Factory Committees Research Articles

The Revue International Anarchiste's World Survey (1924–1925)

The Revue International Anarchiste's World Survey (1924–1925)

Theoretical and legal structure of working control

The article examines the theoretical and legal structure of workers’ control through the prism of institutions such as workers’ meetings and factory committees, trade unions and Councils that used workers’ control as the main tool in the struggle for power. The author proves that conferences of workers’ committees, charters of factory committees, circulars and instructions regulating the functionality of the meeting of workers and factory committees played a significant role in the regulatory provision of work control. Taking into account the declarative nature of the regulations on factory committees (FPC) on the part of the government, the detailing of the relationship of the FPC with the administration of enterprises took place on the basis of precedents, generalization of the practice of the activities of the FPC of large enterprises in the country and the creation of standard forms of charters and instructions for the FPC. The author focuses on the means of implementing working control, such as constant interaction with the use of verbal and documentary means, with the administration of enterprises and their obligation to investigate the violations identified, which was the beginning of systematic working control over administrative and economic activities with a set of specific control functions and tasks. In addition, the process of centralization of the activities of the Federal Labor Committee is shown, which has become the next step in strengthening and developing working control in the state. The author consistently argues the hypothesis that the enterprises actually had dual power and double subordination. In the current situation, there is a natural need for a centralized document regulating the essence and content of working control.

Левокоммунистическая оппозиция Брестскому мирному договору (на материалах Урала)

The materials of the Urals are used to analyze the little-studied regional aspects of the history of the left-Communist opposition to Lenin’s policy of “respite” and the “obscene” Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It is established that the foreign policy guidelines of the left Communists reflected the reaction of revolutionism against the actual course of the Russian revolution, against the tactics of continuous maneuvering and maneuvering in the international arena, which was imposed on the Bolsheviks by the inexorable realities of life. The author characterizes the scale of the spread of leftist Communist ideas in the regional organizations of the Bolshevik party and beyond - in the Soviets, trade unions, factory committees, among the social “lower classes,” and their dynamics. The calculations showed that the popularity of the views of the left Communists in these structures and segments of the population was due to both the doctrinal attitudes of Bolshevism and the sharp increase in the mass consciousness of the elements of the mythological worldview susceptible to “crazy” ideas of the left. The process of evolution of the left-Communist opposition in the conditions of Civil war is analyzed. It is concluded that the revolutionary principles of the “new” left Communists inevitably were in conflict with the tasks of consolidating the Bolshevik forces and strengthening the Soviet state machine. For the first time a wide range of archival sources and materials of periodicals of the studied period is introduced into scientific circulation.

Involvement of trade unions to supervision and control of legislation on labor maintenance in the period of establishment in Ukraine in 1917–1921

In the article, on the basis of the conducted analysis of the resolutions, instructions, subtitles of the People's Commissariat of Labor of the UkrSSR, the memoranda of the local departments of labor as well-known and for the first time discovered in the archival funds, it was determined that the factory and plant committees and local service committees, being primary centers of All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, served as a low authority to legislation on labor legislation maintenance. For this purpose, under the factory committees and trade unions permanent commissions were established for labor protection. The order of the involvement of trade unions to the election of labor (legal), out of district and sanitary labor inspectors, controllers of the People's Committee of state control is analyzed. It was clarified that in practice the involvement of trade unions in the activity of supervision and control bodies in the field of labor was not as active as it was decreed, and was partially replaced by the party representation.It is confirmed that due to proclaimed at the tenth congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) the necessity of full transfer of functions on labor protection from the People's Commissariat of Labor to the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, the Labor inspectorate joined the board of trade unions with the preservation of all its state-compulsory functions, including control over the implementation of labor service, the fight against desertion. It is concluded that after the events of 1917, trade unions lost the role of antipodes of state power and began to play the role of its active ally, which stemmed from the class nature of the state of the proletariat, which was declared as a defender of the interests of workers.

