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 Octobercoup d’état, have diverted the attentionof 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 ofnucleifor the same within the various mills and factories for the purpose of cooperating withthe 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 INSURANCEAND LABOR SAFEGUARDS OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT OF LABORAND 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 acomplete 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.

(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 ofthe 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.

Considering it necessary thus to impose on the workers’ cooperative societies the extremely important task of constructive Socialist work and the work of actually supplying the workers with the necessaries, without which the productivity of labor cannot be increased, the Congress holds that these functions can best be carried out by the workers’ cooperatives on the following conditions: (a) the creation of a united organized basis for the cooperative and vocational associations (factoryor mill committees), which is to be carried into practice by means of an agreement between the All-Russian Council of Vocational Unions and the All-Russian Council of Workers’ Cooperative Societies; (b) the All-Russian Councils of Vocational Unions and the Workers’ Cooperative Societies exchange representatives; (c) all members of the vocational unions must join the Workers’ Cooperative Society and every member of the latter must become a member of a vocational union; (d) the common leading body of the workers’ cooperative societies must be the meeting of representatives (conferences) of the shop committees and collective associations, uniting the employees and the laborers not occupied in the mills and factories; (e) the workers’ cooperatives must immediately be induced to participate in the broadest possible manner in the work of organizing all municipal commerce; the control and general direction in the matter remaining in the hands of the provisioning bodies; (f) the existing special productive-distributive organs such as that in charge of transportation of the provisions, waterway transportation of provisions, (canals, rivers, etc.), must be transformed into well organized, open workers’ cooperative societies; (g) the workers’ cooperative societies are to be induced to take up the practical work of organization of these branches of industry whose scale and problems justify such work, and which are engaged in the production of the prime necessities.

3. The furnishing of the proletariat with the products provided for it by the government plans of distribution, must be insured through the appropriation of a special fund for the purpose on the plan adopted for the army. The special department of the Commissariat for Provisioning which is in charge of the planning, calculating, and distributing of the products intended for the workers, must be organized in accordance with an understanding between the All-Russian Council ofVocational Unions and the Council of Workers’ Cooperatives, and it must not form its own technical and economic apparatus.

4. In order to help the methods of proletarian work to permeate more fully the entire system of the provisioning institutions it is necessary to inject into their midst representatives of Vocational Unions and Workers’ Cooperative Societies, particularly representatives of the All-Russian Council of Vocational Unions and the All-Russian Council of Cooperative Societies, into the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Provisioning.

In the matter of preparing the products which are subject to monopoly, by government counter-agents (as per decree of January 21st) the central workers’ cooperatives (city) and all centralized workers’ cooperative organizations (regional, provincial and all-Russian) are to be called upon to help, while the matter of preparing the products not subject to monopoly should be entirely given over to the cooperative societies, headed by the Workers’ Cooperative Society, the management to be given over to the Central Buying Committee (Tzentrozakup) and a corresponding portion of the products is to be set aside for the needs of the army.

5. In order to create a solid basis in the matter of supplying farm products and with a view to intensifying agriculture and other types of farming it is necessary to call upon the workers’ cooperative societies to properly utilize and organize the large Soviet agricultural establishments and other farming undertakings.

6. For the successful solution of its tasks in the domain of Socialist construction work it is necessary to bring about the closest organizational union and coordination of activity of the vocational unions and workers’ cooperative societies in the matter of raising the class consciousness of that proletariat and, for this purpose, the joint organization of workers’ homes, clubs, institutes for practitioners, and so on.

THE QUESTION OF ORGANIZATION

(Resolution based an M. Tomsky’s report)

1. Adapting its organizations to the conditions of the economic struggle in capitalist society, the working class in the interests of economy and concentration of its divided forces, gradually passed over from the close narrow guild organizations to the broader vocational and, finally, in the course of struggle against capitalism, building its forces on the principle of more efficient centralization of power for the realization of its war aims (class war aims), it came to form organizations embracing all the workers of a given branch of industry (production) into one union.

