People's Commissariat of Labor (USSR), End of Unemployment Benefits. October 9, 1930

Original Source: Izvestiia, 11 November 1930.

The People's Commissariat of Labor decrees as follows:

1. In view of the great shortage of labor in all branches of State industry, insurance bureau are requested to discontinue payment of unemployment benefit. No provision for the payment of unemployment benefits has been made in the Budget of Social Insurance for the supplementary quarter October- December 1930.

2. Labor exchanges are instructed to take all necessary measures in order that the unemployed be immediately sent to work, and of these the first to be sent are persons entitled to draw unemployment benefit.

3. Unemployed persons are to be drafted not only to work in their own trades, but also to other work, necessitating special qualifications.

At the same time labor exchanges, according to local conditions (the needs of any particular trade) should extend their activities in the training and retraining of unemployed.

4. No excuse for refusal of work, with the exception of illness, supported by a medical certificate, should be considered. Refusal of work carries with it removal from the registers of the labor exchanges.

Medical certificates should be issued to the unemployed by medical boards and medical control boards. Unemployed in possession of medical certificates will receive benefits under the heading of unemployment benefit, but this benefit will come out of the sums allocated for temporary incapacity.

5. The personal responsibility for the due and correct execution of the present decree is placed upon the heads of the labor exchanges (and in districts where these are not in existence on the directors of labor organizations) and upon the chairmen of insurance bureau.

6. Article 1 of the present decree is to be put into force by telegraph.

Source: Selection of Documents Relative to the Labour Legislation in Force in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1931), p. 165.