Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/79

 The central committee examines and confirms all systems of wages operating in metal works and keeps control over the carrying out of the standards valuation. The orders and instructions, within the limits of particular wage rates decrees issued by the central State authority, are obligatory upon the directorates of the trusts, works' managements and other economic organs in the metal industry. Thus, the metal workers' union bears full responsibility for the correct regulation of wages in the metal industry.

The fundamental principle guiding the union in this work has been explained in the resolution of the second conference quoted above. This principle was confirmed at the third conference, which supplemented it with a number of instructions of a practical character. The experience of the metal workers' union during this time also to a considerable degree confirmed the fundamental wages policy. The only guiding line of the union in the sphere of wages from the time of the October revolution has been to raise the productivity of labour, to develop a rational organisation of labour, and to arouse a healthy competition among the workers to raise the productive forces of the country. The metal workers' union was the first to put forward such an understanding of the wages question under the new conditions, and it succeeded in proving the correctness of its attitude to all the other labour unions in Russia. Connected with the question of wages are the questions of supplying the workers with working clothes and the protection of labour. The union works out the form of costume necessary for a given work, defines the standard on which special articles and requirements such as mittens, soap, leather jackets should be issued, and controls the manner in which this plan is carried out by the supply department.

In the work of protection of labour the union takes it upon itself to co-operate with the authorities (factory inspectors who are elected by the union) [in the working out and execution of measures connected with the improvements of technical and sanitary conditions of labour. In the factories the factory committees organise special committees for the protection of labour. Such committees are also attached to the regional branches of the union and the central committee. Unfortunately the extremely difficult material and productive conditions under which the republic has lived up to now has rendered it impossible for this great work to be properly developed.

Educational work also occupies one of the foremost places in the general work of the union. The union occupies itself particularly with the questions of professional and technical education of the young and the spreading of technical knowledge among adult workers. In this sphere the union works in the closest contact with the State educational organs.