The industrial union is one union having the follow-lowing basic characteristics: (a) the union rallies all the workers and other employees engaged in a given branch of production, regardless of his functions; (b) the treasury is centralized; (c) the business of the union is transacted on the basis of democratic centralization; (d) the wage scales and conditions of labor are determined by one central body for all the categories of labor; (e) a uniform principle of construction from top to bottom; (f) the sections are playing the part of technical and auxiliary organs; (g) the interests of the industrially organized workers and other employees of a given industry are represented before the outside world by one central body.

2. The industrial union comprises only the permanent workers and employees of a given industry who are directly engaged in the process of production or serve to aid the same. All auxiliary branches servingnot production but the producersand all the temporary and casual help remain members of their industrial union.

3. This principle of construction of our unions recognized by the third Conference of the Vocational Unions, and by the first All-Russian Congress of Vocational Unions, presupposing the union of all the workers of a given industry into one organization (union), can be consistently carried into practice only by means of uniting all the workers and employees (“higher” and “lower”) into one union, which became possible of realization only after the political and economic prejudices separating the laborer from the other employees and from the technical personnel have been done away with.

4. Even if the first Congress of Vocational Unions considered it impracticable to unite into one union all the higher employees and laborers,—at the present moment, after a year of proletarian dictatorship during which a good deal of the antagonism between the different categories of laborers and other employees has been spent, when it has been proved from experience that one union in its turn leads to the eradication of all antagonism in the midst of the workers—it must now be recognized as desirable and necessary to unite into one union all persons who are wage workers engaged in one establishment, one industry or one institution.

Only in such establishments or institutions where the hiring of laborers and other employees and the increase or decrease of their wages is being decided by one member of the administrative or technical personnel, the latter cannot be members of the given union.

5. The industrial principle of union structure as applied to workers occupied in other branches of national industries, than manufacture (transportation, commerce, and farming), and also in institutions fulfilling definite functions of government (postal-telegraph, medico-sanitarydepartments, education, etc.), must be used to unite the workers of small isolated branches of industry and management into more powerful unions. As a basis for such amalgamation one must take the similarity of conditions of labor and the functions carried out.

6. Categorically defending the consistent introduction and application of the principle underlying production as regards all categories of workers, not accepting into its labor organizations those unions which are built on guild, corporation and narrow trade lines, for the purpose of better serving the economic interests of the most typical industrial groups and categories, the organization of sections on a local and national scale is allowed within each vocational union.

The unions binding together several allied branches of industry have the right to form industrial sections, the same having the right to call independent Congresses in order to decide the questions of their own industry, on condition however, that the decisions of such sectional Congresses, which will be contrary to the rulings of the general Congress or the regulations of the leading organs of the labor union movement, may be annulled by the leading body of the industrial union.

7. Striving towards unity and smooth work in labor union activity and the greatest efficiency in the utilization of the power and means at the disposal of the labor unions, it is necessary to recognize most definitely the principle of centralization of the union organization, based on unity and centralization of union finances and strict inter- and intra-union discipline.

8. With this principle as a starting-point, theorganization of the section cannot have the character of open or masked federalism. Under no circumstances could the sections be allowed to have separate sectional treasuries, additional assessment of members of the sectionsfor organization and agitation and generally for any work of the union, neither can they be allowed independent representation outside of the union or to build the leading union organs, committees, on the principle of sectional representation.

9. In exceptional cases of reconstruction of the existing federated unions into a centralized industrial union, only as an allowance for the transitional stage the Executive Committee elected at the meeting of all the delegates or at the meeting of the All-Russian Congress, can be enlarged through the addition of representatives of the sections, who then have no vote, only a voice.

10. All attempts to violate the principle of industrial organization for the purpose of restoring the federated trade unions by means of organization of the inter-sectional bureaus uniting analogous sections of the various industrial unions, must be emphatically condemned.

