Right to Saturday: We haven't earned a second day off, but we have it. History of changes in the working week in Russia

On October 29 (November 11), 1917, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) in Russia, an 8-hour working day was established (instead of 9-10 hourly, as was previously the case) and a 48-hour working week with six working days and one day off was introduced during the day. In jobs that were particularly hazardous to health, reduced working hours were provided. On December 9, 1918, the Labor Code of the RSFSR was adopted, which consolidated these provisions.
From January 2, 1929 to October 1, 1933, in accordance with the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, a gradual transition to a 7-hour working day was carried out. The working week was 42 hours.
On August 26, 1929, the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the transition to continuous production in enterprises and institutions of the USSR" introduced a new time calendar, in which the week consisted of five days: four working days of 7 hours each, the fifth was a day off.
In November 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution in which it allowed the People's Commissariats and other institutions to switch to a six-day calendar week, in which the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of each month, as well as March 1st, were non-working.
On June 27, 1940, the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR came into force on the transition to an 8-hour working day with a “regular” working week according to the Gregorian calendar (6 working days, Sunday is a day off). The working week was 48 hours.
On June 26, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree “On the working hours of workers and employees in wartime,” in accordance with which mandatory overtime work from 1 to 3 hours a day was introduced and vacations were canceled. These wartime measures were canceled by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on June 30, 1945.
At the end of the post-war recovery period in 1956-1960. The working day in the USSR was gradually (by sector of the national economy) again reduced to 7 hours with a six-day working week (Sunday is a day off), and the working week to 42 hours.
At the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (March 29 - April 8, 1966), it was decided to switch to a five-day work week with two days off (Saturday and Sunday). In March 1967, a series of decrees and resolutions of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Central Committee of the CPSU introduced a standard “five-day week” with an 8-hour working day in the USSR. In general education schools, higher and secondary specialized educational institutions, a six-day working week with a 7-hour working day has been preserved. Thus, the working week did not exceed 42 hours.
On December 9, 1971, the Supreme Council of the RSFSR adopted a new Labor Code (LLC), according to which working hours could not exceed 41 hours. The USSR Constitution (Article 41), adopted on October 7, 1977, legitimized this norm.
In Russia, the law of April 19, 1991 “On increasing social guarantees for workers” reduced working hours to 40 hours per week. On September 25, 1992, this norm was enshrined in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. The working week still exists in this form in Russia.

...Probably we should start with the fact that this year it opens today Maslenitsa!.. And at the same time ask: isn’t it time to make this glorious week truly festive - that is, a day off?.. No?.. Then let’s go to the past...

…March 7, 321 Constantine the Great ordered that Sunday be considered a day off - as we remember, it was this emperor who legalized Christianity eight years earlier... As if these events were connected - but in fact, the edict gave rise to some confusion, about which nine centuries later Thomas Aquinas will say this: “ In the new law, the observance of the Lord’s Day took the place of the observance of the Sabbath, not according to the commandment, but according to church institution and custom accepted among Christians”... One way or another - according to modern European standards, Sunday is considered the last day of the week; and in Israel, the USA and Canada - on the contrary, the first. Also, according to the observations of scientists, in a month that begins on Sunday, it always happens Friday the 13th...

...It must be said that the religiously tolerant Constantine was consistent - and did not introduce any bans on labor activity, limiting himself to the closure of markets and public places on Sunday. (By the way, the Romans once had an eight-day week - for unclear reasons they borrowed the “seven-day week” from the conquered eastern peoples). Thus, initially the day off applied exclusively to the civil service - therefore the event went relatively unnoticed...

...And it remained so for many centuries - despite various restrictions of a “local nature” ... even in the harsh Victorian England of the late 19th century, it seemed to be prohibited to work on this day - but with a number of exceptions. Russian "Craft Charter" Around the same time it also says: “...there are six craft days in a week; on Sunday and the days of the twelve holidays, artisans should not work unless necessary.” However, Sunday will become our official day off only in 1897! (At the same time, an 11.5-hour working day will be legalized... however, in those harsh times this was a big relief).

