Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/39

 question of wage policy from the class point of view. The State regulation of wages must not only raise badly paid categories of labour and make wages conform to the changing economic conditions of the country but in the first place, must connect the wage policy with the supply of the workers with articles of primary necessity, i.e., must strive towards the naturalisation of wages; in the second place, to fix wages according to results obtained, i.e., to introduce a strict standardisation of labour and, thirdly, to serve^ as a powerful instrument for the raising of labour productivity in the factories.

The trade unions did tremendous work in the sphere of fixing wages during the period leading up to the October Revolution; they studied and classified all categories of labour in all the branches of national industry and State administration. Every union studied the peculiar condition of its branch of trade, its degree of harmfulness, etc., created central and local wage standardisation departments, established grading of skill in labour, included in the general wages scheme not only physical workers but all the clerical elements and all categories of mental labour, worked out systems of payment for encouraging output and established definite relations of various groups and various grades of skill. But, in spite of the tremendous work which has been done, the Russian trade unions stand yet before the very beginning of the solution of these questions, for the solution of the problem of rating and standardising labour on a national scale means to organise social labour, i.e., to organise socialist production.

The immediate and most complicated problem is to do away with the money remuneration which the worker now needs for the purpose of buying articles of primary consumption for himself and his family. In view of the insufficiency of products the issue of articles in kind over and above the standard was carried out up till now as a form of encouragement for extra labour. This is why at all our congresses the question of wages is associated with the question of food. At the 3rd Congress the Material Supply Section worked simultaneously with the Wages Section and indicated a practical plan by which the unions could supply the workers with articles of primary necessity. We know very well that material supply to the workers is the best means of increasing the productivity of the factories and for that reason the trade unions, in complete agreement with the Soviet Government, give the most important place to the consideration of supplying the workers, as one of the most important factors in the economic revival of the country. It is self evident that the economic revival of the country is not an end in itself but the means to an end. That end is socialism which can only be constructed upon a firm economic foundation.

The youthfulness of the trade unions, apart from its negative sides, as we saw in the sphere, of regulating and standardising labour, has a number of positive sides clearly evident in our trade union movement, which is quite free from historical strata, conservatism, prejudices and old traditions