The role and power of
unions in the USSR

There are no strikes in the
USSR. To Canadians, used to
strikes occurring in their country
almost every day (Canada ranks
among the world’s top countries
in the number of strikes) this
poses more questions than they
can find answers.

In contrast to Western allega-
tions, strikes in the USSR are not
banned. But they just do not take
place although situations like
those which would inevitably lead
to strike action in Canada arise
from time to time. For example,
Soviet subway and railroad
workets raised the question of
having a pay increase. In Toronto
several years ago city transport
workers put forward a similar
demand and, on seeing it rejected
by the city, went on strike.

Why did the Soviet workers not
do so? Because the incident was
resolved in a different way. The
workers applied to the Central
Committee of the Railwaymen’s
Union which, like all other trade
unions in this country, has the
right to initiate legislation (which,
incidentally, is one of the points
distinguishing them from Western
trade unions). The union lost no
time in availing itself of this right
and introduced a bill for the
government to pass a decision on
a 20 per cent pay increase for the
railroad workers. The demands of
the workers and their union were
found justified, and they did get
their pay raise.

CONTROL ON COST-OF-LIVING

It must be said that such situa-
tions seldom happen. The plan-
ned socialist economic system,
while envisaging the continued
growth of production and qualita-
tive improvement of the eco-
nomy, provides for raising the

Riches in Yakutia’s wilds |

working people’s standard of liv-
ing and improving their housing
and overall living conditions. This
results in a constant rise of the
incomes of the country’s entire
population, which double once in
every 15 years. An important
thing to note is that incomes-go up
while the prices of staple food-
stuffs and consumer goods re-
main stable and rents ‘‘frozen’’ at
the rate of 4-5 per cent of a family
budget since the late twenties. In
the West in general and in Cana-
da, in particular, it is exactly the
rising prices and cost of living that
often cause strikes.

In Western countries workers

often come out against the arbit-’

rary practices of management
firing them whenever it chooses.
There are cases of dismissal in the
Soviet Union as well, yet, these
do not lead to strikes either. In

Western countries a strike is al-

most the only means of fighting
dismissals, but, in the USSR the
worker has the law to protect him.
Management in this country must
obtain the consent of a factory
trade union committee for every
dismissal of a worker or a clerk.
Without the union’s written con-
sent, no dismissal is regarded as
legal and a court of law will unfail-
ingly order the reinstatement of a
fired man, without even going into
the details of the matter, and
management will have to cover
the cost of the man’s enforced idle
time. But even in case of a dismis-
sal with a union’s consent, the
worker has the right of appeal to a
court of law which will return the
final verdict.
OTHER SOLUTIONS

In a situation where every
Soviet worker knows that he has
the country’s labor legislation on

his side as well as the support of
the trade unions, which, inciden-
tally, unite 113 million workers,
he will never think of resorting to
strike action to solve his prob-
lems. A short time ago, for in-
stance, the Allakh-Yun mine
management in Yakutia declared
days-off to be working days, in
violation of the law — to finish its
output plan earlier. This engen-
dered a conflict. But the mine-
workers had a more effective
means, than going on strike, of
having the wrong righted. They
reported this breach of the labor
code to the Trud trade union
newspaper which called on the
Yakutian trade union council to
inquire into the incident and re-
port on the measures taken.
Those responsible, the director
and: the chief engineer of the
mine, were fined by a trade union
inspection and warned that if they
allowed such a breach of law to
happen again, they would face a
prospect of being removed from
their posts.

Trade unions do have some-
times to resort to this extreme
procedure of calling for a manager
to be removed, as was the case,
for example, in Cherepovets .(ab-
out three hundred miles north of
Moscow) where a river port chief
was dismissed at the demand of a
union for recurrent violations of
safety rules and disregard for the
decisions of a-.trade union
organization.

It would be wrong, however, to
imagine that trade unions in the
USSR are in a kind of opposition
to management which is a feature
of the trade union movement in
the West. The above cases of di-
vergence between trade unions

and management are rather ex-
ceptions to the rule, whereas
what is typical of their day-to-day
activites is close business-like
cooperation, with both sides
equally concemed in resolving
their problems.

IMPROVED LABOR PROTECTION

For example, the Soviet gov-
ernment, at the suggestion of
trade unions, adopted a decision

at the start of this year for a

further improvement of labor pro-
tection and safety in the national
economy. This initiative of the
trade unions got a‘good material
backing from the state. It has
budgeted close to 15,000million
roubles for these purposes under
the current five year plan and are
to use them as they think fit.
Thus, by a joint effort, the
government and the trade unions
obliviate one more cause which
often leads to strike action in the
West.

The often repeated claim in the
West is that strike struggles. of
workers against employers are a

sign of democracy and freedom:
This argument can hardly be a&
cepted: what kind of democrat)
is that under which workers hav
to declare a strike to call attentio!
to their lot. Nor is it any secté!
that strikes are often exploited bY
Western governing quarters !
order to have workers bear th
responsibility for the defects 0
the capitalist system. For exai
ple, the building workers wh?
erected Olympic installations #
Montreal were. blamed, whe!
they went on strike, for highe!
prices and cost of living.