The law on days off took root in Rus' long and hard... but in the villages - for obvious reasons! - and nothing at all. (Perhaps because of the name; in other Slavic languages ​​this day is simply called "week"- that is, you can do nothing... why our hardworking people nicknamed the entire seven-day period like that is a mystery! As you know, in most Germanic languages ​​Sunday is called "day of the sun")

The uncompromising Bolsheviks initially wanted to get rid of Sunday... In 1930 they introduced four-day with a fifth day off - and you could choose it yourself; a year later - the same six days Finally, in 1940, they gave up on the experiments and returned Sunday with a seven-day week to its rightful place. And twenty-seven years later they became generous and added Saturday to the weekend...

...By coincidence, this happened precisely on March 7 - in 1967, a resolution was issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions “On the transfer of workers and employees of enterprises, institutions and organizations to a five-day work week with two days off.” Thus, more than a millennium and a half later, the edict of Emperor Constantine was significantly supplemented...

PS: These days, the respectable public is increasingly working as it will - but, in fairness, the majority still have warm feelings for Sunday... However, this is a completely different story.

Which of the readers heard from their ancestors (and did not read in a book) that before 1940 there was a six-day working day with fixed days of rest falling on different days of the seven-day week? Few people. But in 1940 everyone knew this. This article is about something that everyone has forgotten: the regulation of working time in the USSR...

Under the damned tsarism

The tsarist regulation of working time applied, with some exceptions, only to industrial workers (and then so-called qualified ones, that is, with the exception of the smallest enterprises) and miners.

The working day was limited to 11.5 hours, a standard seven-day working week was assumed with one day of rest on Sunday, while before Sundays and holidays a 10-hour working day was provided (the so-called eve days).

There were 13 holidays falling on any day of the week, in addition, 4 more holidays always fell on weekdays. Paid leave was not provided. Thus, in an average non-leap year there were 52.14 Sundays, 4 holidays that always fell on weekdays, and another 11.14 holidays that did not fall on Sunday, for a total of 297.7 working days in the year.

Of these, 52.14 were Saturdays, and another 7.42 were created by mobile holidays that did not stick to Sunday. In total, 59.6 working days were short, and 238.1 were long, which gives us 3334 standard working hours per year.

In fact, no one in industry agreed to work so much anymore, and the factory owners understood that people would work more efficiently if they were given more time to rest.

On average, at the beginning of the First World War, factories worked 275–279 days a year, 10–10.5 hours (different studies gave different results), which gives us approximately 2750 — 2930 hours per year.

Provisional government. Early Soviet power: war communism and NEP

Since May 1917, the Provisional Government fell into the hands of the socialists, who had been promising the working people an eight-hour shift for decades. The Socialists did not change their course, that is, they continued to promise an eight-hour meeting in an uncertain future, which (for the Provisional Government and the Socialist Revolutionaries) never came.

All this mattered little, because the industry was collapsing, and the workers became insolent and did not listen to their superiors; by the end of the summer of 1917, in fact, no one worked more than 5–6 hours a day (well, the output was the same as if they worked 3–4 hours).

Already on October 29, 1917, the Bolsheviks fulfilled one of the main points of their pre-revolutionary program - by a special decree they proclaimed an eight-hour working day, that is, it turned out to be a seven-day week with one day off and an eight-hour working day. The Labor Code of 1918 further expanded these provisions.

A month's paid leave was introduced; and between the end of the working day on Saturday and the beginning on Monday there should have been 42 hours, which, with one-shift work with a lunch break, gave a five-hour working day on Saturday; Before the holidays, the working day was reduced to 6 hours.

The number of holidays was reduced to 6, all on a fixed date, these were the familiar New Year, May 1 (International Day) and November 7 (Proletarian Revolution Day) and completely unfamiliar ones: January 22 (January 9, 1905 (sic!)), March 12 (day of the overthrow of the autocracy), March 18 (day of the Paris Commune).

