LABOR SAFEGUARDS AND SOCIAL INSURANCE
OF THE WORKERS
(Resolution passed in connection with A. Bakhutov’s report)
In capitalist society, with the complete economic and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie, the legal measures which were enacted for the safeguarding of labor and the individual kinds of social insurance of the workers were being enforced under the control of the capitalist state, together with the employing class, and beyond the reach of direct influence of the labor organizations. With the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat it became possible for the first time to put point blank all the questions arising out of the struggle against the grave consequences of the conditions of labor, which remain as a legacy of the capitalist era, as well as preventive measures and the solutions of the questions, in accordance with the Socialist aims of the present moment. The actual safeguarding of labor and the social insurance of the worker, with a view to safeguarding his life and increasing his strength and power, proved to be indissoluble aspects of the same problem—changing of conditions of labor, the reconstruction of the industrial environment in which the worker is laboring, and the betterment of his living conditions.
The October revolution determined the basic principles of social defence for the proletariat of Russia, having given over the safeguarding of labor and social insurance of the toilers into the hands of the working class, and for the first time it has created organs of factory inspection on the basis of elective representation.
But the acute civil war and the economic work of organization, as the fundamental problem which has been confronting the working class during the first year of the October coup d’état, have diverted the attention of the proletariat from a problem of no lesser significance—the safeguarding of its health, as the main source of national economy—and its economic organizations became indifferent. This is the reason why the working class paid but very little attention to questions of labor safeguards and social insurance, as well as to the institutions in charge of these questions.
At the present moment, however, the building of a new life, the reconstruction of the conditions of labor on a Socialist foundation, the safeguarding of production for the life and health of the workers, the betterment of their living conditions, the workers’ insurance against all accidents depriving him of his labor power, the amalgamation of the various kinds of insurance agencies into one powerful organization, and the management of the same, are becoming the most important problems which the vocational unions are to solve. Together with the economic work of organization which includes the safeguarding of labor, social insurance of the toilers must take the proper place in the every-day work of the unions.
Taking all this into consideration, the second Congress of Vocational Unions finds it necessary that the vocational unions—
1. Take active part in the construction of united government insurance bodies through the formation of corresponding subdivisions within the departments of labor of the local Soviets, in accordance with the instructions of the Department of Social Insurance and Labor Safeguards of the People’s Commissariat of Labor; 2. That they energetically carry out the “regulations of social insurance of the workers” of October 31st, 1918; 3. That they immediately start the organization within the unions of permanent committees on the safeguarding of labor, and of nuclei for the same within the various mills and factories for the purpose of cooperating with the governmental institutions charged with the safeguarding of labor; 4. That they intensify the work on the spot for the creation of labor inspection by means of selection and training for this purpose of the active workers; 5. That they practically spread the validity of the safeguarding of labor regulations and their enforcement over all types of labor (in the building trades, in the transport service, over domestic servants, commercial and office workers, restaurant help, and agricultural workers); 6. That they pay particular attention to the conditions of labor in the small semi-handicraft establishments; 7. That they assist in the practical efforts of labor inspection to remove the children from the works and for the introduction of a shorter work-day for minors, enabling them at the same time to continue their education; 8. That they take an active part in the organization of local sanitary-hygienic and technical investigations of the conditions at the factories and mills, and in the working out of various obligatory standards and various measures for the safeguarding of labor; 9. That they carry out the principles of labor safeguarding through the current activity of the local and central organs regulating the nation’s economy; 10. That they take an active part in the work of improving the living conditions of the working population; 11. That they energetically push the agitational and educational work among the proletarian masses along the lines of vocational hygiene and sanitation and the technique of insuring safety, as well as on general questions of social insurance and labor safeguarding.
THE INTERRELATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL INSURANCE
AND LABOR SAFEGUARDS OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT OF LABOR
AND THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT OF SOCIAL INSURANCE
Whereas in the process of development of the social revolution the division of society into a handful of parasites, on the one hand, and into the masses of workers and peasants overloaded with excessive toil, on the other, is constantly disappearing, and the entire population is being transformed into a mass of producers who must be insured, in accordance with the provisions of the regulations on social insurance of the laborers, of October 31, 1918, against all accidents that might incapacitate them, and
Whereas the work of social insurance can be developed on condition of immediate participation of vocational unions through the medium of the corresponding organs of the People’s Commissariat of Labor,
The second Congress of Vocational Unions holds that all insurance business, its functions, the institutions of the People’s Commissariat of Social Insurance, affecting the workers, must be amalgamated into the common work of the Department of Social Insurance and Labor Safeguard of the People’s Commissariat of Labor.
Having discussed the question of interrelations between the Commissariat of Public Health and the Department of Social Insurance and Labor Safeguards of the People’s Commissariat of Labor, the second All-Russian Congress of Vocational Unions resolved to accept the following principles as a basis for the solution of the question:
1. Social insurance and labor safeguarding being a complete and logically united institution, with the dictatorship of the proletariat in power, when the entire population of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic is being transformed into laborers, covers the activities of Commissariat of Health, thus representing under the circumstances one of the most important and most necessary links of one chain.
2. It is possible to carry into life the measures of social insurance and labor safeguards with the necessary system and on a vast scale, only if the work is done in the closest connection and intimate touch with the masses that are interested in it, and on the condition that the masses cooperate most energetically.
