Chapter XVIII: Appendix: To Section 5 (1)

RULES FOR THE DETERMINATION OF DISABILITY FOR WORK

1. Disability for work shall be determined by an examination of the applicant by the Bureau of Medical Experts, in urban districts, or by the provincial insurance offices, accident insurance offices or institutions acting as such.

_Note._ In case it be impossible to organize a Bureau of Medical Experts at any insurance office, such a bureau may be organized at the Medical Sanitary Department of the local Soviet, provided, however, that the said bureau shall be guided in its actions by the general rules and instructions for insurance offices.

2. The staff of the Bureau of Experts shall include:

(_a_) Not less than three specialists in surgery;

(_b_) Representatives of the Board of Directors of the office;

(_c_) Sanitary mechanical engineers appointed by the Board of the
office;

(_d_) Representatives of the trade unions.

_Note._ The specialists in surgery on the staff of the bureau shall be recommended by the medical sanitary department, with the consent of the Board of Directors, preferably from among the surgeons connected with the hospital funds, and shall be confirmed by a delegates’ meeting of the office.

3. During the examination of a person at the Bureau of the Medical Commission, all persons who have applied for the examination may be present.

4. An application for the determination of the loss of working ability may be made by any person or institution.

5. Applications for examination shall be made to the insurance office nearest to the residence of the person in question.

6. Examinations shall take place in a special room of the insurance office.

_Note_. If the person to be examined cannot be brought to the insurance office, owing to his condition, the examination may take place at his residence.

7. Every person who is to be examined at the Bureau of Medical Experts shall be informed by the respective insurance office of the day and hour set for the examination and of the location of the section of the Bureau of Medical Experts where the same is to take place.

8. The Bureau of Medical Experts may use all methods approved by medical science for determining disability for work.

9. The Bureau of Medical Experts shall keep detailed minutes of the conference meetings, and the record embodying the results of the examinations shall be signed by all members of the bureau.

10. A person who has undergone an examination and has been found unfit for work shall receive a certificate from the Bureau of Medical Experts.

_Note_. A copy of the certificate shall be kept in the files of the bureau.

11. The records as well as the certificates shall show whether the disability is of a permanent or temporary character. If the disability for work be temporary, the record and certificate shall show the date set for examination.

12. After the disability for work has been certified the proper insurance office shall inform thereof the Department of Social Security of the local Soviet, stating the name, surname and address of the person disabled, as well as the character of the disability (whether temporary or permanent).

13. The decision of the Bureau of Medical Experts certifying or denying the disability of the applicant may be appealed from by the interested parties to the People’s Commissariat of Health Protection.

14. The People’s Commissariat of Health Protection may either dismiss the appeal or issue an order for the re-examination of appellant by a new staff of the Bureau of Experts.

15. The decision of the new staff of the Bureau of Experts shall be final and subject to no further appeal.

16. Re-examinations to establish the recovery of working ability shall be conducted in the same manner as the first examination, with the observance of the regulations of the present article of the Code.

17. The expenses incurred in connection with the examination of an insured person shall be charged to the respective insurance office. The expenses incurred in connection with the examination of a person not insured shall be charged to the respective enterprise, establishment or institution.

18. The People’s Commissariat of Labor may, if necessary, modify or amend the present rules for the determination of disability for work.

Rules concerning payment of sick benefits (subsidies) to wage earners:

1. Every wage earner shall receive in case of sickness a subsidy and medical aid from the local hospital fund of which he is a member.

_Note I._ Each person may be a member of only one insurance fund at a time.

_Note II._ A person who has been ill outside the district of the local hospital fund of which he is a member shall receive the subsidy from the hospital fund of the district in which he has been taken ill. All expenses thus incurred shall be charged to the hospital fund of which the particular person is a member.

2. The sick benefits shall be paid to a member of a hospital fund from the first day of his sickness until the day of his recovery, with the exception of those days during which he has worked and accordingly received remuneration from the enterprise, establishment or institution where he is employed.