11. Fighting for the complete annihilation of classes, at this transitional period of proletarian dictatorship, the Russian trade-union movement aiming at the union of all workers into centralized industrial unions for the purpose of subjecting the semi-proletarian elements to the influence of the economically organized proletariat and inducing it to enter the class struggle and take part in Socialist reconstruction; we think it necessary to get the new, and as yet unorganized, strata of government and social workers to join the All-Russian Vocational Associations, on condition of their complete submission to proletarian discipline and to all regulations of the leading central bodies of the trade union movement, and particularly, the principles of organization.

12. At the same time it would be the greatest error at the present stage of development of our trade union movement with its insufficient degree of organization,to infuse into it the craftsmen and small shop owners who due to their isolation and unorganized state, do not allow of proletarian control; the same applies to the labor “artels,” “unions of labor communes” and so-called professional people who are not wage workers.

Being the representatives of the dying crafts and petty bourgeois industry, these elements permeated with the conservative economic ideology of individual and small-scale production (artel), due to their numerical size, are liable to disorganize the ranks of the economically organized proletariat.

13. Considering as the only correct and fundamental basis for the union of the workers into industrial unions, the economic basis (the economic part played by the groups of laborers in the general system of national economy), the All-Russian Vocational Association cannot accept into its midst unionsbuilt along national, religious, and generally, any unions not built along economic lines.

14. Uniting the laborers and other employees into unions, independently of their political and religious beliefs, the Russian trade union movement as a whole, taking the position of the international class struggle, resolutely condemns the idea of neutralism, and considers it a prerequisite for the admission of individual unions into the all-Russian and local associations—that they recognize the revolutionary class struggle for the realization of socialismby means of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

15. Regarding the Russian labor-union movement as one close proletarian class organization, having one common class aim—to win and organize the socialist system, one must admit thatany member of any industrial union, affiliated with the all-Russian or local union council, who is fulfilling his duties as such, being at the same time a member of the All-Russian General VocationalAssociation, upon being transferred from one industry to another,joins the proper union with the rights of an old member, without paying any initiation fee. No one must be at the same time a member of two unions.

16. This latter rule wholly applies also to the group transfer of whole establishments from one union to another—no payments are to be made out of the treasury of the unions, nor are to be made either to the members who leave it or to the union into which they are transferred, by the first union.

17. Endeavoring to better the economic conditions of all the workers, regardless of whether they are members of the union or not, the unions taking upon themselves the responsibility for the proper functioning of an establishment or institution, for the labor discipline among the workers and the enforcement of the union regulations of wages and standards of production, the unions must endeavorto introduce compulsory membershipin all the establishments and institutions entering into it,through resolutions adopted at general meetings of the workers.

18. Recognizingthe necessity of a united plan for the construction of all trade unionsas the only condition insuring right relations between the individual local organizations and their centers, also insuring the enforcement of union regulations and union discipline, the second Congress thinks it necessary, for the purpose of creating unity of activity on a local as well as national scale, to adopt a united scheme for the structure of the industrial unions and their combines.

1. The highest directing body of the all-Russian labor union movement is the All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions and the All-Russian Central Soviet of Vocational Unions operating from one Congress to the other, on the basis of principle regulations adopted by the Congress.

Note.A conference is called only in case it is impossible to call a properly organized congress.

2. All regulations of the All-Russian Congresses, Conferences and the All-Russian Central Council of the Industrial Unions are compulsory not only to all the unions, affiliated with the All-Russian Vocational Association, but for every individual member of a union, as well.

3.Violation of the rules and disregard of the same on the part of individual unionscarries with it expulsion of such a union from the family of the proletarian unions.

4. The supreme organ of the All-Russian Industrial Union is its Central Committee; all rulings of that committee which do not contradict the regulations issued by the higher councils of the All-Russian General Vocational Association are obligatory for all of its branches and for each and every one of its members.

