Trade unions in the Soviet Union

Part of a series on
Organized labor
Labor movement Conflict theories Decent work Exploitation of labor Timeline New unionism Proletariat Social movement unionism Social democracy Democratic socialism Socialism Communism Syndicalism Union busting Anarcho-syndicalism National-syndicalism
Labor rights Annual leave Child labor Collective bargaining Diversity, equity, and inclusion Eight-hour day Employment discrimination Employment protection Equal pay Four-day week Freedom of association Legal working age Minimum wage Occupational safety and health Overwork Paid time off Professional abuse Right to rest and leisure Right to sit Sabbatical Sick leave Six-hour day Toxic workplace Unfree labor Workers' right to access the toilet
Trade unions Trade unions by country Trade union federations International comparisons ITUC WFTU
Strike action Chronological list of strikes Hartal General strike Bandh newspapers Green bans Lockouts Overtime bans Pen-down strikes Sitdown strikes Solidarity action Walkouts Whipsaw strikes Wildcat strikes Work-to-rule
Labor parties Australia Barbados Brazil Fiji Georgia Hong Kong Ireland Israel Malta New Caledonia New Zealand Netherlands Norway Portugal Singapore South Korea United Kingdom Sweden
Academic disciplines Critique of work Industrial relations Labor economics Labor history Labor law Post-work society Refusal of work
v t e

Trade unions in the Soviet Union, headed by the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS or ACCTU in English), had a complex relationship with industrial management, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet government, given that the Soviet Union was ideologically supposed to be a state in which the members of the working class both ruled the country and managed themselves.

During the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War that immediately followed, there were several ideas about how to organize and manage industries, and many people thought that the trade unions would be the vehicle of workers' control of industries. By the Stalinist era of the 1930s, it was clear that the party and government were dominant and that the trade unions were not permitted to challenge them in any substantial way.^[1] In the decades after Stalin, the worst of the powerlessness of the unions was past, but Soviet trade unions remained something closer to company unions, answering to the party and government, than to truly independent organizations.^[2] They did, however, challenge aspects of mismanagement more successfully than they had under Stalin, and they played important parts in the fabric of daily life, such as using a sports club, obtaining theatre tickets, booking vacation stays, and more.^[3]

By the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the trade union system consisted of thirty unions organized by occupational branch. Including about 732,000 locals and 135 million members in 1984, unions encompassed almost all Soviet employees with the exception of some 4 to 5 million kolkhozniks, all of which were independent from the government. The All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions served as an umbrella organization for the thirty branch unions and was by far the largest public organization in the Soviet Union.