3. The sick benefit shall be equal to the remuneration fixed for a wage earner of the respective group and category.

_Note I._ The group and category in which the wage earner is enrolled shall be ascertained by the local hospital fund through the Department of Labor Distribution or through the trade unions.

_Note II._ The subsidy for pregnant women and those lying-in shall be fixed by special regulations of the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

_Note III._ In exceptional cases the People’s Commissariat of Labor may reduce the subsidy to the minimum of living expenses as determined for the respective district.

4. Besides the subsidies, the hospital funds shall also provide for their members free medical aid of every kind (first aid, ambulatory treatment, home treatment, treatment in sanatoria or resorts, etc.)

_Note._ To secure medical aid any hospital fund may, independently or in conjunction with other local funds, organize and maintain its own ambulatories, hospitals, etc., as well as enter into agreements with individual physicians and establishments.

5. The resources of the local hospital funds shall be derived:

(_a_) From obligatory payments by enterprises, establishments and
institutions (Soviet, public and private) employing paid labor;

(_b_) From fines for delay of payments;

(_c_) From profits on the investments of the funds;

(_d_) From casual payments.

_Note._ The resources of the local hospital funds shall be consolidated into one common fund of insurance against sickness.

6. The amount of the payments to local hospital funds by enterprises, establishments and institutions employing paid labor shall be periodically fixed by the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

_Note I._ In case these obligatory payments be not paid within the time fixed by the local hospital funds, they shall be collected by the Local Department of Labor; moreover, in addition to the sum due, a fine of 10 per cent thereof shall be imposed for the benefit of the hospital fund.

_Note II._ In case the delay be due to the fault of the responsible managers of the particular enterprise, establishment, or institution, the fine shall be collected from the personal means of the latter.

7. The decision of the hospital funds may be appealed from within two weeks to the Department of Labor. The decision of the Department of Labor shall be final and subject to no further appeal.

8. The People’s Commissariat of Labor may, whenever necessary, change or amend the foregoing rules concerning sick benefits to wage earners.

THE SECOND ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF TRADES UNIONS (VOCATIONAL UNIONS)

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED AT THE CONFERENCE
Moscow, June 16th to 25th, 1919

A year’s work of the professional trades unions of Russia was completed by a new conference, the second one in its history—which shows how young our professional movement is as yet. The past year was unparalleled in the history of the entire international trade union movement, both according to the kind of activity as well as those circumstances under which our unions had to carry on their work.

It was a year of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

On the ruins of the demolished capitalist system, the proletariat of Russia has taken upon itself the task of building up a new, Socialist Russia. While struggling and conquering, it was gradually turning to constructive work—strengthening its dictatorship by taking possession of the entire apparatus of the country’s economic administration.

The proletariat, organized into professional unions, constituted the vanguard of the Socialist revolution. The unions were the hotbeds of revolution, and it has fallen to their lot to solve the most complicated problems—in fact they took into their hands the management of all economic affairs, taking over the factories, the mills and the mines. This problem was difficult in itself, and its complexity was increased still further through the economic disintegration and chaos which were caused by the imperialist world war.

The Second All-Russian Conference of Trades Unions demonstrated that the Russian professional trades union movement has grown stronger during the year and that its organization has improved in both quantity and quality.

The qualitative progress made by the Russian trades union movement expressed itself in that marvelous intelligence which the Conference displayed in grappling with the complicated problems it had to face. If the first All-Russian Conference of Professional trades unions outlined a rough draft of a plan according to which the working class was to steer its course during the period of its supremacy, if at that first conference the delegates were groping in the dark, trying to feel the correct way,—the second Conference found the path sufficiently cleared to proceed forward toward the solution of new problems put forth by the life and practice of the professional movement. If at the First Conference we could only speak of regulating industry and controlling it, now, at this Second Conference, we can already tabulate the results of organization in the realm of industry by the efforts of the working class itself.

