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1. Increase the length of the working day for laborers and office-workers in all state cooperative and social enterprises and institutions:
from seven to eight hours -- in enterprises with seven-hour work days,

from six to seven hours -- in jobs with siz-hour work days, except for professions with harmful conditions of work, according to a list confirmed by the SNK of the USSR.

from six to eight hours -- for office workers,

from six to eight hours -- for persons, reaching 16 years of age.

2. Transfer work in all state, cooperative, and social enterprises from a six-day to a seven-day week, considering the seventh day of the week -- Sunday -- a day of rest.

3. Prohibit the self-initiated departure of laborers and office workers from state, cooperative, and social enterprises and institutions, and likewise the self-initiated transfer from one enterprise to another or from one institution to another.

The departure from an enterprise or institution or the transfer from one institution to another can only be authorized by the director of the enterprise or chief of the institution.

4. establish that the director of an enterprise and chief of an institution have the right and obligation to permit a laborer or office-worker to depart from an enterprise or institution under the following conditions:
a) when a laborer or office-worker, according to the conclusion of an employment-medical expert commission, cannot carry out his former work due to illness or infirmity and the administration cannot offer him other appropriate work in the same enterprise or institution, or when a pensioner, assigned a pension for old age, wishes to stop working.

b) when a laborer or office-worker must stop work in connection with his enrollment in a higher or secondary institution of special study.

Leave for female laborers and office-workers for pregnancy and childbirth is preserved in accordance with standing legislation.

5. Establish, that laborers and office-workers, leaving state, cooperative, and social enterprises or institutions without authorization, will be prosecuted and subject by sentence of a people's court to imprisonment of two to four months.
Establish, that for absenteeism without valid reason, laborers and office-workers in state, cooperative, and social enterprises and institutions will be prosecuted and, on sentence of a people's court, punished with corrective labor at their place of employment for a term of six months with deduction of 25% of their pay.

In connection with this, repeal the automatic discharge for absenteeism without valid reason.

Suggest to people's courts that all cases, indicated in this article, should be examined in no more than five days, and sentences in these cases should be carried out quickly.

6. Establish, that the director of an enterprise or chief of an institution, for refusing to turn over for prosecution persons, guilty of self-initiated departure from an enterprise or institution, or persons, guilty of absenteeism without valid reason -- will themselves face prosecution.
Establish likewise, that directors of enterprises and chiefs of institutions, accepting for employment persons hiding from the law, having left enterprises or institutions without authorization, will face criminal prosecution.

7. This decree will come into force from 27 June, 1940.

This law was enforced; supervisors who attempted to cover up for their employees themselves faced prosecution and imprisonment [Paragraph 6].

Comment from the Ideology Dept:

To the petit-bourgeois mentality, this law might suggest that Comrade Stalin was anti-labor. Nothing could be further from the truth. The difference between the Soviet Union and capitalist societies is that Soviet workers are building their own future, while Western workers are exploited for the advantage of greedy capitalists. As testimony from trade unions reveals, Soviet workers themselves were fed up at the frustration of their efforts by slackers, parasites, and self-seekers. They were grateful for this evidence that the Soviet Government took their concerns seriously.

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