The General Union of Trade Unions
As the official organization incorporating all blue-collar and white-collar workers, the General Union of Trade Unions (Uniunea Generala a Sindicatelr din Romania—UGSR) is the largest of the country's mass organizations, with a reported membership in early 1972 of 4.6 million. Headed by a general council, the UGSR consists of twelve component labor union federations and forty area councils, one for each county and the city of Bucharest. The Central Council is structured with a chairman, appointed by the PCR Central Committee, seven secretaries, and an executive committee of twenty-seven full and nine alternate members. There are an estimated 12,000 local union units.
The primary function of the labor unions is the transmission of party policies to the rank and file. The UGSR statutes specify that the organization will carry out all of its activities under the political leadership of the PCR, and a similar provision is also included in the statutes of the county UGSR committees. In addition, the statutes of the central body require the organization to work to mobilize labor union members to ensure the implementation of party policy. A 1969 resolution of the Central Council of the UGSR declared that all labor union activities would focus on the mobilization of the working people to fulfill the state economic plan.
In early 1971, after a period of increased labor discipline problems and following a time of severe labor unrest in Poland, the PCR took steps to reform the labor union organization. Announcing what he termed as the democratization of the UGSR and its component unions, Ceausescu promised the workers genuine protection of their interests and a voice in the appointment of industrial management. The goal of the PCR program was to improve the unions without losing party control, and Ceausescu defined democratization as meaning that the labor unions would serve the party as a framework for the organization of consultations with the masses and as a forum where workers can debate the country's economic and social development.
New UGSR statutes were introduced in mid-1971. Observers of Romanian political affairs asserted, however, that there were no major changes in the system and pointed out that the new statutes still did not give labor unions the right to take the initiative in matters concerning wages or the living standard. In this regard the unions could fill only a watchdog role to assure that the regulations approved by the appropriate party and management bodies were being correctly carried out.
PARTY POLICIES AND PROGRAMS
The major domestic programs that the party sought to promote centered on the country's economic development, the integration of national minorities, the extension of so-called socialist democracy, and the PCR's cultural-ideological campaign. As a means of strengthening its leading role, the party leaders acted to improve communication between the central PCR organs and the county, city, and commune organizations and, at the same time, took additional steps to win mass support.
The Economy
In the area of economics the PCR continued its primary emphasis on industrial development and was only secondarily concerned with agriculture and consumer goods. This emphasis was evidenced in the economic plan adopted for the 1971-75 period, approved by the 1969 party congress, which concentrates on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods. Although Romania was primarily an agricultural country, the PCR leadership in the early 1960s, rejected the plan of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) for a division of labor between the participating communist states that would have had Romania place the greatest emphasis on the development of agriculture. Instead, the PCR launched a drive to modernize the country through industrialization (see ch. 14; ch. 10).
The policies pursued by the PCR are designed to maintain firm party control of the economy. In the formulation of Romania's economic development plans, the will of the party is predominant, and the degree of party control was augmented by the territorial and administrative reorganization of 1968 when economic commissions were established in each of the new counties to function under the direct supervision of the county PCR committees. These commissions made it possible for the party to have a direct hand in the local economic programs.