The Soviet style of social security

Media

Part of Socialism today

Title
The Soviet style of social security
Language
English
Source
Socialism today August 1936
Year
1936
Rights
In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Fulltext
Page 4 SOCIALISM TODAY August"··193~ . . -.. THE SOVIET. STYLE OF SOCIAL ·sEcu:RITY being. and consequ~ntly. the health ,of tl!l!! workers. These iµe·asures:.may be called preventative ones, decreasing 'as they. do the chimees· of persons becoming incapacitated. · · · · · · By JILL MARTIN What is the f~rm' of all these provisions? · F EAR of what the future may bring, a feeling of financial insecurity, are familiar spectres in the lives of wage-earners. In the Soviet Union, ho;,.,ever, these spectres have disappeared. This year, eight billion rubles are td be spent on Soviet social insu'rance, represet~ng an increase of more than 19 per cent as compared with 1935. To get the true picture of the growth of social security in the Soviet Union however, this eight billion budget must be compared with those of earlier years. Ten' years ago only 923 million rubles were spent on social insurance. Even at the beginning of the first Five Year Plan, the figure was only a little over one billion rubles or not quite a seventh of what it will be this year. The USSR is growing continually tnore prosperous, and as its .;,ealth increases so do. the funds which secure the well-being of the workers who are making this prosperity possible. The basic principles of social insurance as it should be in a workers' Sta~e were laid down by Lenin in 1912, and as soon as the Bolsheviks came to power, one of the first decrees they passed incorporated these basic principles into the law of the land. At first the laws could be but little carried out. Soviet Russia was torn by civil war, blockaded by its en~mies, foreign troops were invading the country, famine and disease were prevalent and industry was at a standstill. In 1912, however, began the period of rebuilding, and from that time on the progres "f the country has been steady. That this progress should include continued strengthening of the security of the workers was inevitable, as the country is a Socialist State, the sole aim of which is the well-being of the masses making up its population. Since 1933, the management of the social insurance system has been in charge of the trade unions. Even before that time when the Commissariat of ·Labor was in charge, the ,;rrade Unions had always shared in the management. In 1933, however, the Commissariat was abolished and its province of work. was given over to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. The most direct representatives of the workers-the trade unions --collect the social insurance funds, administer the spending of them, direct and carry out the elaborate system by which the Soviet worker is safeguarded against· all hazards. Eight billion rubles~ Where do thes@ funds come frO(n? They come from all employers of _labor, whether such employer be a private individual or the State. Every p'erson, every factory, · every institution whieh employs labor, must pay dues to the trade union of its , respective workers. In other words the· wage-earner, the person who is being insured, m~kes no contribution to the social insurance fund. The contribution is made entirely ;by the employer. The employer's salary list is used as ·the basfs for computing how large his .insurance dues must be and the percentage used for the computation varies according to the type of work being performed. It is naturally higher for work that entails more chance of accident or injury. to health than for work where there is less risk. In 1934 this percentage was· nearly 13 per cent for ·the Union as a whole. Every person who works for wages is entitled to the benefits of social insurance, whether or not· a member of the trade union. This includes industrial~ professional and domestic workers as well as thos~ agricultural work-~ ers who receive a wage. Workers on state farms or in the tractors stations thus corne under the provisions of. the insurance laws, but the members of collective farms do not. Members of such farms, where there is of course neither employer nor employee, are taken care of by means of mutual aid societies organized by themselves, on a model established by the government. The fundamental idea of social insurance is that those persons who are dependen_t for theil' wellbeing on the wages they receive for" their work, must be insured against all possibilities by which they may be rendered unable to work and thus be deprived of their wage. All wage-earners and members of their families receive free medical. care, either through the doctors attached to .their place of work or through clinic!!· and ambulatoria outside. In 1935, the · amount of money delegated to his medical care from the social insurance funds was one and 'a half billion, more than one-sixth of the whole budget. , . . . . If a person is unable to go to work, either through illness,. accident, quarantine, or through· being obliged to nurse some member_ of his family, that person is classified as temporarily disabled and receives aid from the fir;:;t day: of his absence un1ril such time as he can return to work or is classified as an invalid entitled to a pension. This aid . is ·paid out at the place of employment. Up to. 1931, the size of the aid was the same for eyeryone, namely 100 per cent· of the wages received. In that year, however, this was changed and the proportion now paid out varies· according to the type of work performed, both generally and at a given enterprise; whether the person .is a member of a trade union, i's an udarnik, or a youn~ worker not yet .working full time. People who are not members of trade unions gerierflly receive only 50 per cent of their wages. for the first month· of absence from work and two~ third·s for the remaining time. On· the other hand, undarniki who have' worked n,p.t less than one yea~; no matter whether' in one enterprise or not, receive 100 per cent of their wages from the very first day. In other words, social insurance is used as an inceriti\re for the performance of work that will be most productive. The best workers, those who stick by their jobs and do Q.ot c&ntribute to labor-turnover,, those who .are· members of tracl~ unions, those who do the kind of. work most necessary for the building of socialism, are given preferential treatment. For