Les transformations sociales soviétiques (fin 1917­ début 1918)

After the October Coup in Petrograd the Soviet power was established in Russia and the first reforms were undertaken . However , there was nothing socialist about the first decrees of the Soviet government aiming at the tasks set by more radical than Bolshevik right­wing parties – the SRs and the Mensheviks . According to the Marxist theory , the Bolsheviks ­ just like the Anarchists ­ hoped that Factory committees , Workers ’ Control bodies , labor union , and the Soviets would work on a single plan . The fields of competence of different levels of economic management were not clearly defined , which led to the conflicts between self­managing bodies and regional administration and resulted in the economic chaos . The choice was inevitable – self­organization , self­management and lower strata democracy or construction from above of a new regime and economy , controlled from a single center and operating on a strict compulsion to decisions of the state center . The Soviet self­organization was a tool for Lenin and the goal was communism . He made his choice and aimed at strengthening the centralization of power . He proposed to end the “ Red Guards ’ attack on capitalism ” and to replace it with systematic nationalization .

"A Little Extra Persuasion”: Gender and Craft Unionism in West Virginia’s Glass Industry, 1900–1950s

"A Little Extra Persuasion”: Gender and Craft Unionism in West Virginia’s Glass Industry, 1900–1950s Virginia C. Young On January 22, 1947, a meeting was conducted between the plant management of Fostoria Glass in Moundsville, West Virginia, and the respective factory committees of two of the plant’s labor unions. Local 10 had, for more than fifty years, represented the facility’s skilled male glassworkers who worked in the “hot metal” end of the plant and made the glassware. Local 507, organized in 1936, represented the unskilled and semi-skilled miscellaneous workers, both male and female, who worked in the “cold metal” section of the facility and performed various finishing tasks on the glass. Both Local 10 and 507 were affiliated with the American Flint Glass Workers Union (AFGWU).1 Near the end of the meeting, after resolving several issues, plant management announced plans for a new plant hospital to be “properly equipped with modern first aid equipment and staffed by a competent nurse.” The proposed location for this new plant hospital was the Factory #1 Girls’ Toilet, which had been built during World War II for the numerous women who transferred to the hot metal furnace room to replace enlisted male workers. The hospital, management explained, would benefit all of Fostoria’s employees, but it would also necessitate the transfer of fourteen women who had thus far chosen to remain in hot metal. Additionally, management announced that it counted on Local 507 to provide “a little extra persuasion,” if necessary, to convince any woman who objected to the transfer.2 A glimpse into the experiences of women at Moundsville’s Fostoria Glass provides a valuable standpoint from which to consider the impact of gender in the unionized workplace. First, Fostoria’s story places the glass industry, which has recently begun to receive more attention from historians, alongside other industries as a significant economic force and employer of women.3 Second, pre- and postwar events that transformed gender relations in factories nationwide also had an impact on Fostoria’s [End Page 35] shop floor, thus linking West Virginia’s manufacturing economy to larger national trends. Finally, Fostoria Glass allows us to better understand how prewar conditions affected postwar gender dynamics when we ask why those fourteen women who remained in their hot metal positions needed “a little extra persuasion” to relinquish their jobs. World War II was not the first instance of expanded opportunities for women at Fostoria. For example, despite initially hiring women in the 1890s to perform a very narrow set of tasks, Fostoria quickly expanded women’s jobs in cold metal. Eventually men and women performed many of those same jobs, which blurred the lines meant to distinguish between them. When Local 507 was formed in 1936, those same miscellaneous workers became AFGWU members, finally giving women a share of the union pie and a seemingly equal standing in the eyes of their union brothers. Further, while their role within Local 507 was uncertain at first, their numbers were such that women became an increasingly active group within the union. Thus, the glass ceiling at Fostoria experienced periodic “cracks” in the years prior to World War II and provided women in the plant with a cumulative inclusion into the predominantly male world of craft unionism. Through Fostoria Glass we see how those cracks made it progressively harder to justify and maintain gender divisions in the years after World War II. Over the past few decades scholars have successfully made gender, just like considerations of race and class, a necessary component of our historical understanding of labor unionism and the industrial workplace. Even as they have informed us of the pervasive practice of occupational sex-typing used to segregate women and stymie their opportunities on the shop floor, so too have they debated the impact World War II had on women’s labor activism and the move to end such discriminatory practices. 4 Discussions surrounding whether the war brought permanent or passing change have not discounted the ways in which many women expressed their dissatisfaction with the gendered order long before World War II. However, the prewar years are largely seen as a precursor to the real...