Absence of strikes in the USSR
is one of the specific features
socialism pointing to the unity al
this society, its ability to resol¥’_
major social problems and
genuine democratism. The wor’
ing class in the Soviet Union ha
no need of strike action to uphold
its rights. Its interests are repI®
sented in this country’s supremé
legislative body — the USS
Supreme Soviet with workers atl
collective farmers making U?
more than half of its: membel®:

On a recent visit to the
USSR, Canadian Tribune
editor James Leech travelled
to the new railway, steel, coal
and townsite complex being
developed in the Yakut Auto-
nomous Republic, north-east
of Lake Baikal. This is his first
report on the people, the
plans and the problems of
Siberia’s newest industrial
development.

By JAMES LEECH

YAKUTSK — There’s full

employment. There are jobs chasing

workers. That’s the story throughout
the Soviet Union, and it’s true in the
Yakut Autonomous Republic. But
there is one project where there are
more applicants than can be handled
— the vast new industrial complex in
southern Yakutia.

When I visited the immense con-
struction site I found workers and
their families from all parts of the
country. From this capital city our
propeller-driven TU-14 stopped once
at snow-covered Aldan — centre of
gold mining — then carried us on to
Chulman, the airport presently serv-
ing the new town of Nerungri — pivot
of the huge development. Nerungri is

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 11, 1977—Page 8

rising splendidly in wood, but its fu-
ture is in prefab concrete buildings the
headquarters town of a steel pro-

- duction centre to rival other Soviet
' giants.

The whole of the frontier ‘‘dream’’
is made, practicable by the con-
struction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline
(BAM), now under construction, and
its north-south link, the little BAM the
steel road’s first thrust into Yakutia
and to its resource riches — iron ore
and coking coal, within 120 kilometers
of one another.

We bounced over glazed construc-
tion roads the 50 km from Chulman
airport to Nerungri’s town hall, ac-
companied by deputy mayor Semyon
Nikolayev, a Yakut and former Aldan
school teacher.

Nerungri’s mayor, Mikhail Pan-
teleimonovich, received me straight
from the road and outlined the profu-
sion of tasks of building a town and its
services alongside the development of
a metallurgial industry, building a
railway, roads and a building mate-
rials industry.

On top of this there must be solu-
tions to every social need of the work-
ers from a multitude of backgrounds.

In Yakutsk before my flight south,
the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of
the Yakut Republic, Alexandra
Ovtchinnikova, an able and friendly
Yakut woman, told me that nowadays

nearly all nationalities of the USSR
are working in Yakutia.

“Without their help,’’ she said,
“‘without this internationalism the
Yakut Republic would not be able to.
achieve this progress.”

As if in response, the director of the
entire project in southern Yakutia,
Yevgeny Varsharsky, from the Kuz-
bas region, cited ‘‘the most satisfying
aspect of coming to work here,”’ the
fact that ‘‘the Yakut people met us
and welcomed us. Whatever the
Yakut Republic -had it shared with
is:

Soviet youth, Yakut and others,
who are throwing their efforts into the
completion of this mighty develop-
ment, reflected this spirit of unity in
discussions I had with them. Their

convictions came through whether in

quiet talks, a visit to their living quar-
ters or up on the roadbed where pow-
erful track-laying equipment thrust
out new sections of mounted rails.
There, in the biting cold, the crews
fought to close the five-kilometer gap’
to the village of Berkakit by the Oc-
tober 29 anniversary of the young
communist organization — Kom-
somol. (The mission was. ac-
complished amid a festive celebration
— Ed.)

Time and again as I travelled the -

wintry terrain I heard from both
young and older generations expres-

sions of the unity of the inner life of the
individual and the collective life of
work and community. The fully
employed Soviet youth expressed un-
shakable confidence in its future.
Travelling back to the capital, this
time by smooth Yak-40 jet, I reflected
that the exciting frontier industrial

_ development in the south, and

Yakutia itself are marvels of human
ingenuity.
The Yakut capital is old — the old-

. est town in Siberia — founded in 1632.

The republic is unbelievably huge —
one third the size of:Canada! From
this city built on piles in the perma-
frost, the Yakut government directs
developments echoing to the far cor-
ners of the USSR, and whose signi-
ficance will not be missed by analyists
in capitalist countries.

The village of Zolotinka put on the
finest of early winter days for my visit
— bright sun on white snow. Butit’sa
village of distinction in other ways, for
Zolotinka station received the. first
train into the Yakut Republic, opening
to the Soviet Union an unfathomed
storehouse of riches.

But primary among the riches must
be the people of this new frontier, the
kind of life they consider valid, their
opportunities, their goals and _ per-
sonal outlook. About these factors
there is much more to say.