5. All local councils of the unions are being constructed according to the plan of the All-Russian Central Council of the Vocational Unions, with a corresponding proportional change of numerical ratio. All congresses of vocational unions are being called on the principle of direct proportion.

6. The rulings of the All-Russian Industrial Unions cannot be nullified by the rulings of the local councils of unions and are obligatory for the organs of the given union in each locality.

7. The local councils of the Vocational Unions being the leading organs of the labor union movement and authorized representatives of the entire proletariat, economically organized within a certain locality, are at the same time guided in their activities by all the rules of the All-Russian Congresses, Conferences and the All-Russian Central Council of the Trade-Industrial Unions, and as regards the branches of the industrial unions, the regulations laid down by their guiding central bodies are obligatory. The rulings of the local Trade Union Councils which are in contradiction to the regulations of the policy of the entire unions or their managing bodies, are not obligatory for the local branches of the industrial unions.

8. The branches of the All-Russian Industrial Unions affiliated with the All-Russian Central Trade Unions Council automatically enter into the local Trade Union Councils.

9. The local Trade Union Councils are to see to it that the unions are properly organized, and that they follow the directions issued by the governing bodies and fulfil their financial obligations towards the unions; they are also to aid and support them in their activities.

10. In the interests of centralization of union activity, the strengthening of the ties between the centers and the local bodies, and in order to place the finances of the unions on a proper plane and bring about closer cooperation and connection between the trade unions on the one hand, and the organs of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the Commissariat of Labor, on the other, in the work of bringing about a uniformstructure of the Trade Unions and Union Councils and standardizing the wage scales throughout the country,—one must admit that the geographical (provincial) amalgamations as well as the provincial Union Councils are only unnecessary organs of transmission between the center and the periphery which constitute a nonproductive expenditure of energy and means.

11. The All-Russian Centers, their branches and subdivisions in the various localities, united through the Trade Union Councils, constructed after the pattern of the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council, the Shop Committees or Employees’ Associations (Collective Associations) as the originalnucleiof the trade unions—this is the best scheme of organization structure, answering the basic problems at the present moment confronting the trade union movement. Territorial grouping according to divisions and subdivisions should be established by the All-Russian Central body of the given union, depending upon the geographical area and degree of concentration of any given branch of industry, keeping, insofar as possible within the boundaries fixed by the administrative divisions.

Only by observing the given scheme of organization can the finances of the union be placed on a proper level and the centers receive due financial strength, which is a necessary condition for further and more systematic activity.

12. The most suitable principle by which to determine the membership dues during the period of chronic depreciation of paper money would be a proportional assessment. The normal amount of membership dues, the Congress considers is one per cent of the wages earned. Special additional dues or assessments for special needs of the local divisions of the industrial unions are allowed only upon the resolution of general meetings, or meetings of delegates or conferences of a given union.

13. Regarding the Branch of the Industrial Union (within a province or region) as the highest organ of the union in the given locality (government or region), as the first step toward the actual realization of the centralization of the union funds, the Congress considers the following financial relations as necessary:

(a) Fifty per cent of all membership dues of the branches of the All-Russian Central Industrial Union go to the All-Russian Central Committee of the given Industrial Union.

(b) The divisions (district and sub-regional) of a branch (government or region) of a Union work according to the budget approved by the latter.

(c) Ten per cent of all the funds remaining at the disposal of a branch of a union goes to the local Trade Union Council.

(d) The local bureaus of the Trade Unions (in small towns) exist on 10 per cent of the budget appropriated by the branch of the industrial union to its divisions.

(e) The local unions which are not affiliated with any all-Russian union associations are to give 10 per cent to the local Trade Union Council, and 10 per cent to the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council transferred through the local Trade Union Council.

14. All trade organizations as well as members who have not met their financial obligations within three months without sufficient reasons, are automatically expelled from their union and from the All-Russian Trade Association, and can be reinstated only upon payment of the sum they owe plus the usual initiation fee.