A big stride forward was made by the proletariat organized within professional trades unions, when in discussing the question of organization it pointed out clearly and definitely the place which the proletariat of the entire world is occupying under the present circumstances. The Conference has not only firmly and decisively drawn the line between its position and that of neutrality, but it took a definite stand in favor of recognizing “the revolutionary class struggle for the realization of Socialism through the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The quantitative growth of the Russian trades unions since the first Conference, notwithstanding the fact that the counter-revolution has snatched away a number of provinces (Siberia, Finland, the Donetz region, Caucasia, etc.), has resulted in a membership of 3,422,000 whereas only 2,500,000 members were represented at the First Conference. Thus, within one year the membership increased by almost one million. According to the All-Russian industrial groupings, the number of union members represented at the conference was distributed as follows:

Metal trades 400,000

Tanners 225,000

Members of Trade-Industrial Union (probably 200,000
sales clerks)

Workers engaged in the food industry 140,000

Tailors 150,000

Chemists 80,000

Architectural and building trades 120,000

Wood-working trades 70,000

Printers 60,000

Railroad workers 450,000

Glass and chinaware workers 24,000

Water transportation workers 200,000

Postal-telegraphic employees 100,000

Sugar industry 100,000

Textile workers (according to data furnished by 711,000
the local union)

Firemen 50,000

Oil miners and refiners 30,000

Chauffeurs 98,000

Bank employees 70,000

Domestic help 50,000

Waiters (in taverns) 50,000

Cigar and cigarette makers 30,000

Drug clerks 14,000

Foresters 5,000

According to the data furnished by the committee on credentials, there were 748 delegates at the Conference with the right to vote, and 131 with a voice. The political composition of the Conference (according to the results of an informal inquiry) was as follows: 374 Communists, 75 sympathizers, 15 Left Socialists-Revolutionists, 5 Anarchists, 18 Internationalists, 4 representatives of the Bund, 29 United Social-Democrats, 23 non-partisans, and 236 delegates did not state their party affiliations. The party registration bureaus showed entirely different results, which have been confirmed by the vote cast for the main resolutions. Thus, at the Communist bureau 600 persons have registered (this includes party members having the right to vote, sympathizers, and people with a voice only, but no vote), the Internationalists had 50 persons, and the United Social-Democrats had 70.

Geographically the delegates were represented as follows:

Second First

From Unions Conference Conference

The Northern Region 100 delegates 69 delegates

The Central Region 320 " 112 "

The Volga Region 144 " 25 "

The Ural Region 2 " 13 "

The Southern Region 31 " 62 "

The Western Region 30 " .. "

From Soviets and
Northern Region 29 "

Central Region 70 "

Ural Region 3 "

Southern Region 6 "

Western Region 14 "

Volga Region 30 "

The local Soviets of the Professional Unions were represented according to regions, as follows:

Central Region 36 cities 1,004,500 persons

Northern Region 16 cities 396,000 persons

Volga Region 19 cities 499,300 persons

Western Region 7 cities 73,800 persons

Southern Region 4 cities 64,000 persons

—————— —————————

Total 82 cities 2,037,600 persons

At the preceding 49 cities 1,888,353 persons
Conference

From June 16th to 25th, 1919, during the nine days of its work, the second All-Russian Congress of Trades Unions solved the fundamental questions of the Russian professional (trades union) movement. The Conference more precisely defined the place of the professional trades unions in a proletarian state, it has more concretely outlined the interrelations of the trades unions with the organs of administration and, above all, with the People’s Commissariat of Labor. All other questions, such as the regulation of working hours and wages, the safeguarding of labor and the social insurance of laborers, the organization of production, and workmen’s control have been solved on the basis of the experience of the past year.

The Russian professional unions entered upon a new era of proletarian activity. And the unions are already facing practical problems—to put into practice the principles and resolutions adopted and in all phases of its work to follow one direction, that of still further strengthening its power, and participating more closely in establishing the might of proletarian Russia.

THE PROBLEMS OF THE PROFESSIONAL TRADES UNIONS

(_A resolution introduced by M. Tomsky_)

One year of political and economic dictatorship of the proletariat and the growth of the workers’ revolution the world over, have fully borne out the correctness of the position taken by the first All-Russian Conference of the Professional Trades Unions, who have unconditionally bound up the fate of the economically organized proletariat with that of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government.