3. The union of any group of functions into one whole may be determined exclusively by their proximity and similarity, else there is a possibility of the least efficient combination of all or any individual branches of government activity, to the detriment of the regular development and direction of the same and to the certain amount of independence so necessary to each and every one of the activities.
4. The medico-prophylactic activity, like the entire institution for social insurance and labor safeguards, must be united, i.e., both the organizing and organic work is concentrated in the hands of bodies and institutions specially created for that purpose, and depending from the same common central body. As regards the necessary differentiation of labor it must be carried out exclusively within the common bodies, but under no circumstances must it be done by means of tearing away from them of any of the parts closely bound through common problems and peculiarities of the work, no matter how considerable each of them, taken apart, might be.
In view of the above principles, the Congress resolves that:
1. The Commissariat of Public Health must be amalgamated with the Department of Social Insurance and Labor Safeguards.
2. All organs of social insurance and labor safeguards must be built from top to bottom entirely on the basis of vocational unions’ representation.
3. The question of the order of uniting the Commissariat of Public Health with the Department of Social Insurance and Labor Safeguards of the People’s Commissariat of Labor is given over to the Central Executive Committee for consideration.
CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE VOCATIONAL UNIONS
AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING
(Resolution based on Tzyperovich’s and Kossior’s reports)
1. The Socialist revolution has put before the proletariat a series of the most important problems in the field of reconstruction. Simultaneously and in connection with the revolutionization of the economic relations, the working class, as the standard-bearer of Socialism, must get down to the work of creating a proletarian culture, instead of that of the bourgeoisie, in order to prepare the masses for the complete realization of the Socialist Commonwealth.
2. The dictatorship of the proletariat, enabling the working class to fully utilize all the cultural acquisitions of mankind, is already now putting forward a new creative form of the cultural movement, in the shape of proletarian cultural organizations.
3. Vocational unions, as working class organizations, notwithstanding all their weakness and the isolation of the proletarian cultural organizations from the masses of the working class must organically enter into their work, concentrating within them all their activity for the general work along questions of science and art and endeavoring with a view to making it sound, to subject their activity to the influence and guidance of the industrially organized laboring masses.
4. The Vocational Unions are also facing as an immediate problem the utilization on as large a scale as possible of those facilities which have been created by the Commissariat of Public Education in the matter of compulsory, and free education, of education for people above school age, for technical training, etc.
The vocational unions must have their representatives in the Commissariats of Public Education, who are to shed light on the needs of the trade union movement and demand that these needs be satisfied immediately.
5. At the same time, the vocational unions are to continue their cultural and educational activity, creating educational institutions and organizations which would answer the immediate problems of the vocational movement.
6. The building up of clubs, especially for the districts and provinces, is desirable. The type of a vocational-political club is preferable, if possible of a large size.
7. It is necessary at present to build libraries in the districts. But for the central trade-industrial unions special libraries are to a certain extent superfluous (outside of special publications, guides, etc.) They can easily and with much greater success be replaced by public and municipal libraries, to which the trade-industrial unions should turn their attention, by sending to the same the representatives of their cultural-educational departments, as delegates.
8. The publishing associations of the individual unions must be technically united into one Publishing Association of the Council of Unions. The program of the publications must be adapted to the needs of the trade union movement, but at the same time it must be so flexible and elastic as to be of service to the agitational activity of the unions in various directions (appeals, bulletins, etc.). The amalgamation of the periodic trade-union organs,—is a problem of the immediate future. Besides, it is necessary to issue at present a monthly or semi-monthly magazine in order to explain the general questions of theory and practice of the trade-industrial movement.
The organization of central expeditions for all trade union publishing societies is already now an imperative necessity.
9. In order to materialize the above enumerated problems each central body of the trade-industrial unions of a given industry is to have its own cultural and educational department whose activities are to be coordinated by the Soviets (councils) of the Vocational Unions at the center and in the local branches.
On the question of vocational training the Congress finds that:
1. Vocational training, as one of the mightiest weapons in the general system of cultural-industrial socialist education of the working class, may attain its object on condition that, together with the vocational training of the workers along the lines of skilled labor, they will also be given a general industrial education, acquainting them with the general questions of the condition of technical and industrial development, political economy, economic geography, and also the questions of administrative and technical management of an enterprise.
2. Vocational training is concentrated in the hands of the Committee on Vocational Training, which is formed at the Commissariat of Public Education of the representatives of the vocational unions. The Committee is given charge of the general direction, financing and working out of a single program in the field of vocational training. For the management of each individual school a School Soviet is formed of the representatives of the vocational union, the Commissariat, and the students.
3. Within each branch of industry, a network of vocational schools is to be established as soon as the needs and requirements of the corresponding All-Russian Vocational Association are made known. In the first place the schools are being organized in those places and points for the preparation of such groups and types, of skilled workers as will be found necessary by the proper industrial associations.
4. The cultural and educational departments of the All-Russian Industrial Associations are connected with the Committee on Vocational Training of the Commissariat of Education and are to determine both the quantity and type of school needed and the technical possibility of their opening in this or that particular locality. The Committee is bound immediately to satisfy these demands, in case of necessity taking a census of the technical personnel available as instructors in vocational schools.
5. The vocational unions will utilize the schools for the organization of courses and lectures on questions of theory and practice of the labor movement, striving at their widest possible development and their transformation into a disseminator of all kinds of cultural and technical knowledge among the proletarian masses.