— 8 —
special „Statement of the rights and duties of Treasury Employees“ approved by the „All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions“ and the People's Commissary for Labour. This Statement is mostly the code of Soviet Labour Laws specially adapted to Treasury Employees' work.
As a result of past experiences the Union now is drafting a scheme for the amalgamation of the Commission on Employment and the Commission on Wages into a single Commission on Labour Conditions and for abolition of the controlling commission, whose functions are to be automatically transferred to the Union's organs and for the transference of functions of arbitration to the Central Council of trade Unions.
⁂
In the general Trade- union movement the Union occupies an independent position. While all the other Unions submit to the Communist Party leadership with the dictations of which they readily and unconditionally comply, our Union takes the position of strict industrialism, for it has in view the essentially non-party character of the movement and places above all the value of a trade-union as such. Our Union's watchword is:
The guiding star of the Trade Union movement is the will-of the Trade Unions themselves, unhampered by any party's interference and pressure.
Owing to the peculiarities of its development, the movement was always under the exclusive influence of political parties—first of Social Democrats (mensheviks) and then of the Communists. All the Congress Decisions are first and, settled at the meetings of Party’s centres discussed and groups and these Party decisions are enforced by way of a strict party discipline.
This political independence of the Union has brought
