Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/91



The work of protection of labour of clerks and shop assisants employed in the provinces is not yet properly established chiefly because of the lack of experienced workers, who up to low have been detained on the fronts of the civil war. Besides, his work can only be fully developed with the improvement of the economic situation of the country, because under the present conditions many measures concerning protection of labour cannot as yet be applied. Therefore, the activity of our union in this direction is limited mainly to the settlement of conflicts and also to the elaboration of various information and regulations connected with the question of labour protection. These latter are then put before the Central Council of Trade Unions and the People's Commissariat of Labour for confirmation, and among them are to be noted: (1) Reports presented to the Council of Peoples Commissaries and the Peoples Commissaries of Labour about reduction of staffs in the institutions and stores and the utilisation of available labour forces; (2) regulation about "inspection" for persons serving in small enterprises; (3) "regulation about labour discipline" of employees; (4) information on the question of the 6-hours working day for office and mental workers employed in institutions with 8 hours working day; (5) regulations about overtime work for persons above 20th tariff category; (6) instructions for application of the "Regulation on disciplinarian courts of honour."

It is further to be noted that the Union has got permission to give instruction in seven of the biggest centres (Moscow, Tula, Petrograd, Nishnij Novgorod, Saratoff and Vitebsk).

In the big centres the union also succeeded in withdrawing underaged children from work and placing them under the care of the Social Maintenance Board. The detailed examination of conditions of life of civil servants, which had been undertaken, could not be carried through because of the lack of experienced workers.

Notwithstanding the great possibilities offered, the activity of the union in this direction has not developed very much. This fact can be partly explained by the foundation of a large number of governmental and general proletarian educational institutions, and such an activity on the part of the unions would therefore, in most of the towns, introduce a kind of parallelism in the work of the above organisations.

In a considerable measure the educational work of the union is so little developed because of general causes, i.e., the impossibility of applying a sufficient number of experienced workers on this work, these latter being needed for military purposes and for the reconstruction of the socialist state. There are as yet no complete data of all the educational institutions, training by the union clubs, libraries, scientific and professional courses. In connection with the scarcity of