Soviet Labor Law Research Articles

Theoretical approaches to the grounds of differentiation in labour law

The subject.Differentiation in the science of labor law is examined as a feature of its sources; it is named among the principles of the branch and features of the method of legal regulation. The article analyzes the formation and development of the doctrine of differentiation (with an emphasis on its foundations) in the science of Soviet labor law, as well as modern problematic aspects of differentiation in labor law. Alongside the traditional division of the grounds for differentiation into objective and subjective, in the modern science of labor law it is proposed to conduct it on the basis of the structure of the employment relationship and the factor of working conditions. Subjective differentiation is proposed to be associated not only with the personal characteristics of citizens who are the subjects of employment legal relations, but also with the individual characteristics of the employer.Purpose of the study. It is proposed to specify the criteria according to which the grounds for differentiation are divided into objective and subjective ones (whether the need for special regulation is dictated by the specifics of work or is related to the special qualities of an employee). In addition, proposals are made to improve labour law in order to ensure the effective protection of labour rights.Methodology.The research was carried out with the application of the formally legal interpretation of legal acts as well as the comparative analysis of Russian and European legal literature. Method of rather-legal analysis are also the basis of the research.The main results.Thus, the criterion at the foundation of classification of differentiation factors of labour law norms is fairly obvious: whether the need for special regulation is dictated by the specifics of work (that said it does not matter which person will perform it) or whether the specificity of legal regulation is related specifically to the special characteristics of the employee and will appear regardless of the nature of his work.Consequently, employee's loss of special status entails termination of the specific rules of labour law, regardless of the will of the employer. At the same time, it is advisable to amend the Labor Code of the Russian Federation by establishing the obligation of the employee to inform the employer of such legally significant changes within a reasonable time. At the same time, the norms establishing benefits in respect of such employees should cease to be effective from the moment the employee loses his/her special status (e.g. due to removal of disability, termination of powers as a member of an election commission or member of an elected body of a trade union), while the rules imposing additional obligations and restrictions on the employee may be linked to the moment the employee notifies the employer.Conclusions.The authors clarified the criteria for classification the grounds for differentiation in labour law and, as a result, proposed amendments to labour law.

Институт увольнения работника по инициативе работодателя в 1970-1980-х гг. как отражение проблем позднего советского трудового права

By the beginning of the 1980s, the legal regulation of relations on termination of an employment contract at the initiative of the employer remained unchanged for a decade. The prevailing volume of norms was fixed in 1970. Fundamentals of the legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics on Labor and the Labor Code of the RSFSR of 1971 Article 254 of the Labor Code of the RSFSR of 1971 fixed additional grounds for the release of certain categories of workers. The grounds for dismissal of employees with a special legal status were also fixed in the branch Charters on labor discipline. Disciplinary dismissals occupied a place in a more extensive system of punishments than today. In addition, a remark, reprimand, strict reprimand, transfer to a lower-paid job could be applied to an employee with a general status. During the period under study, many constructive approaches to the interpretation of legislation and filling in gaps were developed by judicial practice. In the field of dismissal due to loss of trust, the interpretation of categories of persons serving monetary or commodity values has been formed. Relevant to Soviet practice was the modern problem of the absence of a normative list of persons directly servicing monetary or commodity values. The judicial practice of the late Soviet period also contained ambiguous approaches. Thus, during the period under review, the tradition of Soviet and Russian courts to interfere in the employer's decision to dismiss for violation of labor duties without valid reasons took root. Contrary to the ideological attitude towards the withering away of the right, the reverse process unfolded. The volume of regulatory prescriptions in the field of dismissal at the initiative of the employer has been continuously increasing, theoretical and practical developments have been introduced, legal conflicts have been overcome. However, technical and legal development did not solve the main problem of late Soviet labor law - a large-scale decline in labor discipline in all sectors of the national economy. Difficulties with the behavior of employees and employees can be traced both directly, through legislative and party acts, and indirectly, through a significant mass of publications on the relevant topic. The constructiveness of the scientific search of the 1980s was to a certain extent reduced by its ideologization. It was politically impossible to admit that the Soviet economic organization alienated the worker from the result of labor to a greater extent than the capitalist one. New means of ensuring labor discipline were developed in an axiomatic coordinate system. The key characteristic of the institution of dismissal of an employee at the initiative of the employer during the 1970s and 1980s was the undesirability of termination of the employment contract. This attitude can be traced in legislation, judicial practice, scientific works, statistical data. Its reasons are explained by "staff turnover", i.e. the free movement of workers in the labor market. At the same time, in order to ensure the recovery of the national economy, disciplinary sanctions were required. The desire of the state to avoid termination of the employment contract in every possible way formed the practice of impunity, entailed a further decline in labor discipline. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ІНТЕРЕСІВ СТОРІН ТРУДОВИХ ВІДНОСИН ПІД ЧАС ПРОСТОЮ В УМОВАХ ПАНДЕМІЇ