The attempt, under the flag of “unity” and “independence” of the trades union movement, to pit the economically organized proletariat against the organs of the political dictatorship of its own class, has led the groups which were supporting this slogan, to an open struggle against the Soviet Government and has placed them outside the ranks of the working class.

In the course of the practical cooperation with the Soviet Government in the work for the strengthening and organization of the nation’s economic life, the professional trades unions have passed from control over industry to organization of industry, taking an active part in the management of individual enterprises as well as in the entire economic life of the country.

But the task of nationalization of all the means of production and the organization of society on the new principles of Socialism demands persistent and careful labor involving the reconstruction of the entire governmental apparatus, the creation of new organs of control, and regulation of production and distribution, based on the organization and activity of the laboring masses who are themselves directly interested in the results.

This makes it imperative for the trades unions to take a more active and energetic part in the work of the Soviet Government (through direct participation in all governmental institutions, through the organization of proletarian mass control over their actions, and the carrying out, by means of their organization, of individual problems with which the Soviet Government is confronted), to aid in the reconstruction of various governmental institutions and in the gradual replacement of the same by their own organizations by amalgamating the unions with the governmental institutions.

However, it would be a mistake at the given stage of development of the professional trades union movement with the insufficiently developed organization to convert immediately the unions into governmental organs and to amalgamate the two organizations as well as for the unions to usurp of their own accord the functions of governmental institutions.

The entire process of complete amalgamation of the professional unions with the organs of government administration must come as an absolutely inevitable result of their work, in complete and close cooperation and harmony and the preparation of the laboring masses, for the task of managing the governmental apparatus and all the institutions for the regulation of the country’s economic life.

This, in its turn, places before the unions the problem of welding together the as yet unorganized proletarian and semi-proletarian masses into strong productive unions, initiating them, under the control of the proletarian unions, into the task of social reconstruction and the general work of strengthening their organizations, as regards centralization and smoothly working unions as well as the strengthening of professional discipline.

Directly participating in all fields of Soviet work, forming and supplying the man-power for the governmental institutions, the professional unions must, through this work for which they must enlist their own organizations as well as the laboring masses, educate and prepare them for the task of managing not only production but the entire apparatus of government.

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.

2. Standing in close relationship to the actual production and thus being the natural guardians of industry against the remnants of the bureaucratic apparatus permeated by the traditions of the old regime, the unions must build a new Socialist order, in accordance with the fixed program of production based on a national plan for the utilization of the proper products and material.

3. In the interests of preserving a single plan of organization of production, management and distribution, it will be necessary to concentrate in one center all the units of production, which are now in the charge of various departments (Chief Artillery Department, Navy and War Departments, etc.)

4. The participation of the unions in the industrial management should consist in the working out of a system of activity for the regulating and managing organs as a whole, insofar as there is a possibility of some part or other of their membership not being permeated by the spirit of Socialistic constructive activity. The management of the leading departments and centers must be composed mainly of the representatives of professional unions, following an understanding between the corresponding All-Russian Industrial Association or the All-Russian Council of Trades Unions and the presiding officers of the Supreme Council of National Economy.

5. All delegates representing the trades unions within the administrative and regulating bodies are responsible to the corresponding unions and are to report on their activities at regular intervals.

6. In order to keep up the organic connection between the unions and the management of the government owned mills, the unions are to call conferences of the management of the largest enterprises, not less than once in two months, for the purpose of discussing and passing upon the most important practical questions arising in the process of work.

7. In order to convert the regulating and managing organs into a proletarian apparatus for constructive Socialist work and in order to obtain the cooperation in this work of the large masses of the more advanced workers, it is necessary to saturate all the organs of regulation and management with proletarian elements by means of placing in their ranks responsible workers who assert themselves within the central and local trade union groups.

8. Together with the part which the unions are playing in the matter of directing the industrial life along the channels fixed by the programs of production, based upon the subjugation of private interest to those of society as a whole, comes their activity in connection with the basic element of production—labor. Therefore, the decisions of the central trade union associations are obligatory insofar as they bear on the questions of wage scales, inspection of labor, internal regulations within the factories, standards of production and labor discipline.

