Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Decree to Approve Regulations Respecting the Rights of Factory, Works and Local Trade Union Committees. July 15, 1958
Original Source: Sbornik zakonodatel’nykh aktov o trude (Moscow, Gosiurizdat, 1960), p. 38.
1. The factory, works, or local trade union committee elected on the basis of the rules of the appropriate trade union shall represent the wage and salary earners of the enterprise, institution or organization in all questions of work, living conditions and culture, and shall be invested with the rights of a body corporate.
2. The factory, works, or local committee shall participate in drawing up both the draft production and capital construction plans of the enterprise, institution, or organization and the draft plans for the construction and repair of housing, cultural services, and amenities.
3. The factory, works, or local committee shall conclude the collective agreement with the management of the enterprise on behalf of the wage and salary earners, arrange for the commitments under the agreement to be discharged, and maintain a systematic check to ensure that the measures envisaged in the agreement are taken within the stipulated time.
In cooperation with the management, it shall approve estimates for the expenditure of money from the works fund on improvements to the amenities and cultural facilities available to employees, on improvements to production and on individual bonuses and one-time grants.
4. The factory, works, or local committee shall have the right to hear reports from the responsible chiefs of the enterprise, institution or organization on the fulfillment of the production plan, the discharge of commitments under the collective agreement, and the progress of measures for the organization and improvement of working conditions, amenities, and cultural facilities for the wage and salary earners, and may also demand that shortcomings be removed.
5. The factory, works, or local committee shall submit proposals to the higher economic and governmental authorities on problems of improving the work of the enterprise, institution, or organization, and on problems of working conditions, amenities, and cultural facilities for the working population. The said authorities shall be required to examine these proposals and inform the factory, works, or local committee of the results of their examination.
6. In agreement with the factory, works or local committee, the management of the enterprise shall:
Draw up lists of the trades and jobs that have to be remunerated at prescribed time or piece rates or at the rates fixed for work done in high temperatures or in arduous or unhealthful conditions, in accordance with the model lists currently applicable to such Jobs in the different branches of production;
fix wage categories for the jobs done and assign the workers to these categories in accordance with the wage and skill manuals currently in force;
fix new output standards and revise those currently in force in the light of the technical and administrative steps that have been taken, substitute permanent output standards for temporary ones as soon as production has been finalized, and rectify standards that are obsolete;
make regulations for progressive piece-rate and bonus systems of remuneration in accordance with the model regulations currently in force and determine the range of employees concerned and the rates of the bonuses to be paid as incentives of other kinds;
determine the rates of the bonuses to be paid to managerial staff, engineers, technicians and salary earners on the basis of the model bonus regulations currently in force.
7. The factory, works, or local committee shall run production meetings in the enterprise or on the construction site, arrange workers’ assemblies and technical production conferences, and maintain a systematic check to ensure that action is taken on the decisions they adopt and on the proposals made by wage and salary earners.
In cooperation with the management, it shall organize socialist competition, assess its results, determine the winners, award prizes in the form of Red Banners and certificates of merit to the workers employed in the leading workshops and departments, spread a knowledge of the most progressive methods, decide on the certificates and cash prizes to be awarded, select the names of the outstanding production workers to be inscribed on the Board of Honor or the Roll of Honor, and widely publicize the results achieved through Socialist competition.
8, The factory, works, or local committee shall give every encouragement to inventions and efficiency schemes and maintain a check to ensure that, where inventions, technical improvements and suggested efficiency schemes have been approved, they are introduced without delay. In cooperation with the management of the enterprise it shall examine complaints by wage and salary earners regarding the rejection of efficiency schemes they had suggested and shall also examine complaints regarding the calculation and rapidity of payment of compensation for efficiency schemes and technical improvements that have been adopted.
9. The factory, works, or local committee shall maintain a check to ensure that the management of the enterprise, organization or institution gives effect to labor legislation and to the rules and regulations governing industrial safety and health. A representative of the trade union committee shall take part in the work of the commission responsible for the inauguration of new workshops and production sections.
The working of overtime in the exceptional cases provided for in the legislation currently in force shall not be permitted without the authorization of the factory, works, or local committee.
The admission to employment of persons between the ages of 15 and 16 years shall be decided by the management, in agreement with the trade union committee.
The management of the enterprise, institution or organization, in agreement with the factory, works or local committee, shall draw up lists of the jobs and trades entitling wage and salary earners to receive milk (on account of the unhealthful working conditions) and of those entitling them to receive soap, and shall also prepare the annual leave rosters.
