Local Factory Committee

(in Russian, fabrichnyi, zavodskoi, mestnyi komitet; FZMK), in the USSR, the executive body of a local trade union organization. Local factory committees are elected for one year by secret ballot at general meetings (conferences) of those trade union organizations that have at least 15 members. The local factory committees of large local organizations may, with the permission of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, be granted the rights of a raion trade union committee; such rights can also be granted, in necessary instances, to local organizations that are territorially dispersed or have certain peculiarities of production. The functions and rights of the local factory committees are defined by the Regulations of the Trade Unions of the USSR, by the charters of the branch trade unions, and by legislation of the USSR and the Union republics, such as the 1971 Statute on the Rights of Local Factory Committees and article 230 of the Labor Code of the RSFSR.

Local factory committees represent the interests of industrial and office workers in the areas of production, labor, daily life, and culture. In conjunction with the management of factories and plants, they organize socialist competition, award Red Banners and Certificates of Merit to leading brigades, divisions, and shops, decide which workers are to be entered in the book of honor and on the honor roll, distribute material incentive funds and the funds for sociocultural projects and housing construction, and determine the value of prizes and other types of incentives and the amounts of financial aid and of rewards for yearly work results. The committees monitor the factory management’s implementation of labor legislation and the rules and norms relating to safety and sanitation, and they help solve problems of labor and wages, which, in accordance with the law, are to be handled by the factory management in conjunction with or with the concurrence of the local factory committees; for example, the committees have the power to establish systems of payment for piecework and timework and to set up working categories.

The local factory committees examine complaints against the factory management regarding reimbursement for losses incurred because of injuries sustained on the job or because of other work-related health hazards. They also examine labor disputes upon receipt of complaints from industrial and office workers. In addition, they implement and allocate social insurance, pay for industrial and office workers’ stays at sanatoriums, prophylactic centers, and houses of rest, and provide funds to enable children to attend Pioneer camps. Together with the factory management they prepare the necessary documents for granting pensions to industrial and office workers and their families. In accordance with an established procedure, the committees also allocate living quarters in buildings belonging to enterprises or organizations.