The State of the Russian Unions

Trade union organization again developed in parallel with factory committees with the resurgence of the revolutionary movement in 1917, although it was the factory committees, dominated by the Bolsheviks, which made the running, with the Menshevik-dominated trade unions lagging behind. The Third All-Russian Trade Union Conference in Petrograd on 21–8 June 1917 decided on the branch principle of trade union organization, with each union representing all the employees of a particular branch of the economy rather than particular professions, and established the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions.

‘Voice’ and ‘exit’ in Japanese firms during the Second World War:Sanporevisited*

During the Second World War, the Japanese government and private sector searched for and implemented new mechanisms for coordination and motivation. One of these wassangyo hokokukai(sanpo). TheSanpounit was basically an organization of the employer and employees of each firm, which held meetings to moderate labour relations. As a result of government policy to promotesanpounits, around 70 per cent of the total workers in Japan were organized intosanpounits in the early 1940s. As the members of trades unions and the workers of the companies that had factory committees were only 7 per cent and 5 per cent of the total workers in 1936 respectively,sanpowas the first large‐scale mechanism for Japanese employees to have a voice. This article examines the role ofsanpo, using prefecture‐level and firm‐level data, based on a framework integrating the ‘voice view’ of unionism and transaction cost economics. It was found thatsanporeduced the participation rate in labour disputes, and enhanced labour productivity at least for some of the time.

New Labor History: Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, 1840-1918 by Michael s> Melancon Alice K. Pate (review)

