Page:The Labor Laws of Soviet Russia (1920).pdf/9

 Inasmuch as the Soviet Government undertakes to provide every unemployed with a job and to pay him an unemployment benefit if no employment can be found for him, the government requires every worker to accept employment at his own trade, provided the wages and terms of employment conform to union standards (Section 24). In case, however, no employment can be found for the worker at his own trade and work of a lower grade is offered to him, he is paid out of the unemployment fund the difference between the regular scale of his trade and the wages received by him at his temporary employment.

We strongly suspect that many an American union man might be inclined to submit to this form of "tyranny."

2. The workers are classified by the authorities and the wage scale is provided by the authorities for every class of work, objects Mr. Redfield. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that practically all "factories" (as defined by the United States Census Bureau) have been nationalized in Soviet Russia. In practice, then, this rule means that the government of Soviet Russia classifies its civil servants and fixes their compensation. Is the former Secretary of Commerce unaware of the fact that the employees of the Government Printing Office and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, at Washington, D. C., are classified by Congress, and that their salaries and wages are likewise fixed by Congress? Has he forgotten the existence of the War Labor Board, whose duty it was to adjust wages in private factories which were working on government contracts? Were not the wage earners in these