.8 million yuan.

You can get a glimpse of how SOE leaders are catching up with the Wall Street fat cats in terms of pay.

Getting into these monopoly sectors depends almost entirely on your connections, meaning they are usually the preserve of the cadres' children and friends.

In Beijing, the grease for getting employed in the much-coveted state-owned monopoly sector can carry a price of hundreds of thousands yuan.

Elusive solution

The People's Daily tries to come up with some solutions.

In a May 31 article, it shows how satisfactory wages have been negotiated between labor and the capital through trade unions in some plants in Zhejiang Province.

But the article does not elaborate or go on to say whether that presupposes an independent trade union truly representing the interests of the grassroots workers.

In the spate of fatal jumps in Foxconn, while the tragedies have been drawing considerable outrage outside that plant, work within the plant proceeds very smoothly. There is a conspicuous absence of Foxconn's own trade union, if there is such union.

Later we did hear of a trade union in the labor strike in a Honda plant, but in a very bizarre context: there have been a scuffle between workers who refused to work, and members of a trade union ordering them to return to the job.

One commentator said that such labor-trade union conflict is probably unheard of ever since trade unions arose in the world.

Deepening reform

In a recent commentary titled "Merely hiking wages is no solution," the Legal Evening News said that efforts at readjusting wages have been delayed by a decade.

It blamed the delay on the worship of efficiency and on vested interests that frustrated the efforts to secure better pay.

So an end to this GDP worship and a humbling of vested interests would seem to be an answer.

But some of the beneficiaries of this disparity happen to be entrusted with addressing the issue of the wage gap.

The interests of the workers cannot be adequately represented by those who do not share in their plight.

Simple solutions can be deceptive.

For instance, across the board hikes would be meaningless, for the low-income families would be the first to be affected by inflation.

But systemic correction is sure to be stubbornly resisted. Generally one would be willing to defend one's interests with one's life.

Recent years have seen an acceleration of the national wealth accumulated in the hands of a few - officials, capitalists, property developers, and mine owners.

Deepening the reform would necessarily include a political dimension.

Only enfranchisement of the under-privileged could ensure that their voices would not be diluted or distorted.