764 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 even though it has not been revised and possesses only a supplementary bibliography. There is still no study in English to replace Becker's work althoughwith the new availabilityof archivalmaterialit may be expected that such studies will eventually appear. Becker relied on published documents and secondary sources mainly in Russian but he made thorough use of them and his book has stood the test of time. Khiva and Bukharamay be regardedas the two CentralAsian stateswhich survivedas protectorates.Kokand, at one time the most favouredby Russia, might have formed a third but an uprising gave the excuse to annex the wealthy Farganavalley. The Turkmen statesperhaps lacked the resourcesto survive and the position of Kuldja was such that international relations ensured that Russian influence must be exercised indirectly.That Khiva and Bukhara survivedwas not the choice of the government of Tashkent which always looked to annexation and saw the protectorate status as only a temporaryand preferablya brief defermentof the eventual result.Nor was it the choice of the Ministryof Warwhich backedTashkent.It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, although unable to stop the advance of Russian generals in Central Asia, prevented them converting all their conquests into possessionsand thatforreasonsof internationaldiplomacyandparticularlyof maintainingreasonablyharmoniousrelationswith Britain. Becker describes various features of Russian relations with Khiva and Bukhara. He is concerned with these aspects rather than with the internal historyof the khanatesand it is, of course, on internaldevelopmentsthatmost recent scholarly work has concentrated. On the whole Russia interfered as little as possible with the khanates, perhaps in the hope that they would collapsewithout support.And the khanatesexperiencedless developmentand less change than the neighbouring Russian-ruled territories.It would have been instructive if Becker had drawn more explicit comparisons with the relations between the Indian states and British India the differencesare illuminating but he leaves this to other readers, content to provide the materialswhich might help readersto make theirown comparisons.Not only students of Russian and Central Asian history will be glad to have a new opportunityto put thisvaluableworkon theirshelves. London M. E. YAPP Melancon, Michael and Pate, Alice K. (eds).NewLabor Histo:y.Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, I840-I9I8. Slavica, Bloomington IN, 2002. v + 248 pp. Tables.Notes. Index. $25.95 (paperback). THIS collection of nine essays, with an introduction and afterword, by a selection of American and Russian scholars,'deliberatelyeschews the imposition upon workerexperience of ideology externalto workers'dailylives'(p. 2). In short, the aim of this book is to examine the practical needs, motives, aspirations and actions of Russian workers, rather than treat them as the proletariat of Marxist ideology, guided by a historic mission. In this the contributorsare successful.If Boris B. Gorshkovaddressesthe value of child labourto theRussianeconomy in thelate nineteenthcentury,andgovernment REVIEWS 765 attemptsto regulateit, ratherthan focusingon the experiencesof the children themselves, he certainly raises key issues on a little known theme of Russian labour history. Not the least of these is the compromises forced upon wellmeaning government officials,when facing the resistanceof factoryownersto restrictingtheexploitationofchildlabour.PaulHerrlingerandSergeiL.Firsov both examine aspects of the spiritualityof the Russian workers. While the decline in religiosityamong urbanworkersthat caused the Church considerable anguish was real enough, it was over-exaggerated. Lacking spare time, money and the supportof extended families,workersabbreviatedor adapted the sacramentsto suittheircircumstances,or turnedto civil rites,for example civil marriage, simply through lack of funds for Church services. But if their attitudetowardsthe Churchbecame more questioning,many stillneeded the solace of theirreligionin a harshand oftenbewilderingnew industrialworld. From Nikolai V. Mikhailov, Alice K. Pate and Mark D. Steinberg come interpretationsof workermentalities.Workerpoets showed an obsessionwith the loss of dignityof factorywork, and outrage at 'insultand humiliation, and pervasivedemands to be recognisedas "humanbeings", not slaves,machines or animals' (p. I 25). Remaining peasants at heart, workercollectives had an agenda independent frompoliticalleadership,and the recoveryof lost dignity remained central to that agenda. They certainly had little interest in the theoretical disputesbetween Mensheviksand Bolsheviks,and only tended to turn to the latter when they seemed to represent unity in the working-class politicalmovement. WilliamG. Rosenberg,MichaelMelancon andMichael C. Hickeyexamine aspects of the workers'movement during I9I7. In Petrograd,for example, factory committees seized control of state-owned munitions plants very quickly, while the committees in...

Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917-1918

Acknowledgements - Note on Dates and Transliteration - Abbreviations - Introduction - CHAPTER ONE: Workers' Control and the Radicalization of the Factory Committees - CHAPTER TWO: Dynamics of the Revolution: Factory Committees and the Mobilization of Workers - CHAPTER THREE: The Radicalization of the Trade Unions - CHAPTER FOUR: The Struggle for Control Over Industry - CHAPTER FIVE: 'Red Guard Attack Against Capital' - CHAPTER 6: The End of Pluralism in the Labour Movement - Conclusion - Selected Bibliography - Index

Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917- 1918. Gennady ShkliarevskySoviet State and Society between Revolutions, 1918-1929. Lewis H. Siegelbaum , Mary McAuleyThe Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926. Jonathan Coopersmith

<i>Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917- 1918</i>. Gennady Shkliarevsky<i>Soviet State and Society between Revolutions, 1918-1929</i>. Lewis H. Siegelbaum , Mary McAuley<i>The Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926</i>. Jonathan Coopersmith

Gennady Shkliarevsky, Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917–1918. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. xxi + 282 pp. $49.95 cloth.

Gennady Shkliarevsky, Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917–1918. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. xxi + 282 pp. $49.95 cloth.

Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917- 1918.

Labor in the Russian Revolution: Factory Committees and Trade Unions, 1917- 1918.