9. Being placed in the position of organizers of production at a moment when Russia is now more than at any other time, affected by a shortage of various kinds of material which causes a reduction of the output, the unions must safeguard the proletariat against the possibility of its exhaustion or degeneration, as a class of producers, at this critical period, and to safeguard its nucleus against social disintegration and its absorption by other classes; it is therefore necessary:

(_a_) wherever a shortage of raw material exists to reduce the
working day or the number of days per week, keeping employed at the
factory the largest possible number of workers.

(_b_) to introduce, wherever the number of hours or days per week
is reduced, obligatory attendance at technical and educational
courses, so as to utilize the crisis for the purpose of lifting the
technical and cultural level of the laboring masses.

10. At the same time, in view of the primary significance of actually supplying the mills with the necessary products, and the impossibility of increasing the productivity of labor and introducing discipline, unless this question is solved in a satisfactory manner, it is necessary to enable the trades unions to participate as closely as possible in the work of production and distribution of provisions.

WORKERS’ CONTROL

(_Resolution in connection with N. Glebov’s report_)

The Second All-Russian Congress of Vocational Unions, having heard the report on workers’ control, recognizes the following:

1. Workers’ control, which was the strongest revolutionary weapon in the hands of the labor organizations in their struggle against economic disruption and the sabotage practised by the employers in their struggle against the proletariat for economic supremacy, has led the working class into direct participation in the organization of production.

2. The economic dictatorship of the working class has created new conditions which stirred up the activity of the large masses of the workers. Through their vocational associations the workers have been called upon to organize the country’s economic life and to participate in the management of production.

3. At the same time the working class domination over the economic life of the country has not as yet been completed. A subdued struggle is still seething within the new forms of economic life, which calls forth the necessity on the part of the laboring masses to control the activities of the institutions in charge of the management of production.

4. Under such conditions of transition from the capitalist system to the Socialist regime, the workers’ control must develop, from a revolutionary weapon for the economic dictatorship of the proletariat, into a practical institution aiding in the strengthening of this dictatorship in the process of production.

5. The problems of workers’ control must be confined to the supervision of the course of work in the various establishments, and to practically check on the activity of the management of individual mills as well as that of entire branches of industry. The workers’ control is carried out in practice in a certain order according to which control does not precede, but, on the contrary, follows the executive work.

6. Workers’ control is also to solve the problem of the gradual preparation of the large masses of the working class for direct participation in the matter of management and organization of industry.

With this object in view the Congress resolves:

1. To confirm the decision of the first All-Russian Congress of Vocational Unions regarding the formation of organs of control, both local and central, under the guidance of the vocational associations of the working class.

2. Within every nationalized industrial, commercial, and transport house, the local committee for control takes upon itself the supervision of the work of the enterprise and the activities of its management, for which purpose it gathers and systematizes all data relative to the running of the establishment and places the same at the disposal of the control department of their trade union, before which, whenever the necessity arises, the question of auditing the books of the enterprise is brought up.

_Note._ In extraordinary cases the local control commission has the
right on its own responsibility to fix the time for a revision of
their enterprise, with a precise statement of the subject of
control, on condition that the local control committee immediately
notify to that effect the Department of Control of the
corresponding industrial (vocational) union.

3. The local control committee is being formed of: (_a_) representatives of the corresponding industrial (vocational) union; (_b_) of the persons elected by the general meeting of the workers employed in a given factory, who are subject to approval by the committee of the corresponding industrial (vocational) union. The members of the local control committee elected from among the committee of the industrial union, retain their office for a considerable length of time; while the persons elected at the general meeting are to be replaced in as short a period as possible, with a view to training the large masses of the people in the work of management and organization of industry so as to insure the gradual transition to the system of universal participation in it of all the workers.

4. The local control committee is responsible for its activities both before the general meeting of the workers of their factory and before the control department of their industrial (vocational) union. In case of abuse of authority, negligence in carrying out its duties, and so on, the local control committee is subject to severe punishment.

