Russkij tekst (original Russian text).

Source:
«Pravda», 29 December 1938, p. 1

But side-by-side with honest and conscientious workers, there are still scattered unmotivated, backward, or dishonorable people -- flitters, loafers, absentees, and grabbers.

With their second-rate work, absenteeism, lateness to work, aimless wandering about the factory during work-time, and other violations of the rules of internal work organization, and likewise with individual capricious migrations from one establishment to another, these people disrupt labor discipline, and bring great losses to industry, transport, and all of the national economy.

They try to give as little work as possible to the state, and grab as much money as possible for themselves. They abuse Soviet labor laws and reles, using them for their selfish interests. They do not work fully even druing the established hours of the working day; often they work only 4 or 5 hours in all, wasting the remaining 2-3 hours of working time. With this, the people and the state lose every year millions of work days and billions of rubles.

When flitters and loafers are fired, they start filing lawsuits, and, not working, win payments for supposedly involuntary unemployment. Dismissal from an establishment for violating labor discipline, as a rule, is no sort of punishment at all for truants, since in the majority of cases they quickly find work in other establishments.

Using current regulations about granting vacations, according to which the right to vacation is granted after 5 1/2 months of work in a factory or institution, flitters and loafers, running from one establishment to another, contrive to get two vacations in one year, ending up in a preferred position over conscientious laborers and office-workers.

In housing projects, built by factories for their laborers and office workers, apartments are often occupied by persons who either voluntarily quit work in these establishments or were fired for violating labor discipline; because of this laborers and office workers, who have worked long and honorably in one establishment, are entirely deprived of necessary living-space.

In distribution of trips to rest homes and sanatoriums, flitters and truants enjoy the same rights as honestly working laborers and office-workers. In the same way, both in payment of insurance awards for temporary infirmity, and in the awarding of pensions, the necessary sharp distinction is not made between conscientious workers with long uninterrupted terms of service in a given factory or institution, and violators of labor discipline -- flitters, running from some factories and institutions to others.

Some trade-union, managerial, and even judicial organs show an inadmissible, antisocial, complaisance toward violators of labor discipline and even connive with them -- against the interests of the people and the state, -- often deciding questions about reinstatement at work, about payment of insurance for temporary inability to work, about eviction from factory apartments, etc. in favor of flitters and truants.

All this leads to a situation, where dishonorable workers, laboring little, can live at the expense of the state, at the expense of the people. This evokes just protests from the majority of laborers and office workers. It demands the introduction of various changes in current rules of internal labor administration and in the norms of social insurance, so that in the future there will no longer be the same treatment for conscientious workers as for loafers and flitters; so that encouragement will be offered only to honestly working laborers and office workers, and not to those who subvert labor discipline and skip easily from one establishment to another.

Major abuses are found also in the practice of using leave for pregnancy and birth. It often happens that some women, seeking by deceitful means to live at the expense of the state, go to work in factories or institutions soon before giving birth only in order to receive the 4-month paid leave, and never return to work. The interests of the state demand an immediate end to this abuse..

The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions -- resolve:

1. To require the administration of factories and institutions, together with trade-union organs, to carry out a decisive struggle with all violators of labor discipline and rules of internal labor regulation, with truants, loafers, grabbers, -- with all, who behave dishonorably toward their work responsibilities, whether they be laborers or office workers.
The law demands the firing of laborers or office workers for an absence without valid reason. This measure is directed against parasites, who do not want to work, but strive to live at the expense of the state, at the expense of the people. The demand of the law for firing of truants must be met without fail.

Law established, and the working class adopted, the eight-hour work day, the seven-hour work day and the six-hour work day for various factories and institutions, according to the conditions of work. The state demands -- and the working class supports that demand -- that the established law for the length of the working day be observed precisely and without any violations, that where an eight-hour, seven-hour, or six-hour day is fixed, work takes place, as set by law, for the full eight, seven, or six hours. Lateness to work, early departure to meals, delayed return from meals, early departure from the work place, and likewise idling during work time -- all this is the crudest violation of labor discipline, bringing with it the undermining of the economic and defense power of the country, and of the welfare of the people.

A laborer or office worker, being absent from work without valid reason, or leaving too soon for meals, or delaying return from meals, or leaving the work place too soon, or idling during work time, shall be subject to punishment by the administration: a notation or reprimand, or reprimand with a warning about firing; transfer to other, lower paid work for a term of three months, or transfer to a lesser position.

A laborer or office worker, having three such absences in the period of one month, or four violations in a two-month period, shall be fired as a truant, as a violator of labor law and labor discipline.

2. To establish, that for refusal to carry out measures to strengthen labor discipline and failure to adopt measures against truants, flitters, and sloppy workers, in accordance with this Resolution, and the Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR from 15 November 1932 «On Firing for Absenteeism without Valid Reasons» (Coll. Laws of the USSR, 1932, No. 78, art. 475) -- leaders of enterprises, institutions, shops, and sections shall be held accountable by the above-mentioned organs, even to removal from their post and prosecution.

3. Laborers and office workers, seeking discharge at their own request, are obliged to give one month's notice to the administration of the enterprise or institution.

4. In case of firing a laborer or office worker without sufficient cause, the payment for involuntary absence will be made at the level of average wages, but for no more than 20 days. At that point the administration of enterprises and institutions, factory leadership committees, local committees, and accounting-conflict commissions are obliged to review a complaint for unjust discharge within 3 days of the day of submission of the complaint, or, for judicial organs, 5 days.

5. Laborers and office workers, who are members of trade unions, will be paid allowances for temporary inability to work (apart from allowances for pregnancy and childbirth) according to the following rates -- depending on the uninterrupted term of service in a given enterprise or institution:

uninterrupted term of service	% of wages
more than 6 years	100
from 3 to 6 years	80
from 2 to 3 years	60
up to 2 years	50

[...]

[Editor's note -- I have not yet completed transcribing this resolution, and may not bother. The remaining points are, mostly, detailed descriptions of new restrictions on social benefits, like points 4 and 5 given above.]

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