Possible Negative Effects of Economic Modernization Perceived by the Public Security Apparatus in the People's Republic of China

This analysis: (1) Identifies factors that motivate the Chinese public security apparatus to resist thoroughgoing implementation of the “Four Modernizations” program. (2) Weighs the acknowledged need for the rule of law to strengthen foreign investor confidence against the traditional concerns of the institutionalized public security system for social control. (3) Focuses on the implications for the public security system of the country's venture into “limited capitalism”, which is placing more people outside the pervasive network of factory work committees that regulate every aspect of the worker's life. (4) Attempts to take account of possible threats Chinese security officials may see to their role as the bulwark of social morality.

Oktyabr' skaya Revolutsiya i Fabzavkomy (The October Revolution and the Factory Committees)

Oktyabr' skaya Revolutsiya i Fabzavkomy (The October Revolution and the Factory Committees)

Factory Committees and the Establishment of the Bolshevik Dictatorship

Factory Committees and the Establishment of the Bolshevik Dictatorship

Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917-1918

This book explores the impact of the 1917 Revolution on factory life in the Russian capital. It traces the attempts of workers to take control of their working lives from the February Revolution through to June 1918, when the Bolsheviks nationalised industry. Although not primarily concerned with the political developments of the Revolution, the book demonstrates that the sphere of industrial production was a crucial arena of political as well as economic conflict. Having discussed the structure and composition of the factory workforce in Petrograd prior to 1917 and the wages and conditions of workers under the old regime, Dr Smith shows how workers saw the overthrow of the autocracy as a signal to democratise factory life and to improve their lot. After examining the creation and activities of the factory committees, he analyses the relationship of different groups of workers to the new labour movement, and assesses the extent to which it functioned democratically.

Worker Participation in the Management of the Enterprise in Poland

The Polish tradition of worker participation in the management of the enterprise dates back to 1918–1919. This tradition found its roots in the influence of the October Revolution in Russia, and independence activities in Poland, the councils of workers' delegates and factory committees. The task of the workers' delegates and factory committees was to organise workers, to insure the protection of their professional and living interests and to reopen and supervise factories left behind by invaders.

Japan's Wartime Labor Policy: A Search for Method

AbstractsThe industrial Patriotic Movement (Sampō) symbolized the suppression of labor unions in prewar Japan, but it also shaped the development of Japan's postwar system of industrial relations. When first launched by officials of the Home Ministry in 1938, Sampō was intended to be a constructive reform movement for reducing conflict and for maintaining an efficient labor market. With the support of the police and of some labor leaders, Sampō encouraged formation of factory committees with elected worker representatives for negotiating wages and working conditions. The resistance of business leaders led to the assertion of direct bureaucratic control over the movement, and with army interference in civil administration after 1940, Sampō eventually led to the suppression of unions. Nevertheless, the foundations were laid for the spread of enterprise unionism on a national scale in the postwar era even under military rule.

The Right to Benevolence: Dignity and Japanese Workers, 1890–1920

From its beginning Japanese industry was marked by a scattering of large and heavily capitalized enterprises which, as their size and number increased between 1890 and 1920, became the scene of labor unrest. In historical accounts of this early period of labor relations, workers are strangely shadowy figures, considering their centrality. They come into focus mainly at moments of crisis when they are seen to be overcoming their past, increasing their consciousness both of rights and of the need for organization and class solidarity. This developing consciousness issued at last in a sudden growth of unions between 1918 and the mid-1920s.Even before this time, however, because of fear of unions and government intervention and the need to reduce the amount of labor turnover, management had begun efforts to bring workers under greater psychological control. These efforts were now intensified, and the measures adopted—welfare services, greater security of employment, semiannual bonuses, separation pay, regular raises, factory committees—aided by a stagnant economy and unemployment throughout the 1920s, were spectacularly successful. By the early 1930s the unions were everywhere in retreat from large enterprises. The victory over worker consciousness seemed won and in fact held until 1945, when, in the aftermath of national defeat, the struggle was renewed.