Using the calculation method shown above, in an average year, taking into account vacations and shortened days, there were 2112 hours, 37% less than according to the Tsarist Charter on Industry, 25% less than they actually worked in Tsarist Russia. This was a big breakthrough, if not for one unpleasant circumstance: the real industry did not work at all, workers fled from the cities and died of hunger. Against the backdrop of such events, anything could be written in the law, just to please the supporting class a little.

Since the people of that era were still strongly committed to religious holidays, but it was unpleasant for the Bolsheviks to mention this in the law, they were renamed special days of rest, of which there were supposed to be 6 per year. The days were assigned to any dates at the discretion of local authorities; if these days turned out to be religious holidays (which invariably happened in reality), then they were not paid; therefore, we do not include additional holidays in our calculations.

In 1922, industry began to slowly revive, and the Bolsheviks slowly came to their senses. According to the Labor Code of 1922, vacation was reduced to 14 days; If the vacation included holidays, it was not extended. This increased the annual working hours to 2,212 hours per year.
With these norms, quite humane for the era, the country lived through the entire NEP.

In 1927–28, May 1 and November 7 received a second additional day off, reducing the work year to 2,198 hours.

By the way, the Bolsheviks did not stop there and promised the people more. Solemn anniversary "Manifesto to all workers, toiling peasants, Red Army soldiers of the USSR, to the proletarians of all countries and the oppressed peoples of the world" 1927 promised an early transition to a seven-hour working day without reducing wages.

The Great Turnaround and the First Five-Year Plans

In 1929, the Bolsheviks, against the backdrop of the Great Revolution, were seized by a passion for exotic experiments in the sphere of regulation of working time. In the 1929/30 business year, the country began to vigorously transfer to a continuous working week with one floating day off per five-day week and a seven-hour working day (NPD).

It was the strangest timetable reform imaginable. The connection between the seven-day week and the work schedule was completely interrupted. The year was divided into 72 five-day days and 5 permanent holidays (January 22, now called V.I. Lenin Day and January 9, two-day May 1, two-day November 7).

The day of the overthrow of the autocracy and the day of the Paris Commune were canceled and forgotten by the people forever. New Year became a working day, but remained in people's memory. Additional unpaid religious holidays were also permanently abolished.

Not a single day in the five-day week was a general day off; workers were divided into five groups, for each of which one of the five days was a day off in turn. The working day became seven-hour (this was promised earlier, but no one expected that the seven-hour clock would come along with such confusion).

The vacation was recorded as 12 working days, that is, the duration remained the same. The minimum duration of Sunday rest was reduced to 39 hours, i.e. eve days disappeared during single-shift work. All this led to the fact that there were now 276 7-hour working days in the year, giving 1932 working hours per year.

Soviet calendar for 1930. Different days of the five-day week are highlighted in color, but the traditional seven-day weeks and the number of days in months are preserved.

The five-day workday was hated both among the people and in production. If spouses had a day of rest on different days of the five-day week, they could not meet each other on the day off.

In factories, which were accustomed to assigning equipment to certain workers and teams, there were now 5 workers per 4 machines. On the one hand, the efficiency of equipment use theoretically increased, but in practice there was also a loss of responsibility. All this led to the fact that the five-day period did not last long.

Since 1931, the country began to move to a six-day working week with five fixed days of rest per month and a seven-hour working day. The connection between the working week and the seven-day period was still lost. In each month, the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th were designated as days off (which means that some weeks were actually seven-day). The only holidays left were January 22, the two-day May Day and the two-day November.

With a six-day week, there were 288 working days of 7 hours a year, which gave 2016 working hours. The Bolsheviks admitted that the working day had been increased, but vowed to increase wages proportionately (by 4.3%); in practice this did not matter, since prices and wages rose very quickly in that era.

