861.504/354: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:13 p.m.]
1377. Pravda yesterday published a ukase15 of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet concerning the obligatory transfer to other enterprises of economic personnel of the sixth category or higher which includes skilled workmen, employees, technicians, foremen, engineers, draftsmen, etc. The ukase states that in view of the necessity of [Page 233] assuring qualified personnel for new factories and other economic enterprises and also for enterprises which are transferring their production to new types of products, the existing situation whereby the various Commissariats do not have the right to transfer higher personnel from one factory to another constitutes an obstacle to development of national economy. The ukase accordingly grants to the Commissariats the right to effect the obligatory transfer of the categories of personnel referred to above from one enterprise to another irrespective of the logic of the enterprise. In the cases of such transfers the transportation expenses of persons transferred together with their families and effects, subsistence during the journey, and certain financial assistance in establishing themselves in their new places of work are to be paid for by the Commissariat effecting the transfer.
Persons transferred will retain their uninterrupted period of service and will be credited with 1 year of additional service. Refusal to obey a transfer order will place the individual so refusing within the same category as persons who have voluntarily separated themselves from their employment and will make them subject to criminal action under the terms of the ukase of June 26, 1940 reported in the Embassy’s 761 [760], June 27, 3 p.m.
The ukase cancels, as of Oct. 20, 1940, the individual work contracts which have been concluded by Commissariats and enterprises with the personnel referred to and grants to the Commissariats and directors of [enterprises?] the right to continue the employment of such personnel without contract.
While the ukase of June 26, 1940 forbade voluntary change of employment, the new ukase referred to above takes the more positive step of placing in the hands of the authorities the legal right to compel trained personnel to accept transfers to any enterprise to which it may be desired to send them under penalty of criminal action should they refuse. In addition, the limited degree of protection afforded to personnel by their individual work contracts is withdrawn placing them still more at the mercy of their superiors. The ukase is in line with the steps already taken to tighten further labor discipline and direct state control of labor.
- Dated October 19.↩