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,