The six-day system was able to somewhat reduce the damned confusion with the timesheet and calendar and more or less (in fact, about half of the workers were transferred to it) took root. Thus, with a rather short nominal working day, the country lived through the first five-year period.

We must, of course, understand that in reality the picture was not so joyful - the assault typical of the era was ensured through continuous and long overtime work, which, instead of being an unpleasant exception, gradually became the norm.

Mature Stalinism

In 1940, the era of relatively liberal labor rights came to an end. The USSR was preparing to conquer Europe. Criminal penalties for lateness, a ban on voluntary dismissal - of course, these measures would look strange without the accompanying increase in workload.

June 26, 1940 transition to a seven-day work week. This call to all workers of the USSR was made at the IX Plenum of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. In addition to the seven-day workday, during the plenum it was also proposed to introduce an eight-hour working day.

Since 1940, a seven-day week with one day off and an eight-hour working day was introduced. There were 6 holidays, and the day of the Stalin Constitution, December 5, was added to the old holidays. The shortened pre-holiday days that accompanied the seven-day week until 1929 did not appear.

Now there are 2,366 working hours in a year, as much as 17% more than before. Unlike previous eras, the authorities did not apologize to the people about this and did not promise anything. With this simple and understandable calendar, which gave a historical maximum (for the USSR) of working time, the country lived until the complete collapse of Stalinism in 1956.

In 1947, against the backdrop of a general return to national tradition, the holiday of January 22 was replaced by the New Year.

Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras

In 1956, Khrushchev, having overcome the resistance of the elites, turned a new page - labor law was again sharply softened. Since 1956, the country has moved to a seven-day working week with one day off and a seven-hour working day; in practice, the transition took 3–4 years, but it was complete.

In addition to the seven-day period, the country received a new relaxation - all pre-weekend and pre-holiday days were shortened by two hours. The holidays remain the same. This led to a sharp reduction in working hours; there were now 1,963 working hours per year, a 17% decrease. In 1966, the familiar March 8 and May 9 were added to the holidays, which reduced the working year to 1950 hours, that is, almost to the times of the half-forgotten five-day week.

And finally, in 1967, already under Brezhnev, the most fundamental of the reforms took place, which gave the form of the work schedule familiar to all of us today: a seven-day work week with two days off and an eight-hour working day was introduced.

Although the workweek had 5 working days of 8 hours, its duration was 41 hours. This extra hour added up and formed 6-7 black (that is, working) Saturdays hated by the people over the course of a year; Which days they fell on was decided by departments and local authorities.

The length of the working year increased slightly and now amounted to 2008 hours. But people still liked the reform; two days off were much better than one.

In 1971, a new Labor Code was adopted, which contained one pleasant innovation: vacation was increased to 15 working days. There were now 1,968 working hours per year. With this labor law, the Soviet Union reached its collapse.

For reference: today, thanks to the reduction of the working week to 40 hours, the increase in vacation to 20 working days, and holidays to 14 days, which always fall on non-weekends, we work 1819 hours in an average non-leap year.

link

I’ll start another debunking of liberal myths.

Today we will talk about the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated June 26, 1940 “On the transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and on the prohibition of unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions”

Today this decree is presented as follows:

Volodya Rezun-Suvorov curses him louder than anyone else. “The labor legislation of 1940 was so perfect that during the war it did not have to be adjusted or supplemented.
And the working day became fuller and wider: a nine-hour day imperceptibly turned into a ten-hour day, then into an eleven-hour day. And they allowed overtime work: if you want to earn extra money, stay in the evening. The government prints money, distributes it to people who work overtime, and then pumps this money back out of the population through defense loans. And people again lack money. Then the government meets the people halfway: you can work seven days a week. For fans. Then, however, this was introduced for everyone - to work seven days a week." ("Day M" http://tapirr.narod.ru/texts/history/suvorov/denm.htm)

