Minimum Wage Decision. September 8, 1956
Original Source: Trud, 9 September 1956, p. 1. Also: Sobranie postanovlenii pravitel’stva SSSR (Moscow, 1957), No. 2, item 5.
For the purpose of further improvement of the material well-being of the workers, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the All-Union Central Council of the Trade Unions (AUCCTU) decide:
1. That until the measures for the general regulation of wages, of wage and salary earners are put into effect, the wages of the lower paid wage and salary earners be fixed from January 1, 1957, as follows:
(a) For wage and salary earners occupied directly in industrial enterprises, construction, and enterprises of transportation and communication–not less than 300-350 rubles per month.
(b) for other wage and salary earners, and also for junior service personnel and for workers guarding industrial enterprises, construction sites, and enterprises of transportation and communication in cities and in workers’ settlements–not less than 300 rubles and in rural areas, not less than 270 rubles per month.
An increase in wages will go to wage and salary earners whose wages or salaries are below the indicated minimums.
2. That premiums to workers and employees for fulfillment and overfulfillment of the norms of production, the payment for overtime work, for work on holidays and at night, the wage increment for long service, and also the wage increment for work in the regions of the Far North and areas placed on the same footing with them, in waterless and high mountain regions, will be paid in addition to the minimums indicated in section 1 of this Decree.
These payments are calculated according to the prevailing wage rates and salary schedules of enterprises and establishments.
3. To instruct the ministries and administrators of departments of the USSR and the councils of ministers of the union republics to establish within a month’s time the minimum wages for various branches within the limits indicated in subsection (a) of section 1 of this Decree in agreement with the USSR Council of Ministers’ State Committee on Questions of Labor and Wages and the AUCCTU.
4. To establish that in those cases where the wage and salary earners have worked less than a month, the amount of earnings is fixed in proportion to the time worked in the given month.
5. To pay the wages of students in enterprises, construction, organizations, and establishments in accordance with existing regulations.
To pay the wages of wage and salary earners in training for new jobs in accordance with section 1 of this Decree.
6. To recognize that it is essential to abolish from January 1, 1957) the collection of income tax and the tax on USSR bachelors, single people, and citizens with small families as well as wage and salary earners and students receiving wages or a stipend of less than 370 rubles a month.
To submit for approval to the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR a draft of a law providing for the raising of the amount of the minimum wage of wage and salary earners not subject to taxation.
7. To provide in the national economic plan and in the state budget for 1957 the funds needed to implement the measures providing for the increase in wages of low-paid wage and salary earners in the amount of 8 billion rubles, which will assure an increase in wages of about 33 percent on the average for the indicated group of wage and salary earners.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Principal Current Soviet Labor Legislation: a compilation of documents (Washington: U.S. Dept. of Labor, 1962), pp. 84-85.