5. The representatives of the local control committee participate at the sessions of the management of the mill or factory, having only a voice, but no vote in the matter. The rights of administration of the establishment remains with the management and therefore the entire responsibility for the work of the enterprise rests with the management.

6. The coordination of the workers’ control within the limits of any given industry must be centered within the industrial (vocational) union. The union creates a Workers’ Control Department which is responsible before the management of its union.

7. The Congress authorizes the All-Russian Central Council (Soviet) of Vocational Unions to direct the institutions of workers’ control. For this purpose the All-Russian Central Council is to form a supreme organ of workers’ control, composed of the representatives of the industrial (vocational) unions.

8. With a view to coordinating all activities and eliminating the duplication of functions in the work of control, the organs of the People’s Commissariat of State Control must work in contact with the controlling organs of the industrial (vocational) unions.

9. The supreme organ of workers’ control is to work out the instructions, fully determining the rights and duties of the lower organs of control and their organization. Until such time as these instructions are made public the organs of workers’ control in the nationalized enterprises are to be guided by these rulings.

10. The regulations for the workers’ control of nationalized enterprises must be decreed by the Council of People’s Commissaries.

11. In the establishments which have not been nationalized workers’ control is to be carried out in accordance with the decree of November 14, 1917.

WAGE AND WORK REGULATION

(_Resolution introduced in connection with V. Schmidt’s report_)

Observing a great variety and lack of coordination of the tariff (wage scale) regulations which hamper not only the standardization of labor, but their practical materialization, and explaining such an abnormal phenomenon in this matter by the presence of a number of glaring defects, (absence of a definite system of wages, which would serve as a basis of the tariff regulations, the elasticity of groups and categories, the elimination from these regulations of the salaries of the higher technical, commercial and administrative personnel), defects due to the rapid transition from one form of wage scale regulation to another; due to the weakness of the local unions and their local separatism, and, finally, the inconsistency (instability) of the local organs of governments in regard to the wage regulation policy, the Second All-Russian Congress of Vocational Unions deems it necessary to introduce the following amendments and additions to the wage regulations:

1. The basic principle of wage scale regulation, in connection with the struggle for the restoration of the country’s economic forces, must be the responsibility of the laborers and other employees for the productivity of labor before their union, and the responsibility of the latter before the class associations of the proletariat. For this purpose the wage scale regulations must be based on the system of compensation of labor power which would serve as an incentive for the laborers to outdo each other in their desire to raise the productivity of labor in the nationalized enterprises, i.e. the piece-work and premium system founded on a rock-bottom standard of production, with a firmly fixed schedule of either increased pay or decreased hours of work in compensation for production above the standard requirements.

In those branches of industry where it is impossible to standardize the work, a scale of wages is to be applied on the basis of the time employed with definite hours of work and strict working regulations.

2. The wage scale of the industrial union is to include the higher technical, commercial and administrative personnel, whose salaries are to be subject to the control of the union. In accordance with this, the tariff regulation is to be divided into three fundamental parts; (_a_) the higher technical, commercial, and administrative personnel; (_b_) the lower technical and administrative personnel; the employees of the managements, the offices, institutions and commercial establishments, and (_c_) the laborers.

3. In order to eliminate too large a number of groups and categories (five groups and 15 categories) and to insure a fair compensation of the basic nucleus of the workers and other employees occupied in the industries, a subdivision into four groups and 12 categories is fixed for each of the three ranks (the higher personnel, the lower staff, the workers), the ratio of the higher wage to the lower within the limits of each one of the four given groups, from the first category to the 12th, is 1:1.75.

4. The wage scale regulations for individual groups of the workers and for certain branches of industry or parts thereof, must contain provisions either for the shortening of hours, or for the increase of pay as compensation for particularly harmful, dangerous, difficult or exhaustive labor, and in connection with climatic conditions.

