Informal Practices of Workers at the Industrial Enterprises of the Altai Territory in the 1940s — the First Half of the 1950s as an Indicator of the Effectiveness of the Soviet System of Work Incentives

Abstract

Using the microhistorical approach, the article examines informal social practices of workers in the 1940s — the first half of the 1950s at the following three industrial enterprises: Barnaul Railway Car Plant, Barnaul transport engineering plant («Transmash») and Altai Tractor Plant. Two groups of practices were identified: 1) actions related to discipline violations, allowing adapting to difficult working conditions and reducing its tension; 2) practices aimed at obtaining additional income. Some of them indicate dissatisfaction with working conditions of work, low efficiency of methods to form discipline and inefficiency of incentives for intensive labour. A position of factory managers loyal to various violations made it possible to achieve the fulfillment of production tasks in the circumstances of high labour turnover and production irregularity but led to the establishment of informal practices in the workers’ labor behavior. The studied system of labor relations testifies to the discrepancy of labor incentives to the conditions of the functioning of enterprises.

DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2018)2-11