"Barbarous Soviet Russia"

by Isaac McBride

LABOR LAWS

The Soviet Russian Code of Labor Laws passed by the Russian Central Executive Committee in 1919 covers the whole field of Russian labor activities. To workers in other countries some of the provisions will appear drastic, but it must be remembered that Russia is still an armed camp and that the war has disorganized industry, transportation and almost every other form of endeavor. I was informed that every effort was being made under these laws to coordinate the productive forces of the country with a view to securing the highest possible production for the pressing needs of the Russian people. When the war stops, as it no doubt will in the immediate future, Soviet Russia will be faced with the problem of diverting into productive channels its three million soldiers, as well as other millions now engaged directly or indirectly in the war. Just as we had our “Work or Fight” measures in this country for the purpose of utilizing the nation’s human energy in a profitable way in time of stress, so in Soviet Russia every effort is being made to place the workers where the greatest results to the nation as a whole will accrue.

In connection with the passage of these labor laws, it must be borne in mind that the working people in Soviet Russia enjoy much more control at the present time than do the same class of people in possibly any other country. One must take into consideration the fact that these laws were initiated by the unions themselves or their representatives, who shared jointly with the political side of the Government the responsibility for maintaining the new order. Many of the former so-called bourgeoisie of the old regime, I was informed, have spent the past two years doing nothing but live by speculation and they stir up trouble on the slightest pretext against the new Government. It was primarily to reach recalcitrants of this character that the compulsory provisions were inserted in the code. The result of the passage of these laws did not, so far as I could judge, diminish the enthusiasm of the Russian workers for the new order, but on the other hand their energy seems to have been stimulated, no doubt because they were beginning to feel that through their various organizations this step had been taken for the express purpose of forcing into production every man and woman in the country capable of producing and helping to reconstruct Russia.

Article I of the code deals with compulsory labor. It provides that all citizens of the Soviet Republic, with the following exceptions, are subject to compulsory labor:

First, persons under sixteen years of age; second, all persons over fifty years of age; third, persons who have become incapacitated by injury or illness; fourth, women for a period of eight weeks before and eight weeks after confinement.

All students are subject to compulsory labor at the schools. Labor conditions in all establishments, Soviet, nationalized, public and private, are regulated by tariff rules drafted by the trade unions in agreement with the directors or owners of establishments and enterprises and approved by the people’s commissariat of labor.

Article II, entitled “The Right to Work,” provides that all citizens able to work have the right to employment at their vocations and remuneration fixed for such class of work. The district exchange bureaus of the Department of Labor Distribution, in agreement with respective unions, assign individual wage earners or groups of them to work at other trades if there is no demand for labor at the vocation of the persons in question. All persons of the female sex and those of the male sex under eighteen years of age have no right to work at night or in those industries in which the conditions of labor are especially hard or dangerous.

Article III, provides for the methods of labor distribution. Any wage earner who is not engaged on work at his vocation shall register at the Local Department of Labor Distribution as unemployed. An unemployed person has no right to refuse an offer of work at his vocation, providing the working conditions conform with the standards fixed by the respective tariff regulations, or, in the absence of the same, by the trades unions. An unemployed person who is offered work outside his vocation shall be obliged to accept it on the understanding, if he so wishes, that this be only until he receives work at his vocation.

Article V, makes provision for the transfer of a wage earner to other work within the enterprise, establishment or institution where he is employed. His transfer may be ordered by the managing authorities of said enterprise, establishment or institution. The decision of the Department of Labor in the matter of a transfer of labor may be appealed from under the law by the interested parties to the District Department of Labor or to the People’s Commissariat of Labor, whose decision of the matter in dispute is final. In case of urgent public work the Department of Labor, in agreement with the respective professional unions, may order the transfer of a whole group of wage earners from the organization where they are employed to another situated in the same or a different locality. This is done, provided a sufficient number of volunteers for such work cannot be found.

Under Article VI, which covers remuneration of labor, the law provides that in working out tariff rates and determining the standard rates of remuneration all wage earners of a trade shall be divided into groups of skill, and a definite standard of remuneration shall be fixed for each group. In determining the standard of remuneration for each category, consideration must be given to the kind of labor, the danger of the conditions under which the work is performed, the complexity and accuracy of the work. Remuneration for piece-work is computed by dividing the daily tariff rate by the number of pieces constituting the production standard. Remuneration for overtime work shall not exceed time and a half. During illness of a wage earner the remuneration due him shall be paid as a subsidy from the hospital fund. The unemployed receive a subsidy out of the funds for unemployed.

Under Article VII, which deals with working hours, provision is made that the duration of a normal working day must in no case exceed eight hours for day work and seven hours for night work, and that the duration of a normal day, first, for persons under eighteen years of age, and second, for persons working in especially hard or health-endangering branches of industry, must not exceed six hours. In case the nature of the work is such that it requires a working day in excess of the normal, two or more shifts shall be engaged. Except in extreme cases work in excess of the normal hours, or what is usually called overtime work, is not permitted. No females and no males under eighteen years of age may do any overtime work, and the time spent by those on such work in the course of two consecutive days must not exceed four hours. All wage earners must be allowed a weekly uninterrupted rest of not less than forty-two hours, and on the eve of rest days the normal working day is reduced by two hours. Every wage earner who has worked without interruption not less than six months shall be entitled to leave of absence for two weeks, and every wage earner who has worked without interruption not less than a year shall be entitled to leave of absence for not less than one month with full pay.

Article VIII deals with methods to insure efficiency of labor. The standard output for wage earners of each trade and group is fixed by valuation commissions of the respective trades unions. This article provides that a wage earner systematically producing less than the fixed standard may be transferred by the decision of the proper valuation commission to other work in the same group and category, or to a lower group or category with a corresponding reduction of wages. However, appeal can be taken from this provision of the law as well as all other provisions in the code.

Article IX provides for protection of life, health and labor of persons engaged in any economic activity, and the carrying out of this part of the law is entrusted to labor inspectors, technical inspectors and the representatives of sanitary inspection. The labor inspection is under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Labor and its local branches, which are the Departments of Labor, and is composed of labor inspectors, elected by the councils of professional unions. The inspectors are compelled under the law to visit at any time of the day or night all the industrial enterprises of their district and all places where work is carried on, as well as places provided for the workmen by the enterprises, such as rooming-houses, asylums, baths, etc., and to assist the trades unions and works committee in their efforts to ameliorate in individual enterprises as well as in branches of industry.

This brief outline of the Code of Labor Laws, the full text of which will be found in the appendix, shows how thoroughly the new régime in Russia has gone into the question of organizing the labor power of the country for production on the highest scale. I was told over and over again by various officials of the labor organizations of Soviet Russia and the Government officials as well, that what they were interested in above all else at the present time was the organization of labor along lines that would insure sufficient production of essential commodities to meet the needs of all the people under Soviet rule.