On the Transfer to an Eight-Hour Working Day, and Seven-Day Working Week, and on the Prohibition of Unauthorized Quitting of Enterprises and Institutions by Workers and Employees. June 26, 1940
Original Source: Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, No. 20
In accordance with the proposal of the All-Union Central Council of Labor Unions, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decrees:
1. The duration of the working day for workers and clerks in all government, co-operative and social enterprises and offices shall be increased:
- from 7 to 8 hours-in enterprises working with a 7-hour working day;
- from 6 to 7 hours-for work on a 6-hour working day, except for trades having dangerous conditions of work in accordance with a list approved by the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR;
- from 6 to 8 hours-for clerks in offices;
- from 6 to 8 hours -for persons over 16 years of age.
2. Work in all government, co-operative and social enterprises and offices shall be changed from a six-day week to a seven-day week, the seventh day of the week -Sunday -being a day of rest.
3. Voluntary withdrawal of a worker or clerk from government, co-operative and social enterprises and offices, as well as voluntary transfer from one enterprise or office to another, is forbidden.
Only the director of an enterprise or chief of an office can permit withdrawal from an enterprise or office or transfer from one enterprise or office to another.
4. The director of an enterprise and chief of an office shall have the right and is required to give a worker or clerk permission to leave an enterprise or office in the following situations:
(a) When a worker or clerk, in the opinion of a medical commission, cannot perform his former work because of an illness or condition as an invalid, and when the management is unable to provide him with other suitable work in the same enterprise or office, or when a pensioner, to whom an old-age pension is payable, wishes to leave work;
(b) When a worker or clerk must stop work in view of the fact that he has been admitted to a higher or middle special school.
Vacations for women workers and clerks during pregnancy and after giving birth shall be preserved in accordance with existing legislation.
5. A workman or clerk who voluntarily leaves a state, co-operative or public enterprise or office, shall be tried by a court, and in accordance with the sentence of the People’s Court shall be imprisoned for terms from two to four months.
For absenteeism without satisfactory reason, workers and clerks of state, co-operative and public enterprises and offices shall be tried by a court, and in accordance with the sentence of the People’s Court shall be penalized by correctional labor at their place of work for terms up to six months with withholding of their wages in amounts up to 25 per cent.
In view of the above, compulsory dismissal for absenteeism without satisfactory reasons shall be done away with.
People’s Courts shall be ordered to review all cases referred to in the present Article in not less than five days and shall put the sentence into effect immediately.
6. A director of an enterprise or chief of an office who does not prosecute persons guilty of voluntary departure from an enterprise or office or guilty of absenteeism without satisfactory reasons shall be held responsible before a court.
A director of an enterprise or chief of an office who hires persons who conceal the fact that they departed voluntarily from an enterprise or office shall be held responsible also before a court.
7. The present decree shall come into force on 27 June 1940.
Source: J. N. Hazard and M. L. Weisberg, eds., Cases and Readings on Soviet Law (New York: Columbia University, 1950), p. 146.