In the post-Stalin era, some of the most draconian measures were rescinded. Workers recovered the right to resign or change jobs, and new texts (1957) relaxed the strict provisions introduced during the war. A new labour code was set in train. A first draft was published for discussion in 1959, but it was only enacted in 1970 and came into force on 1 January 1971.
Analysis of these texts, and the commentaries they prompted, allows us to track the development of labour legislation up to 1986. The right to leave a job, by cancelling the contract with one’s employer, was set down as basic; management could not refuse it.[12] The ‘work contract’ became a serious procedure, with numerous guarantees for both parties and special clauses favouring workers. Managerial rights were clearly spelt out, including the power to impose sanctions for misdemeanours that are detailed in the code.
Cancellation of the contract by the employee (in the case of permanent contracts) was already included in article 16 of the ‘Foundations of Labour Law’ (replicated in the Russian Federation’s labour code and elsewhere). Employees had to give two months’ notice in writing; if they had valid grounds, the period of notice could be reduced to a month. A fixed-term contract (section 2 of article 10) could be revoked by a worker ahead of time in the event of illness, disability, infringement of the regulations governing individual or collective contracts, and for other valid reasons (as specified in the new versions of the relevant section drafted in 1980 and 1983).
The 1983 version also allowed workers to leave their jobs before the two months’ notice was up. In all cases, management was obliged to return the employee’s ‘work record book’ and pay any outstanding wages. These clauses were extremely detailed and one commentator even adds that the employee is not required to explain why he wishes to leave his job (this is in connection with a 1980 text which states that two weeks’ notice is sufficient – a mere three days in the case of seasonal workers). Only those who wished to quit their job while serving a non-custodial sentence had to obtain authorization, from the body supervising their sentence.
LABOUR DISPUTES
Labour disputes take up a lot of space in the labour codes, central and republican. A whole system was established, comprising an array of institutions and rules, to handle every possible kind of complaint by workers (including work norms). Thus, every large enterprise and office was required to have a ‘labour disputes committee’, with equal union-management representation. In smaller enterprises and offices, a ‘trade-union commission’ was the competent body, and if it could not settle a dispute it was referred to a local (town or district) tribunal. Disputes involving senior employees and technical staff were a matter for the management of the enterprise concerned. If the judgement went in favour of the plaintiff, management was required not only to compensate him but also to take measures to eliminate the causes of such disputes. Where management was deemed guilty of having violated workers’ rights, the case could end up in the courts.[13] In such instances, it was judged according to civil law. Prosecutors became involved and were authorized to accept complaints (in accordance with a list of very precise instructions); they even had the power to initiate proceedings if one of the parties broke the law. Employees involved in a dispute at a given level of an enterprise could simultaneously appeal to their senior management. They could go to the courts if they were not satisfied with the decision of their enterprise’s union commission. Employers had the same right. Finally, in the event of dismissal, employees could turn directly to the courts – just as employers could sue them for any damage they might have caused – without going through either the union commission or labour disputes committee.[14]
The code was highly elaborate and extremely detailed. It indicates that employees could act as legitimate parties in court actions over work-related issues, though it might be wondered whether the legal procedures were not excessively complicated for workers, whereas they were much more straightforward for employers. But the available statistics allow us to conclude that workers also learnt to use these procedures at different levels of conflict resolution, and turned in massive numbers to the courts, which were often more favourable to their cause than to the management’s.[15]
At all events, the work contract committed both parties. And if management had a lot of power, employees possessed a more effective weapon than resort to the courts: they could defend their interests by changing jobs. The phenomenon of labour turnover was studied by Soviet sociologists and statisticians in detail. Administrators – not workers – formed the privileged class, but given that labour shortages loomed on the horizon, the bureaucracy was forced to arrive at solutions and accommodations to keep workers in their posts. Larger enterprises disposed of more means to do this, offering housing, clubs, crèches and other amenities, or squeezing the expenses for them out of municipalities that often depended on the presence of such enterprises (particularly with the proliferation of factory towns – a long-forgotten chapter in the history of Western industrialization).
The broader social phenomenon just mentioned – labour turnover – affected all sectors. Underlying and surrounding the provisions of the labour code was a quite different reality, with constant changes of employer, and migration to areas with new jobs and back again when working, housing and climatic conditions proved too exacting. These labour-force trends presented economic planning with serious problems. The Stalinist solution – mobilization, coercion and police methods – was now excluded. The system’s rulers had to face what can legitimately be called a ‘labour market’ and the emergence of a tacit understanding between workers and the employer-state. It is encapsulated in the formula ‘You get what you pay for’ – or, in its surrealist version, ‘You pretend to pay us and we pretend to work’. But the term ‘labour market’ captures this reality better than the ‘surrealism’ beloved of some intellectuals. What was actually occurring was the emergence and operation of an open, direct process – and/or, in part, an informal, indirect process – of economic bargaining, which justifies the use of this term. Increasing labour shortages exercised implacable constraints, because employers were not only badly in need of manpower, but also – by virtue of a paradox that hovered over the employment situation – had an interest in retaining a reserve labour-force. This created an interesting anomaly: workers leaving jobs in difficult areas with a labour shortage, on the grounds that the state had not fulfilled its contractual obligations to guarantee decent living conditions, could return to regions with a labour surplus – and still find employment.
The developments we have just described – in policing and penal policy, the abolition of the Gulag and mass terror, legal codes and labour rights – also affected the functioning of the state, its bureaucracy, and the party. A reinvigoration of conservative reflexes, and corresponding institutional changes (including in the KGB), were the leadership’s response to what it perceived of the wider social world, particularly the world of work. Confronted with mounting social pressure for greater relaxation of the regime, some wanted to react, with the KGB’s help, by tightening the screws. But it was becoming ever more difficult to find the ‘screws’ for the job.
12
Material on this, labour disputes and other problems derives from V. I. Terebilov, ed.,
13
Decision of the plenum of the Supreme Court, 29 June 1979 on the tasks of courts, in the light of the Central Committee decision about improving ideological and political-educational work.
14
See Iu. A. Korshunov
15
The last version of the USSR’s labour code was published in 1970 (and that of the RSFSR in 1971). In my view, the best source on these codes and subsequent work-related legislation is V. I. Terebilov, ‘Verkhsuda SSSR’, in A. I. Startseva, M. E. Pankin, eds,