The paper considers legal regulation of remuneration of labor during downtime through no fault of an employee. Our purpose is to determine how does reduced remuneration of labor during downtime through no fault of an employee complies with positive law, legal principles, ideas and values of national law, as well as with the balance of employees’ and employers’ interests and responsibilities of. Scientific novelty. We stand up for a thesis about an urge to save the employee’s average earnings during downtime through no fault of an employee. The issue of remuneration during downtime remuneration is not paid essential attention even in specialized monographic studies on remuneration and guarantees in labor law. Historically, the most employee-favorable legal regulation of downtime remuneration took place in the period 1918–1930; the least favorable - in the period 1930–1970; modern legal regulation of downtime remuneration is a bit more favorable, but it is still a direct legacy of the worst examples of soviet labor law. In the normative-doctrinal aspect, it is proposed to postpone the moment when employee gets the right to ordinary (full) remuneration earnings from the moment of actual employee’s performance of work under employment contract to the moment when an employee takes all reasonable dependable measures (considering his labor function) so that he is ready to actually perform the work stipulated by employment contract. It is proposed to consider the payment of downtime to be not a guarantee payment, but a regular element of wages. It is stated that the legal regulation of reduced remuneration during downtime through no fault of an employee does not comply with positive law, legal principles, ideas and values, as well as with the balance of employees’ and employers’ interests and responsibilities of. In conclusion, in this regard, the following is proposed: 1) to amend the national labor law so that employee would retain average salary during downtime through no employee’s fault; 2) to revise the doctrinal qualification of remuneration of labor during downtime through no fault of an employee as a guarantee payment, referring it as an element of the basic salary instead.

Private law branches under a totalitarian political regime (the case of Soviet
 labor law development in the 1918–1930s)

The subject. Implementation of Soviet labor law in the context of totalitarianism. Particular
 attention is paid to the formation of a repressive model of regulation of private law relations. The study of this problem is extremely important from the point of view of the totalitarian past of our country, covering all spheres of public life and entailing large-scale tragic
 consequences.
 The purpose of the article is to confirm or disprove hypothesis that a totalitarian political
 regime seriously impacts on the essential characteristics of private law branches.
 The theoretical and methodological basis of the study includes the principles of objectivity
 and historicism, the formal logical interpretation of the Soviet legal acts concerning labor
 relations and the method of system analysis, which allows us to reveal the subject of research comprehensively.
 The main results, scope of application. During the formation of the Soviet totalitarian regime, administrative methods of governance in the branches of private law (and in labor
 law, in particular) prevailed. The formation and development of Soviet labor law in the
 1918-1930s. fully reflects the logic of the impact of a totalitarian state on the branches of
 private law. The widely used system of repressive measures in the sphere of labor was provided not only by laws, but also by the adoption of numerous by-laws, which deformed the
 system of private law relations based on decentralization and freedom of choice by legal
 entities. Labor relations were used by the Soviet state as a means of political management
 of significant masses of the population. Along with the codification of labor legislation (the
 adoption of the RSFSR Labor Law Codes of 1918 and 1922), normative acts aimed at state
 monopolization of labor regulation were adopted. A significant number of by-laws, which
 actually had the highest legal force, often had a purely coercive nature and was used by
 management as a means of achieving political goals. There was a de facto substitution of
 the right to work with a labor obligation. In a totalitarian regime in 1918-1930. in fact, a labor obligation is being affirmed, and the relationship between the employee and the employer has ceased to be private in nature, being under the control of executive authorities.
 Conclusions. Totalitarian political regime seriously changed the essential characteristics of
 private law branches.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LEGAL REGULATION OF TRANSLATION AND MOVEMENT OF EMPLOYEES ON THE TERRITORY OF MODERN UKRAINE

