Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/50

 the job, while the latter are usually outside miscellaneous groupings. All over Europe the trade unions are tending in the direction of shop organizations and shop committees. In this country the highest developed union in this respect is the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. With it the local unions have become greatly atrophied in function, and the shop organizations and chairmen have taken on corresponding importance. In Russia the local unions have been abolished altogether.

Although the trade union movement works in close co-operation with the Soviets, the Supreme Economic Council, the Labor Department, etc., it is not an organic part of the Government. It preserves its independence, electing its own officers, mapping out its own policies, etc. Membership in the organizations is not compulsory; but they have such a strong grip on the economic and social life of the country that a worker would find it about impossible to work, eat, or find a place to live in, unless he belonged to a union. In Soviet offices all workers are discharged who are not members of their respective unions. Asa rule the dues are collected by a sort of check-off on the workers' pay, arranged between the unions and the management of the various industries and other enterprises.

The Russian trade unions perform a great variety of functions. They participate immediately in the Government through direct representation in the Soviets. They dominate the Department of Labor, and carry on all sorts of health, welfare, educational, and disciplinary work in the mines, mills and factories. They also have an important share in the management of industry. There are no policies of weight settled in Russia but what the trade unions have an active say in the matter.

With respect to the regulation of wages, hours, and working conditions they are supreme. Utterly unlike the labor organizations of other countries, those of Russia do not have to submit their demands to the employers. They submit them to themselves as the responsible controllers of this phase of industry. That is to say, they constantly survey the industrial situation and see to it that the workers enjoy the best conditions possible under the circumstances. What they decide upon is rubber-stamped by the Department of