PROFESSIONAL UNIONS AND THE COMMISSARIAT
OF LABOR
(A resolution embodied in V. Schmidt’s report)
Professional trades unions organized according to the scale of production, called upon to regulate the conditions of labor and production in the interests of the working class as a whole, under the conditions of proletarian dictatorship, are becoming gradually converted into economic associations of the proletariat, acquiring a nation-wide significance. On the other hand, the Commissariat of Labor, as an organ of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, in which the organized industrial proletariat is at the present moment playing a leading part, serves as an instrument for the introduction of the economic policy of the working class, utilizing for this purpose its apparatus and all the power vested in governmental authorities to enforce its laws and regulations.
Therefore, with a view to eliminating the duality in the united economic policy of the working class, it is necessary to recognize that all fundamental decisions of the supreme union organ—the Congress of Professional Unions—are to be adopted by the People’s Commissariat of Labor and embodied in its proposed legislation and all special obligatory regulations bearing on the conditions of labor and production, must first be approved by a majority of the All-Russian Central Council of Professional Trades Unions.
The Conference fully approves of coordination and cooperation between the All-Russian Central Council of Trades Unions and the People’s Commissariat of Labor and suggests that the local councils (Soviets) of trades unions participate in the work of local branches (departments) of the Commissariat of Labor, on the basis of the relations prevailing between the central bodies, for which purpose the local councils of trades unions are to send their representatives into the leading Soviets and make up out of the union apparatus its subdivisions (tariff, social insurance, labor safeguarding, etc.)
In order to finally eliminate all duplication in the solution of questions concerning the conditions and regulation of labor by separate departments, the Conference suggests that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People’s Commissaries concentrate all its efforts to the working out of standards regulating the conditions of work, wages, organization of labor, order of employing and discharging help, safeguarding labor, and social insurance, through the People’s Commissariat of Labor.
THE PARTICIPATION OF THE UNIONS IN THE ORGANIZATION OF INDUSTRY
(A resolution on the report made by Comrade Rudzutak)
1. The process of taking over the control of the industries which is now being completed by the workers’ government, places the vocational associations in a position where they are coming to play an ever more and more important part in the special fields of their activity.