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86 Int'l Lab. Rev. 31 (1962)
The Reduction of Employees' Working Hours in the Soviet Union

handle is hein.journals/intlr86 and id is 45 raw text is: The Reduction of Employees' Working Hours in the Soviet Union by L. SOLOVYOV Secretary, All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions During the years since the end of the Second World War, rising productivity has opened up new opportunities for improved working and living conditions. In several European countries and in Canada and the United States this has led to a general trend towards a reduction in hours of work. Over the past five years the whole state sector of the economy in the Soviet Union has progressively changed over to a shorter working day. In the following article the Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions discusses the many questions that had to be settled : in which sector of industry were the workers to be the first to make the change-over ; in which were they to be the last , to what extent would the reduction in total working hours have to be made good by an increase in the work force ; and what would be the end eflect on productivity and wages ? IN 1960 the change-over to the seven/six-hour day (41/36-hour week) for all wage and salary earners was completed throughout the Soviet Union. Since greater leisure is one of the main factors in raising the material and cultural level of the working population, reduction of hours of work is one of the principal socio-economic demands put forward by the trade unions of many countries, although ways and means of dealing with the problem inevitably vary from one social and economic system to another. From the experience recently gained in the transition to the shorter working day in the U.S.S.R. it is now possible to single out certain essential features and practical aspects of the Soviet ap- proach. The first point to be noted is that difficulties do not arise in reducing the working day in the Soviet Union as a result of differ- ences in methods of calculating and regulating hours of work. For all persons employed in state undertakings in industry, transport, commerce, agriculture and services, hours of work are governed by law. This involves strict regulation both of the working day and of the working week. Undertakings may not require workers to