The article is devoted to the formation of actual scientific thought concerning the process of origin and development of legal regulation of the transfer and relocation of workers in the historical territories of modern Ukraine. The author analyzes the approaches available in the scientific literature to the periodization of the origin and development of various labor-legal phenomena, and also determines a number of regularities in the formation of the author's classifications of the periods of development of the corresponding phenomena. In the process of clarifying the current state of scientific thought regarding the origin and development of the legal regulation of the transfer and relocation of employees in Ukraine, problematic issues of the existing historical and legal thought regarding the legal regulation of these personnel procedures are identified, proposals are formulated to solve such problems. The article substantiates the position according to which it is advisable to determine the formation and development of legal regulation of the transfer and relocation of employees within the framework of three historical periods. The first period was the factory period of legal regulation of the transfer of workers (1835-1918). The second period is the Soviet period of legal regulation of the transfer and relocation of employees, which is divided into three stages: the first (1918-1922) and the second (1922-1970) stages of legal regulation of the transfer of employees by the norms of Soviet labor law; the third stage of legal regulation of the transfer and relocation of employees by the norms of Soviet labor law (1971-1991). The third period is the period of legal regulation of the transfer and relocation of workers during the times of independent Ukraine (since 1991). The conclusions to the article summarize the results of the study.

Government and Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Soviet Economy of the 1920s – 1940s: Relations, Contradictions and Results

Introduction. The article reveals motives of attracting foreign entrepreneurs to Soviet economy, difficulties with hiring local labor force in concessions, contradictions and solutions between Soviet organizations and concessioners. Relations between foreign entrepreneurs and Soviet government agencies as well as Soviet engineers and workers were regulated by the law. Methods and materials. The author uses the comparative historical method in the work, which makes it possible to compare the number of foreign and domestic labor in concession enterprises, to show the need of attracting foreign specialists to concession and state enterprises, to reveal the cooperation of foreign entrepreneurs with the Soviet state. Sources from The State Archive of the Russian Federation, The Russian State Archive of Economics and The Russian State Archive of Social and Political History were identified for the study. Regulatory acts of state significance (decrees, concession agreements) reflecting the policy of the state in relation to the economic activity of private capitalists; records management documentation (circulars, official correspondence, reporting documentation) covering the real state of affairs at concession enterprises allow to show the peculiarities of relations between Soviet state institutions and foreign entrepreneurs. Analysis. Sometimes concessioners did not meet the governmental requirements in labor force attraction, which caused mutual claims. The author also analyses hiring foreign professionals in Soviet state enterprises because of their important contribution to the Soviet economy recovery and development. Foreign professionals were involved in the production process organization and local labor force education at Kuznetskiy coalfield minery, Stalingrad tractor factory and other state enterprises. Concessions were equipped with brand-new techniques and technologies and were also involved in the local labor force education. Results. The article analyzes the reasons of early cancellation of contracts by foreign professionals and workers and their mass departure from the USSR in the 1930s – 1940s. For example, prosecution and custody for industrial accidents were among of such reasons. Despite this, new foreign engineers were forbidden to enter Sakhalin island by Soviet authorities. The article focuses on the correlation between the deterioration of the international situation from the middle 1930s and existence of Japanese concessions in the USSR until the middle 1940s.The author pays a lot of attention to investigate the issue of obeying to the Soviet labor law by concessioners using unpublished archived documents.

Development and development of labor law how to promote unity of private and public beginners

The article is devoted to the histori­cal digression of the formation and development of labor law as an independent branch of law. It is noted that not dip into the history of the issue, it is impossible to find that heredity, terminology, views that originated and manifested itself in the for­mation of labor law as a field and its basic institution — the employment contract. The scientists explained the complex structure of labor law as a field, including in the labour relations of the employer and the worker. Supervisory relationships and the relations on consideration of labour disputes. The main problem was the problem of the labor contract (work agreement, contract industrial worker).The establishment of Soviet labour law as an independent branch was not so much a consequence of the tendency of the allocation of the employment contract of civil law, as the attempt of the bolsheviks to create a new socialist law, which was funda­mentally different from the bourgeois. In the Soviet legal system historically there was no distinction between private and public law, as this fact was not included in the plans of the bolsheviks.Further the new economic and political realities, legislative changes have caused the transformation of ideas about the method of legal regulation of labor. The speci­ficity of the social relations that constitute the subject of labor law, largely determines the features of the method of their legal regulation. For labor relations, this specific feature is the combination of private and public started.It is concluded that labor law as a branch of law is a manifestation of the unity of private and public started. The focus is that the emergence of labor law, with its Cen­tral institution of the «labor contract» related to the justification of labor as a special object of legal regulation, which does not fit into the framework of civil construction recruitment of labor, as different from any object of civil rights. It is the special na­ture of the work and its specificity, which is inseparable from personality, has result­ed in the emergence of a new branch of law. In addition, labor law is seen as «the sym­biosis of private and public» elements, with its fundamental principles (not in name but in content), which had evolved historically and is characteristic only of this branch of law.

