Khrushchev Restores Freedom of Employment

Supreme Soviet of the USSR, On the Annulment of Criminal Responsibility of Workers and Employees for Unauthorized Departure from Enterprises and Institutions and for Absence Without Valid Reasons. April 25, 1956

 

Original Source: D. S. Karev (ed.), Sbornik zakonodatel’nykh aktov o trude (Moscow, 1956), p. 74.

As a result of the growth in the consciousness of the toilers and the rise in their material well-being and cultural level, there has been an improvement of discipline at enterprises and institutions.

In these circumstances the existing criminal responsibility of workers and employees for unauthorized departure from enterprises and institutions and for repeated or long-term absence without valid reason is not necessary, and can be replaced by measures of a disciplinary and social character.

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decrees:

1. To annul the criminal responsibility of workers and employees for unauthorized departure from enterprises and institutions and for repeated or extended absence without valid reason.2. To release from their sentences persons found guilty of unauthorized departure from enterprises and institutions and of absence without valid reason.

3. To halt proceedings in cases of unauthorized departure from enterprises and institutions and cases of absenteeism which have not been examined by courts up to the publication of this Edict.

4. To annul the convictions of citizens who have been sentenced before or who have served terms in prison for unauthorized departure from enterprises and institutions and for absenteeism, and also of those released from their sentences on the basis of this Edict.

5. Workers and employees who are leaving their jobs at their own wish are obliged to inform the management of the enterprise or institution of this two weeks beforehand.

6. Workers and employees who leave their work at their own wish lose their uninterrupted service rating and have the right to temporary disability benefits only after they have worked at their new job for not less than six months.

This rule does not apply to:

(a) Workers and employees who are released as a result of illness, chronic ill-health, or to take up an old-age pension;(b) Persons who have ceased work as a result of admission to a higher or middle special educational institution, or to a research degree course;

(c) Persons who leave as a result of their husband or wife being transferred to another area;

(d) Pregnant women and mothers who have children less than a year old, if they transfer to work at their place of residence;

(e) Persons who leave for other valid reasons covered by decrees of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

7. The director of an enterprise or the head of an institution applies one of the following measures in cases of absence of a worker or employee without valid reason:

(a) A disciplinary fine in accordance with the internal labor organization rules, or in accordance with the statutes of enterprises and institutions where special disciplinary regulations are in force;(b) Deprivation of the right to receive percentage allowances on retirement for a period of up to three months, or a reduction of the one-time payment on retirement of up to 25 per cent;

(c) Dismissal from work with a note in the labor book of the person concerned to the effect that he was ‘dismissed for absence without valid reason’.

The dismissed person loses his uninterrupted service rating and obtains the right to temporary disability benefits only after he has worked not less than six months at his new job.

Instead of applying the above measures the director of an enterprise or the head of an institution may at his discretion pass the material on absence without valid reason for examination by a comradely court.

8. The following measures have been annulled:

(a) The Edict of 26 June 1940, ‘On the transfer to an eight-hour working day and a seven-day working week, and on the prohibition of unauthorized quitting of enterprises and institutions by workers and employees’, excepting Articles 1 and 2.(b) The Edict of 17 July 1940, ‘On the prohibition of unauthorized quitting by tractor and combine-harvester drivers, working in the MTS’.

(c) The Edict of 19 October 1940, ‘On the manner of obligatory transfer of engineers, technicians, craftsmen, employees and qualified workers from some enterprises and institutions to others’.

(d) The Edict Of 14 July 1951, ‘On replacing criminal responsibility of workers and employees for absenteeism, except in cases of repeated or long-term absenteeism, by measures of a disciplinary and social character’.

(e) The Edict of 13 November 1952, ‘On introducing changes and additions into the Edict of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Of 17 July 1940 “On the prohibition of unauthorized quitting by tractor and combine-harvester drivers working in the MTS” and that of 19 October 1940, “On the manner of obligatory transfer of engineers, technicians, craftsmen, employees and qualified workers from some enterprises and institutions to others”‘.

Source: Yu. P. Mironenko, On the Annulment of Criminal Responsibility of Workers and Employees (Munich: Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of the USSR, 1956), Vol. III, no. 9 (September 1956), pp. 20-23.

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