10. Wage and salary earners shall not be dismissed from the enterprise, institution, or organization by order of the management without the consent of the factory, works, or local committee.
The factory, works, or local committee shall examine complaints
by wage and salary earners against decisions taken by the labor disputes board set up in the enterprise, institution or organization. In so doing it shall have power to uphold the board’s decision or overrule it and take a decision on the merits of the labor dispute.
11. The factory, works, or local committee shall administer the state social insurance scheme for the wage and salary earners in the enterprise, institution, or organization, award social insurance benefits, participate through its representatives in the award by the social security authorities of pensions to wage and salary earners, send wage and salary earners to rest homes and for treatment in sanatoria and spas and inspect the way in which medical services are organized for wage and salary earners and the members of their families.
The factory, works, or local committee shall check to ensure that social insurance contributions are paid by the enterprise, institution or organization within the stipulated time and shall, where necessary, exact payment of such contributions in accordance with the established procedure.
Where the factory, works, or local committee establishes that an industrial injury or occupational disease suffered or contracted by a wage or salary earner is due to a violation by the management of the rules laid down for the protection of labor and the maintenance of industrial safety, it shall take a decision, which shall be binding on the management, requiring the enterprise, institution, or organization to reimburse any sums paid out under the state social insurance budget by way of temporary disability benefits in connection with the injury or disease.
12. The factory, works, or local committee shall check to ensure that plans for the construction of housing, cultural services, and amenities are carried out and shall supervise the use made of the available accommodation and public utility enterprises. A representative of the trade union committee shall participate as a full member in the work of the commission responsible for handing over the housing accommodation reserved for the wage and salary earners of the enterprise, institution or organization and for inaugurating buildings and plant constructed to meet their cultural and daily needs.
The housing accommodation available to the enterprise, institution or organization shall be distributed by joint decision of the management and the factory, works, or local committee.
13. The factory, works, or local committee shall exercise public supervision over the work of the state and cooperative trading and public catering establishments serving the wage and salary earners of the enterprise, institution, or organization.
Decisions as to increases in the price of meals and food products and the hours of business of canteens, buffets, shops, and kiosks shall be taken in consultation with the factory, works, or local committee.
14. Where necessary, the factory, works, or local committee shall approach the competent organizations with a view to the removal or punishment of managerial staff who fail to carry out obligations under the collective agreement, display a bureaucratic attitude, permit red tape or infringe the labor laws. The appointment of workers to managerial positions in the enterprise, institution or organization shall be effected by the management, due account being taken of the views expressed by the factory, works, or local committee.
15. The enterprise, institution, or organization shall be required to provide the factory, works, or local committee, free of charge, with the necessary premises and with all the equipment, heating, lighting, cleaning, and caretaker services requisite to the committee’s work and to the conduct of meetings of the wage and salary earners. The management shall provide the factory, works, or local committee with transport and communication facilities free of charge.
16. The buildings, premises, installations, gardens, and parks intended for cultural, educational, health-building, athletic, and sports activities among the wage and salary earners of the enterprise, institution, or organization and the members of their families shall, like the Young Pioneer camp, be included in the budget of the enterprise, institution, or organization and shall be placed at the disposal of the factory, works, or local committee free of charge. Where buildings, premises, and installations intended for such purposes are rented by the enterprise, institution, or organization, they shall likewise be placed at the disposal of the trade union committee free of charge.
The maintenance, repair, heating, lighting, cleaning, caretaker services and equipment both of the buildings, premises, and installations mentioned in this section and of the Young Pioneer camp shall be chargeable to the enterprise, institution or organization.
The factory, works, or local committee shall ensure that proper use is made of the buildings, premises, installations, gardens, parks and Young Pioneer camps placed at its disposal, keep them in due order and organize cultural, educational, health-building, athletic, and sports activities among the wage and salary earners and the members of their families.
17. Wage and salary earners who are released from their work in the enterprise, institution, or organization as a result of their election to the factory, works, or local committee shall, on the expiration of their term of office, be reinstated in their former job, or in some other job carrying at least an equal rate of pay in the same enterprise, institution, or organization.
Members of the factory, works, or local committee who are not released from their main job shall not be dismissed from the enterprise, institution, or organization or transferred to other work, nor shall they be subject to disciplinary measures by the management without the consent of the trade union committee.
These regulations shall also apply to the workshop committees of the enterprise, in so far as such committees have jurisdiction.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Principal Current Soviet Labor Legislation: a compilation of documents (Washington: U.S. Dept. of Labor, 1962), p. 107.