Development of the Institution of Employee’s Dismissal on the Initiative of an Employer in the Soviet Labor Law of the 1970s

Development of the Institution of Employee’s Dismissal on the Initiative of an Employer in the Soviet Labor Law of the 1970s

Administrativizm as a Paradigm of Soviet Labor Law

Administrativizm as a Paradigm of Soviet Labor Law

REVIVAL OF SOVIET SCIENCE OF CORRECTIONAL LABOR LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THE PENAL LEGISLATION DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1950s.‒1960s.

This article deals with issues related to the development of Soviet labor law during the thaw. It is noted that since the mid-1950s. after a long break (almost thirty years) the revival of science Forced labor law. Scientific outlook is largely determined the content of the new corrective labor laws (Fundamentals of Corrective Labour Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics of 1969, the Corrective Labour Code of RSFSR, 1970). The paper analyzes the ruling Communist Party, the decisions of legislative bodies and various agencies, which defines the main directions of development of correctional labor law, which gives the corresponding evaluation. The sanctions of the new Criminal Code of the RSFSR was more than these types of punishment as correctional labor without imprisonment, a fine. The maximum penalty of imprisonmentis reduced from 25 to 15 years. In Forced Labor Act was quite clearly defined the legal status of convicted persons, strengthened the guarantee of their status, more attention has been paid to educational work with convicts. The use of labor condemned became the focus be placed on the development of its own production base. Political and ideological basis of corrective labor policy was the position of the CPSU Program that every stray from the employment gauge a person can return to honest work.

Soviet Labour Law during the Second World War

By studying Soviet legal practices, we learn about the enforcement of coercive legislation in the USSR. New archival data show how Soviet organs attempted to control labour in industry during the Second World War. State organs interacted in order to enforce legislation, but enforcement in practice was weak. Soviet leaders simplified administrative procedures for enforcement as long as the war threat persisted. So enforcement of coercive labour law was a priority during the war, but actual penalization was inefficient owing to various constraints.

Soviet Labour Law: Crisis and Long-term Development

Soviet Labour Law: Crisis and Long-term Development

Obstacles to Soviet‐American Joint Ventures

Surveys the various challenges involved in establishing a joint venture in the Soviet Union. Discusses the Soviet joint venture law 1987 which allows a foreign company to take an equity position in a Soviet enterprise. Looks at profit repatriation, asset valuation and operational and political issues. Suggests that joint ventures are constrained by Soviet labour law which contains restrictions to protect both Soviet labour and Soviet enterprises.

Hiring and Dismissal under Soviet Labour Law

Hiring and Dismissal under Soviet Labour Law

Retention of Employment under Soviet labour Law when Structure of Enterprise is changed

Retention of Employment under Soviet labour Law when Structure of Enterprise is changed

Guarantees of the Legality of Transfer to other Work under Soviet Labour Law

Guarantees of the Legality of Transfer to other Work under Soviet Labour Law

The Right to Work and Politically Motivated Discrimination in Soviet Labor Law

The Right to Work and Politically Motivated Discrimination in Soviet Labor Law

Special Aspects of Hiring and Discharging Scientists

Scientific work is one of the most complex forms of labor. The legal regulation of labor relations in science is based on the general principles of the socialist organization of labor as enacted in the Constitution of the USSR and on the general norms of Soviet labor law. At the same time, these relations have a number of distinctive features defined by the creative character and particular significance of the work of scientific personnel. As a consequence, the law has established a distinctive procedure under which labor relationships at law arise between scientific workers and scientific institutions.