People's Commissariat of Labor, Decision on the Reorganization of the Labor Market. November 5, 1930

Original Source: Izvestiia, 5 November 1930.

HAVING heard the report of Comrade Vasilieva, a member of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat of Labor, on the reorganization of labor exchanges, the Commissariat of Labor has recognized as essential the reorganization of the labor exchanges as directorates of labor cadres charged with the organization and control of the preparation of labor and with supplying it to the national economic system according to plan.

Directorates of labor cadres will be organized in all industrial areas. In non-industrial areas and rural districts recruiting offices will be established. The directorates must carry out their work in close contact with the economic trade-union organizations and the great mass of the working public.

The hiring of labor must be effected exclusively through the directorates of labor cadres. Only by their permission may the economic organizations themselves effect the engagement and recruiting of labor.

The most important branches of national economy must have the first call on labor, in particular the coal industry, unskilled labor in the metal industry, transport and capital construction in the heavy industries (giant factories).

The directorates of labor cadres must select and register as workers both adults and young persons from among the toilers of the urban and rural population. The selection of labor must be effected according to class origin, qualification and physical conditions.

The directorates of labor cadres are entrusted with the control over the regular supply of labor to enterprises. Any excess of labor must be transferred to other important, branches of industry in which there is a shortage of labor of cadres.

The number of persons having the right to register at the directorates of labor cadres and to be assigned to work is considerably extended.

The Commissar has recognized that it is essential to register and assign to work the under-mentioned categories of persons seeking work (provided they are not deprived of electoral rights); members of trade unions, members of workers', employees' and students' families who have slack periods in their work; the children of workers, employees and farm laborers, even if they have no specialized training and have not worked for hire; members of workers' and employees' families serving in the Red Army; and also persons discharged from the Red Army, provided that they have applied to the directorates of labor cadres not later than one year from the day on which they were taken on the register of the organs of the local military command.

The following are also subject to registration: members of industrial co-operatives who have worked in such enterprises for not less than three years; men invalided out of labor or the army; farm laborers; poor peasants; members of co-operative farms; and all single women who have worked for not less than six months in workshops organized by organizations for the protection of mothers and children.

Persons seeking work and registered at the directorates of labor cadres do not enjoy any unemployment benefits.

All persons registered at the directorates of labor cadres must be sent to work not later than three days after the day of registration. Soldiers and persons discharged from the Red Army are sent to work on the day of registration.

To industrial enterprises there will be sent, besides the basic cadres of workers, members of workers' families, members of industrial co-operatives, farm laborers and poor peasants of the villages. Members of "shock" workers' families enjoy a preferential right to be sent to and engaged on work in industrial and transport enterprises in which members of their family are working.

Persons who have been combed out of establishments and enterprises under the first category are registered at the directorates and told off for unskilled labor only.

Persons combed out under the second and third categories are registered on a general basis, but they cannot be sent to work in those districts, departments, establishments and enterprises in which they have been forbidden to work by the combing-out commission.

Deserters and "fliers" are placed by the directorate of labor cadres in a special register and for six months are riot sent to work in industrial enterprises, but are employed on physical gang labor.

Persons who refuse work offered for which they are particularly qualified are placed on a special list with deserters and "fliers" and are sent to physical gang labor. If they refuse the latter they are struck off the register altogether.

Illness vouched for by medical certificates, and lack of living accommodation on transfer to work in another place, are considered valid reasons for refusing work. Women with husbands and children cannot be sent to work in another place without their own consent.

Source: Selection of Documents Relative to the Labour Legislation in Force in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1931), pp. 172-174.