All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions

All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions 

(VTsSPS), the body of the trade unions of the USSR which exercises direction over all their activity in the intervals between trade-union congresses of the USSR. The congress elects the members of the council to four-year terms and determines the composition of the council; the council consists of members and candidate members of the VTsSPS. The VTsSPS elected by the 14th congress of trade unions of the USSR (1968) consists of 304 members of VTsSPS and 105 candidate members of VTsSPS. An auditing commission of 55 members is elected. Under the Regulations of Trade Unions of the USSR, plenums of VTsSPS are held at least once every six months. VTsSPS elects the Presidium, which directs the work of trade unions between plenums; it includes the chairman of VTsSPS, its secretaries, and members of the Presidium. VTsSPS elects the Secretariat for current organizational and executive work. VTsSPS determines the priority of tasks of trade unions as a whole and also of those tasks related to particular issues of trade-union work. It takes part in the elaboration of national economic plans, leads socialist competition and the movement for communist labor, and hears the accounts of trade-union committees and councils, as well as the reports of ministries, departments, and state committees with respect to questions of production, labor, and the provision of cultural and domestic facilities for industrial and office workers. It has the right of legislative initiative; that is, it can introduce draft laws and ukases into legislative bodies. In addition, it participates in the preparation and examination of draft resolutions for the Council of Ministers on issues of wages, social insurance, labor protection, and cultural and domestic servicing of the working masses and controls the observance of laws and resolutions on these issues; publishes instructions, regulations, and explanations concerning the application of existing labor legislation; exercises leadership in matters of state social insurance and the provision of sanatoriums and health resorts for the working masses; directs the All-Union Society of Inventors and Rationalizers, scientific-technical societies, and voluntary sports societies of trade unions; is involved in the development of tourism; establishes trade-union schools and courses; confirms the trade-union budget and the budget for state social insurance; and represents Soviet trade unions in the international trade-union movement, joining international trade-union associations in their name. VTsSPS has its own publications—the newspaper Trud and trade-union journals such as Soviet Trade Unions. It has its own publishing house (Profizdat).

V. I. SMOLIARCHUK