all such possibilities Soviet social In cases ·of pregnancy, all women. eminsurance makes provision--except for ployees not only receive aid.for temporaunemployment. Unemployment. insurance ry absence from work, but are in fact, was disco~inued in 19.30 as. it was no expected to absent themselvet! fo'l'. a g~ven longer needed. Since that time, indeed, period before and after the birth of their the problem in the Soviet Union has been. · child. The. fotai period varies.. from , to find enough workers for the necessary twelve to sixteen weeks depending on the jobs rather than to find enough work for physical strain of. the work tha_t 'the ~o" its population. · man is performing. Most important· of Social insurance in the USSR also ~l, the job i~ ·guaranteed to ·t~e .wcimim. gives help in meeting the expense of on her return to work. ·All w,omen work· events which make heavy inroads into ers and all wives Of wage~earnei-s aie· a wage-earner's budget, such as birth, also given a supplementary. b!medt _OR' illness and death. It, moreover, spends the birth of the ·cihld to pelp pay for the a large proportion of its funds on mea- layette· and payments are made after sures calcul8te,I to improve ·the well- ( Ctlntinimt on p~ge 6) · Page 8 The· Communist Manifesto._. (Continued from page 7) into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. Hitherto every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, contin.ue its slavish existence. 'The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He bec.9mes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose . its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule, because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage labor rests exclusive-. ly on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labarers, due to competition, by their involuntary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very .foundation on which the bourgeoisie prdduces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. II. Proletarians and Communists -In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other workingclass parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as -a whole. They do not set up any sectarian· prin-. ciples· of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian inovement. The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by SOCIALISM TODAY The Soviet Style .. (Continued- from pai;e &) has been. done· and on the le~gt~- of time the person has worked. Preference is. given to those who -have been ihcapacitated as a result of occupational accident or di.sease. Such persons if they are completely incapacitated receive 100 per cent of their former wage, no matter how short' or how long a,, time they have been working. Should the degree of a person's dtsability change, he Is transferred to a different invalid group and the pension is adjusted accordingly. , Old age pensions as such· 011ly began to be paid in 1928. Before ~hat time,_ people who were incapacitated by old age were taken care of under the laws for general invalidism. In 1928, however, the payment of pension upon reaching a definite age was. established for certain groups of wage-earners, and since then it has b'een extended until it covers all the main groups of workers. Those who work underground or i~ other hazardous kinds of work are eligible for pension at the age of fifty if they have worked for ' a period of twenty years. In other branches of labor, men are eligible at sixty after . having worked tw~ty-five years, and women at fifty-five after twenty years of work. The size of pension varies from 50 to 65 per cent of the average wage for the last twelve months of employment, depending on the type of work that has been performed. Dependents of. insured persons who h-ave died or whose 'whereabouts ·is unknown also receive a pension. It must be noted that in the Soviet Union rent varies with the wages_ received, so that a person receiving a pension smaller than his previous wage would pay less rent .. Als!J when the ~ost._ of b~ead went up in 1935 at the time of discarding ration cards, ·pensions; were likewise raised. Moreciver p~rsons· receiving pensions are encoura~ed ta work in addition' ·to their pension, llnless the sum of the two exceed the -former wage. In that case the pension is qecreased. All these pensions and aids are vitally important, for it is by them that So- . viet social insurance protects the worker. Nagging fear of the future is removed. this only: 1. In the national struggles . of the proletarians of the different coun., tries, they point out and bring to the · front the common interests of the entire, proletari~t, independently of. all na~ tionality. 2. In the various stages-- ot deyelopment which . the struggle of the working class against the 1?<>u1·gepisie 'has to fass thri;iugh, they always and everywhere represent the interests· of . , the movem~t as a .. \Vhole. . (Tn, be continued) Augl.lSt, ; 1~36 :Jbe-~ New- Giants ., . . ···(co!'-tmued from. .wo~· :6) - • very ·efficiently; according to Raizer, · wP.o explained that while the largest furnaces of -the Makeyevka Pll'nt, each ·with . a 'volume .of .930 cu. m., are smelting one :ton of pig. iron· per 0.80 cu. m. of usec .ful volume of furnace (on the best. da~s achieving a coefficient cif 0.77), the new blast furnaces should proP.uce a ton of metal per 0.75 ~nd even 0.70 cu .. m. Though the_best technical achievements of other Sov,iet and fo~eign blast fur-· naces will be employed in the new ones, and though thjlir. control will I?e ·entirely automatic, nevertheless, they wll! not cost more to build than th~ Magnitogorsk furnaces. According to plan, each of the new blast furnaces ·should produce 1,300 tons of pig iron a day. With the application - o.f Stakhanov methods, howevE!r, prod,uction from 20 to 30 per cent above plan - is anticipated. The workers are ab'ie to fae,e life without dread as to what will happen to themselves or to their faimly if they fall iii or are injured. ·They do n~t have the constant spectre of doi;tor's bills .nor of funeral costs. A woman does not need to be anxiOUf!, Jest -having a baby· Will cause 'het to loi;;e her job. A. man cr+n work without constant worry as to what 'Will happen to his family if he dies.1AU: this m~ans security. It is an essential part of human happiness, of that joy in life which is becoming so evident in the Soviet Union. Soviet social insurance does not :confine itself, however, me.rely .to taking care of eventualities. It tries to pre-vent them. It contributes large sums to 'Promoting good health among the workers. Money i11 set asil:ie for the buildil)g and support .0£ rest homes and sanitar.i~ms .. Large sums are spent on children's camps,· nurseries and kindergartens, · ·cin ptbviding ~tra food for. school children or milk for babies. There is a special fund for· improving .housing cohditions. All these· contributions, as is the money spent by social insurance on medical care, are !of· couiise additional to w}\at comes froll) the· government budget for such purposes. It· is most. noteworthy. tha,t the proportion of the social :in~ur­ ance budge_t that goe§ to this indjrect aid is il'icrea!!iri.g. . The obj~ct of the Soviet State is t~at the workers therein .. sh1>uld Qe healtpy and happy, free of ahxiety ·about ihe future and so' free -to develop their manifold creative abilities both in their work and. in outside c.ultural and soc~al ai:tivitie$. Sovfe,t ·sor,,i~l · insµrance js one of the paths' toward thio1~oa1, August, 1936 SOCIALISM TODAY Professionals Should Strive Security For Economic By PEDRO ABAD SANTOS Natio1w,l Chairman, P.F.S.U. The most vital problem confronting the professionals today is that of their economic security. It is an obvious fact· tha1;. thousands of professionals are unable to secure a decent living in their respective professions, not because their services are not necessary or they lack ability in their chosen careers, for I have seen topnotchers in bar examinations working in law offices at a salary of 50 pesos a month or even less, and while thousands of men and women and children are dying for want of medical assistance, scores of doctors do not earn enough money to pay for their licenses. Also when millions of children are deprived of even primary education, a legion of teachers are unemployed because of lack of government funds. The same problem confronts the dentist, the pharmacist, the engineer, the writer, the journalist and other professionals. As the professional workers attending the National Congress for Unemployment and Social Insurance recently held in Washington said: "The professional worker's relatively privileged . status is gone. He now knows unemployment, insecurity, hunger, want. More than half the architecets, engineers, chemists, research and laboratory workers in this country have no work. Teachers, nurses, and government employees in general have been let out in increasing numbers. Mu. sicians, artists, dentists, and physicians have suffered a steep decline in income because the great mass of people lack money to buy their services. . . The numbers of all these groups are being constantly augmented by college graduates for whom there is no future under our present system." And they stated the line of action they intended to follow for their security saying: "The professional worker ... has been turning increasingly to the promotion of bread ... groups· whose orientation is frankly economic and which seek security for their members through collective action on specific issues and joint action with other workers' groups on common issues." There is the remedy. We must unite with other workers to improve our common economic condition. So long as wealth is concentrated in the few of the privileged classes, while the great masses of the people, that is, the workers, farm-laborers and all wage-earners, become more and more impoverished, the profession~ al workers cannot have economic security and many will not secure even a decent standard of living. For how can the masses of the people pay for our professional serv' ices if they do not earn even enough for their miserable daily food? If the professionals want to improve their economic condition, they must forsake that old wrong notfon that they belong with the privileged cla~es. !On the contrary, we must be convinced that our interests and economic fate are bound up with those of the working class. By workers, I mean all who function in any part of the productive system, and the cultural, professional, technical and scientific services of society. We should not be condemned to. a wretched life, while the parasites, who exploit the workers live luxuriously f'rom the profits of their capital. , But we cannot secure the~e purposes by currying favor with the governing cliqu~, "upholding and Page 5· defending the Constitution" and "conducting a campaign of civic information among the masses .through public meeting and other means on what the government has done and is doipg for the good of the country," as some would have us do. So, we must attain economic security by uniting with other workers in demanding soci'al insurance, better wages and higher living standard for the working class. There is no other way. As it is now, we the workers are shouldering all the burden of the economic depression and our living st_andard is going from bad to worse, while the propietarios, hacenderos and capitalists enjoy themselves in luxury. The poor get poorer and the rich richer. Let us men and women of the socalled liberal professions shake off our middle class prejudices. and take our place on the side of the workers in the class struggle. Let us organize or, as they say no~, let us have our own racket, ~ut it must be a racket to fight· and end the biggest of all rackets, the capitalist racket. The Soviet Style ... (Continued from page 4) the birth to provide for supplementary feeding. In the case of funerals either of an insured person or of a dependent member of the insured's family, aid is ghren either in the form of _money or by the trade union itself undertaking the funeral and charging the cost to the social insurance fund. • Pensions are paid to persons who are permanently disabled either as the result of professional accident, occupational disease or of causes unrelated to his occupation, and the payment of pensions begins as soon as invalidism is established. There is no lapse of time.between the st6ppage of aid for temporary disability and the beginning of pension payments. The invalids ar~ divided into three groups depending on the extent to which they are disabled. The pension is a percentage of the averagl'! salary for the last twelve months of employment. The percentage is determined according to the group of invalids to ·which the person· ' . belongs; by the cause of invali~ism; an~ in some cases by the. type of work whicn (Continued on page 8)