"The weekend was cancelled.
In June 1940, an appeal to workers appeared in the Soviet press calling on them to switch to a seven-day working week. Of course, this was a “initiative from below”, signed by hundreds of representatives of class-conscious progressive workers and progressive intelligentsia. The rest of the population understood that war was coming. It should be noted that since the early 1930s, the Soviet Union had a six-day working week with a seven-hour working day. In other countries they worked longer - with a six-day workday, workers worked 9-11 hours a day. On June 26, 1940, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, an eight-hour working day, a seven-day working week and criminal liability for being late for work by more than 21 minutes were introduced. Dismissal at will was prohibited. For workers and employees, criminal penalties were established for violation of labor discipline. For being late for work you could get five years in the camps, for arguing with your superiors you could get a year, and for marriage you could get up to ten years in a strict regime regime. In 1940, it was very easy to be late for work in Moscow - there was not enough public transport, commuter trains and buses physically could not accommodate all passengers, especially during rush hour. People hung in clusters on the external handrails, which sometimes broke off while moving and passengers flew under the wheels. Sometimes real tragedies occurred when people who were hopelessly late threw themselves under the transport. The seven-day period was abolished in 1946, and criminal liability for being late was abolished in 1956." (Finance magazine." http://www.finansmag.ru/64351)

"...in 1940, the USSR abolished days off at enterprises"("From victory to defeat - one step" http://www.ruska-pravda.com/index.php/200906233017/stat-i/monitoring-smi/2009-06-23-05-54-19/pechat .html)

Home-grown fighters against Stalinism are not far behind
“A six-day week is 6 working days out of 7 with one day off, a 7-day week is NO days off!”("To the Stalinists: Decree prohibiting the unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions" http://makhk.livejournal.com/211239.html?thread=2970407)

Well, okay, enough examples, now I’ll explain.
The peculiarity of the Soviet calendar of the 30s was that there was a six-day week (the so-called shestidnevka) with a fixed day of rest falling on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of each month (March 1 was used instead of February 30, every 31st considered as an additional working day). Traces of this are visible, for example, in the credits of the film “Volga-Volga” (“the first day of the six-day period,” “the second day of the six-day period,” and so on).

The return to the seven-day week occurred on June 26, 1940 in accordance with the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and on the prohibition of unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions.”
And the Decree sounded like this:

1. Increase the working hours of workers and employees in all state, cooperative and public enterprises and institutions:
from seven to eight o'clock - in enterprises with a seven-hour working day;
from six to seven o'clock - at jobs with a six-hour working day, with the exception of professions with hazardous working conditions, according to lists approved by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR;
from six to eight o'clock - for employees of institutions;
from six to eight o'clock - for persons over 16 years of age.
2. Transfer work in all state, cooperative and public enterprises and institutions from a six-day week to a seven-day week, counting seventh day of the week - Sunday - day of rest. http://www.gumer.info/bibliotek_Buks/History/Article/perehod8.php

So, the transition from a six- to seven-day calendar is now actively used by anti-Sovietists as a crime of Stalinism and the enslavement of workers.

As always, we draw our own conclusions

The request to submit an amendment to the labor market committee of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) regarding a 60-hour work week came not from employers, but from work teams, said businessman Mikhail Prokhorov, who heads the committee, in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

In most cases, a person's work is measured by working hours. Labor legislation most often uses units of measurement such as a working day (shift) and a working week.

A further reduction in working hours was provided for by the RSFSR Law of April 19, 1991 “On increasing social guarantees for workers.” In accordance with this law, employees' working hours cannot exceed 40 hours per week.

The duration of daily work is 8 hours, 8 hours 12 minutes or 8 hours 15 minutes, and for work with hazardous working conditions - 7 hours, 7 hours 12 minutes or 7 hours 15 minutes.

In April 2010, Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov proposed changing labor legislation and introducing a 60-hour work week instead of a 40-hour one. In November 2010, the RUIE board of directors approved amendments to the Labor Code, which met fierce resistance from trade unions. However, later the document was to be sent for consideration to a Russian tripartite commission with the participation of employers, trade unions and the government.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources