Профспілки та безпека праці у призмі політичних викликів «відлиги».

Abstract

The article studies the political aspects of the trade unions’ activities in the field of labor safety. It is argued that the basis for the politicization of this aspect was the state ownership of the means of production. The power of the Thaw, using a blatant disregard for the problem of safe working conditions by its predecessors, tried to attract the attention of the society in every possible way. At the same time, Khrushchev’s government stressed its own concern for labor security with the inaction of Stalin’s team, trying to gain political support from the workers. The latter is driven by the author from the specifics of the ruling team’s coming to the political leadership and the state of its permanent struggle with the supporters of Stalin.According to the researcher, the mechanism of realization of power ambitions and the conquest of a new number of sympathizers was hidden in the development of the idea to expand trade unions’ powers. For the ruling team their “struggle” for safe working conditions was only one of the fragments of the political strategy. The official assignment of unions to state powers and legalization of their numerous competencies were subordinated to the overall strategic line formulated in the New CPSU Program. It is concluded that in the society the new government created an atmosphere of continuous struggle for improvement of labor safety in all production units, which created the illusion of the authorities’ concern for workers and positively influenced its political image.