15. The following initiation fees are to be fixed: (a) half a day’s wages for individual members entering the union, (b) the All-Russian Trade Union upon entering the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council pays 10 per cent of all the initiation fees collected from the total number of its members, (c) the same amount is paid by all the branches of the All-Russian TradeUnions upon their admission into the local Trade Union Council, (d) the local unions which have no all-Russian trade union pay upon entering the local council 10 per cent of the initiation fees collected, a half of which amount goes to the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council.

16. In the interests of the development of union activity with the present character of the Russian trade union movement, all special funds which cannot be touched, such as the strike fund, the reserve funds, etc., must be annulled as such and added to the rest of the union’s general treasury. The fund for the aid of unions outside of Soviet Russia is being created by the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council for which purpose special collections and contributions are to be used.

17. In the interests of the proper arrangement of the control system, the simplification and systematization of the union’s business, we must make it obligatory to have a single uniform system, as worked out by the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council.

18. The basic nucleus of the Industrial Union on the spot is the Factory Committee or the Collective Association of the office employees in the form of an Office Workers’ Union.

19. “Regulations of the Factory and Mill Committees” adopted by the Moscow Trade Union Council and approved by the All-Russian Central Council of the Industrial Unions coordinated with the resolutions of the present second All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions must be used as the basis for the determination of the part, the tasks and interrelations of the Factory and Mill Committees with the other organizations.

20. As a basis for the regulations governing the Employees’ Associations (Collective Associations), in addition to the general principles which form the basis of the“Factory and Mill Committee Regulations,” the following principles are to be laid down:

(a) Participation in the hiring and dismissal of employees, (b) obligatory participation in the Wage Scale Committees and endeavor to see to it that the wage scale regulations be carried out in practice, (c) the recognition of the collective association and its rights to exist only as an organ of the corresponding union, (d) participation in the organization and improvement of the technical apparatus of the given institution, (e) non-interference with the general direction of the activities of the state and social institutions.

The All-Russian Central Trade Union Council is authorized within the shortest time to work out and publish the regulations of the Factory and Mill Committees and the Employees’ Collective Associations.

21. To avoid mixing up of terms and ideas regarding the character of the union organs we must recognize the uniform terminology of the same, as carrying out the same functions, namely:

(a) All-Russian Central Trade Union Council retains its name, (b) the leading organs of the All-Russian Trade Unions are called “Central Committee of the Trade Unions,” their executive organs are to be called: “Presidium of the Central Committee of the Trade Unions,” (c) their government (province) organs—“The management of the government (province) or regional branch of the All-Russian Trade Union,” (d) the Local Government Trade Union Councils are called: “Such and such Government Trade Union Council,” and the district councils as well as the small town councils “Such and such District Trade Union Bureau,” “Such and such Trade Union Bureau.”

22. All-Russian Central Trade Union Council on the basis of the principles laid down, must work out in the shortest possible period the following sample by-laws which are to be obligatory for all trade organizationsaffiliated with any of the following All-Russian Trade Associations:

(a) The All-Russian Trade Union, (b) local union having no corresponding all-Russian association, (c) Local Trade Union Council, (d) Trade Union Bureau.

23. The All-Russian Central Trade Union Council must work out and enact through the People’s Commissariat of Labor and the Soviet of National Economy or the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the regulations governing the coalitions on the following basis: (a) the right to be called a union is given only to trade unions affiliated with the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council, registered and published by the latter, (b) all other organizations of an economic character not affiliated with the All-Russian Trade Association are to be called “societies.”

24. The All-Russian Central Trade Union Council and the government councils must periodically report on all unions registered with it.

25. In accordance with the general principles of organization, adopted at the second Trade Union Congress the corresponding amendments are to be introduced into the by-laws of the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council adopted by the first All-Russian Trade Union Congress.

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