How do trade unions function under socialism? How do they differ from their capitalist counterparts? From the book Socialism in the Soviet Union: Soviet law grants extensive rights to the trade unions because they, unlike in capitalist countries, are a direct part of the state power. The Rights of Factory and Office Trade Union Committees enumerates these rights. They include the right of the workers to manage the factories, to plan what will be produced, to control management (this includes the right to fire managers!), to protect the workers from arbitrary discipline (no worker can be fired without the preliminary consent of the trade union committee), etc. The trade unions are responsible for every aspect of life in the factories, mines, offices, etc. They are the final arbiter of labor-management disputes, and help formulate the plan for production. They are in essence the supreme authority within the various producing institutions in the country as a whole. 106 million Soviet workers belong to the unions, virtually the entire workforce, as opposed to 25% of the employed workers belonging to unions in the United States. (...) Under capitalism the trade unions emerge out of the struggle of the workers to maintain their already low standard of living in the face of the inexorable tendency of capital to lower the minimum wage. The trade unions are basically defense mechanisms under capital, and serve a specific and limited purpose, generally speaking. Under socialism they are quite different. Although part of their function is still to defend the workers against bureaucracy, managerial transgressions, etc., this is not their only, or most important concern. (...) They are the means by which the workers as a whole are drawn into the management of the economy...they are the organizations which, being at the point of production, carry out the planning of the economy from below, drawing the entire work force into the process of this planning and seeing that the plan is carried out.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:36:03 +0000
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