5. Clothing and footwear is to be distributed to the workers engaged in the wood chopping industry, the sewerage and street cleaning industry, or occupied in underground work, work at a particularly high temperature, or necessitating the handling of harmful chemicals. Particularly difficult and harmful work (such as, underground work, the peat gathering industry, the preparation of wood fuel, work at a high temperature, work with poisonous gases and acids exhausting the system) should carry with it a home and a higher wage. This latter measure is to be carried out by the All-Russian and local councils of the Vocational Unions. In order to put these additions and amendments to the wage scale regulations into actual life and in order to do away with the obnoxious multiformity the Congress resolves:

To recognize the wage scale regulation which is being carried out on a national scale and which affects all the workers and employees of a given industry, from the highest administrator down to the skilled laborer,—as the one which best answers the fundamental needs of standardizing the wages.

To grant to the All-Russian Central Committee of the Industrial Unions the exclusive right to finally work out the wage scale regulations and to submit them for approval of the All-Russian Central Council of Professional Unions and to the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

To deprive the local branches of the All-Russian centralized unions of the right to directly submit their wage scale for approval over the head of their central body, so long as an All-Russian industrial wage scale is in operation.

To leave to the local Soviets (councils) of the Vocational Unions the right to fix the wage scale regulations only for the local unions, which have no All-Russian association, using the wage scale regulations in force as a guide; under no circumstances changing the regulations passed on a national scale. Besides, it is the duty of the local Soviets of the Vocational Unions to coordinate individual scales in different industries while putting them into practice, and the right to present a grounded petition for the transfer of a given locality into another district in accordance with the proportional (percentage) scale of district decrease of wages.

The Congress approves of the work of the committee and the section on the construction of wage scale regulations and recommends to the All-Russian centralized industrial unions to accept them as a basis. The Congress authorizes the All-Russian Central Council of Vocational Unions to carry out this resolution strictly and without any deviations.

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.

THE QUESTION OF PROVISIONING

(_A resolution based on Comrade Antzelovich’s report_)

Fully supporting the general principal policy of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government on the questions of provisioning and supplying the population, taking into consideration the extraordinary difficulty of the food situation, caused by the general conditions of the moment and by the weakness of the food supplying apparatus, the Congress resolves to give its best forces to the work of organization of the provisioning work, to continue the work of mobilization and centralization for this purpose of the proletarian forces on an all-Russian scale, and is hereby submitting for the approval of the Council of People’s Commissaries the provisions stated below:

1. The Congress recognizes the War-Provisioning Bureau of the All-Russian Soviet of Vocational Unions, acting in accordance with the instructions adopted by the Soviet, as the central body in charge of mobilization and distribution of the proletarian forces in the field of provisioning.

In order to fulfil its tasks the War-Provisioning Bureau of the All-Russian Soviet of Vocational Unions: (_a_) mobilizes the labor power, selecting it from among the vocational unions and their organs (the shop committees, etc.); (_b_) promotes the workers into the positions of members of the colleges, provincial provisioning committees, district provisioning committees, and other provisioning organizations, appointing them to office through the People’s Commissariat for provisioning; (_c_) sends the workers’ provisioning detachments composed of the best forces into the villages to do the work of organization. The detachments are working under the leadership of members delegated by the War-Provisioning Bureau into the local provisioning bodies, and are to act as auxiliary organizations to those provisioning bodies; (_d_) it organizes the provisional expeditions with special tasks to aid the provisioning organizations among them in the localities freed from occupation; (_e_) it organizes the work of labor inspection, working under the control of the War-Provisioning Bureau, both in the field of provisioning and in the allied fields of transportation, etc.; the problems of inspection consist of the renovation, reorganization and the placing of the entire system of provisioning bodies on a proletarian basis; (_f_) it selects with the aid of the proper vocational unions specialists in different lines of the provisioning work, making them available to fill executive offices; (_g_) in its work the Central War-Provisioning Bureau is leaning for support on the auxiliary local war-provisioning bureaus of the Soviets of Vocational Unions, uniting the entire activity of the vocational unions for the betterment of the provisioning work.

2. From the point of view of unity of the general system of distribution of necessaries, the Congress deems it necessary to put into practice in full measure the participation of labor cooperation in the matter of distributing the products so that, in the course of time, and labor, all the united system of distribution may be organized after the pattern of a single type of consumers’ communes.

Workers’ cooperative societies must become the chief distributors of products among the workers.