Workday

For the first time, accounting and evaluation of work in workdays began to be applied on individual collective farms in 1930 . The legal basis was the "Model Charter of the Agricultural Artel", approved by the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of April 13, 1930 and the resolution of the Collective Farm Center of the USSR of June 7, 1930, introducing work days as a single measure of collective farmers labor and income distribution.

The introduction of the workday was supposed to eliminate the equalization in the distribution of income. In fact, such a change did not occur in most collective farms. Thus, improper rationing and incorrect pricing of individual work on a number of collective farms led collective farmers directly involved in production (field cultivation, livestock breeding) to produce significantly less workdays than collective farmers engaged in administrative, managerial, economic and auxiliary work. In addition, there was a practice of arbitrary accrual of workdays without taking into account the quality of work performance, as well as the distribution of income “by feeders”, which to some extent contributed to the crisis of collective farm production in 1931-1932. In 1933, in order to increase the piecework yield of field workers, a review of the rates was carried out, and instead of the previously existing 5 groups, 7 groups of rates were introduced. The work of the highest (7th) group was evaluated at 2 workdays. And the People's Commissariat of the USSR proposed collective farms

to forbid the team leaders to accept and calculate workdays for work carried out inadequately. In the case of insufficiently satisfactory work, the collective farm board makes a discount from the total number of workdays worked out by the team, including the team leader, up to 10%.

In conditions of agricultural production, the use of workdays was convenient because it allowed to accrue wages without taking into account the final result, which in this industry can be obtained much later than the work itself was carried out. The workday did not take into account the final results, the number of crew members or workdays accrued to the members did not depend on the crop or profitability of livestock production, however, after receiving the final product and allocating that part of it that should go to pay for labor, distribution of the natural product and / or received from its sale of money in proportion to accrued workdays. Considering that on collective farms a significant part of the salary at that time was paid out by products (in particular, grain), this was quite practical, since it excluded internal cash settlements.

In 1935, the second section was introduced into Article 15 of the "Model Statute of the Agricultural Artel", which recommended that collective farms distribute income according to the results of labor.

Based on these changes, on each collective farm for all agricultural work, the board developed and the general meeting of collective farmers approved the standards for the development and pricing of each work in workdays, taking into account the required qualifications of the worker, the complexity, difficulty and importance of work for the collective farm. At least once a week, the number of workdays worked out is recorded in the collective farmer's work book. Advance payments and the final distribution of income between collective farmers should be made solely by the number of workdays worked out.

In 1936, the average output per collective farm yard was 393 workdays, in 1939 the output increased to 488 workdays. At the same time, payment for workdays began to depend on productivity.

There was a zonal trend in the amount of payments for workdays and in the structure of such payments. On collective farms engaged in industrial crops ( cotton growing ), payments were higher and more in cash. For example, in 1935, in Tajikistan, on the Bolshevik collective farm, each family received an average of 10 thousand rubles of income, and the family of Salikhan Dadaev, who worked 1,593 workdays, received 22,303 rubles. income (14 rubles per workday). On the collective farms of food production (in Ukraine , in the middle zone of the RSFSR ), payments were significantly lower and mainly in kind. Cash payments did not exceed 3 rubles per workday ^[1]

A number of decisions of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938-39 were aimed at regulating the distribution of cash income on collective farms. Compared with the first five-year period , cash income accrued over workdays increased by an average of 4.5 times.

In May 1939, “to strengthen labor discipline,” an obligatory minimum of workdays was established for able-bodied collective farmers — 100, 80, and 60 workdays per year (depending on the territories and regions). Those who did not work out (without significant circumstances) a minimum of workdays during the year should have been excluded from the collective farm, deprived of personal plots and the benefits established for collective farmers.

At the beginning of 1941, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recognized that it was necessary, in order to increase labor productivity, to establish additional payment for collective farmers for increasing crop yields and livestock productivity.

With the outbreak of World War II , the country's agriculture was also transferred to martial law. The need for maximum grain removal from collective farms was expressed in minimizing or halting food payments for workdays, especially in 1941-1942. At the same time, the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 13, 1942 increased the obligatory annual minimum to 100, 120 and 150 workdays during the war (for various territories and regions). Minimum workdays were established for each period of agricultural work, and not just the annual amount. For example, on collective farms of the first group with a minimum of 150 workdays per year, at least 30 workdays had to be worked out until May 15, 45 from May 15 to September 1, 45 from September 1 to November 1, and the remaining 30 after November 1. The decree provided that adolescents, family members of collective farmers, aged 12 to 16 years, should have worked at least 50 workdays per year, but without a breakdown by periods.

In the same decree, criminal liability was stipulated for those guilty of failure to work out the mandatory minimum workdays by periods, in the form of punishment by corrective labor on the collective farm for up to 6 months with deduction from payment of up to 25 percent of workdays in favor of the collective farm. This decision contributed to the interest of the collective farm in the implementation of such punishments. Responsibility came from 16 years old until the retirement age. Adolescents from 12 to 16 years old, although they were supposed to work at least 50 workdays per year, were not held criminally liable for not fulfilling such a minimum.

The average grain output to collective farmers by workdays in the USSR was

• in 1940 - 1.6 kg
• in 1943 - 0.7 kg
• in 1944 - 0.8 kg.

During the first years of the restoration of the national economy, including in connection with the drought and the general decline in productivity, as well as the increased state demand for grain, the output of grain and legumes for workdays on collective farms decreased even more, which led to starvation in the winter of 1946/47 .

In a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On measures to improve organization, increase productivity and streamline wages on collective farms” of April 19, 1948, collective farms were recommended to distribute income based on the crop harvested by the brigade, and in brigades — by links so that collective farmers would brigade and links that received higher yields would receive higher pay, respectively.

The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of March 6, 1956 expanded the independence of the collective farms in the methods of accrual and payment. With the introduction of the new "Charter of the Agricultural Cartel" in 1956, collective farms gained the right to independently establish a minimum of workdays. Many collective farms adopted forms of remuneration, which significantly differed from those recommended by a resolution of April 19, 1948. In 1959, a guaranteed minimum with a cash payment began to be introduced, with part of the payment being issued as a monthly advance, and at the end of the year the final payment was made.

By a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of May 18, 1966, "On increasing the material interest of collective farmers in the development of social production," instead of workdays, guaranteed pay for collective farmers was introduced, including the right to additional payment and bonus. ^[2]

Under N. S. Khrushchev , the expression that "Workday cannot be recognized as the correct, objective measure of labor costs for the production of products" became famous. Since the mid-eighties, in a number of publications and interviews, the workday was called exclusively a “stick” in the clerical book and was identified with unpaid labor on collective farms.

In China, in order to fulfill the tasks of the Great Leap Forward , on the basis of the experience of collectivization in the USSR, since 1958, “people's communes” began to be created — large self-sufficient groups living and working together, eating in a common dining room. Instead of money, the tool of exchange in these groups was workdays.

In the unrecognized Lugansk People's Republic , due to the lack of finances, accounting for completed public works in workdays is introduced. Subsequently, it is planned to exchange workdays for food packages ^[3] .

• Man hour
• Lets
• Time bank
• Sochi watches
• Private currency
• Time Based Economy
• Cincinnati time store

• Agricultural Encyclopedia 1 ed. 1932-1935 M. OGIZ RSFSR
• Handbook of the chairman of the collective farm, OGIZ, State publishing house of collective and state farm literature, Moscow, Selkhozgiz, 1941
• Some questions of remuneration on collective farms / N. T. Osipov. Jurisprudence. - 1959. - No. 1. - S. 55—67
• State bread reserve in the USSR and social policy V.P. Popov Sociological studies. 1998. No. 5. P. 24—33
• Budget surveys of collective farmers of the Sverdlovsk region 1935-1953 from the collection of documents “Collective farm life in the Urals. 1935-1953 ”/ Compilers X. Kessler, G. E. Kornilov. - M.: “Russian Political Encyclopedia” (ROSSPEN), 2006.
• On the organization and remuneration for workdays in collective farm beekeeping (inaccessible link) from the journal Beekeeping. 1950 year.