SOCIAL DIVISION OF LABOR, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS, AND PROBLEMS OF OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY OF THE WORKFORCE

K. N. Chigoryaev

The classics of Marxism-Leninism scientifically substantiated the proposition concerning the all-round mobility of workers as a consequence and condition of technical progress on the basis of large-scale machine production. The mobility of workers is derived by Marx from the close connection between technical progress, the division of labor, and the reproduction of labor power (its structure). The expression of this connection, its real mode of existence, is the all-round mobility of the workforce.

The social division of labor is a complex socio-economic category which, in its material aspect, appears as the structure of the productive forces (the organic mode of their development), the form of social production. The principal tendencies in the development of the social division of labor are directly conditioned by technical progress, by changes in the means and objects of labor, in technology, and in the cultural and technical level of working people. At the same time, the social division of labor, in its social aspect, is under the determining influence of property relations. Therefore the division of labor and its change are always connected with the position of social groups in society and with their interests. The development of the social division of labor is therefore not a simple process reflecting shifts in the development of the productive forces.

Being an independent category and experiencing the influence of property relations, the social division of labor possesses a tendency toward the reproduction of its old quality, toward a certain stability. It receives impulses for its development both from the productive forces, above all, and from the dominant property relations, which can either accelerate or hinder the development of the division of labor. Changes in the division of labor begin in the immediate process of production, more precisely, in the immediate process of forming the product, where the foundations of the occupational division of labor are laid.

Within the system of the social division of labor, the occupational division occupies a special place. This form most directly reflects all changes in the technique and technology of production, being the most dynamic element of the given system. The occupational division of labor is connected with the specialization of the producers themselves, with the assignment to them of labor functions of a definite quality and complexity, and finds expression in the concrete occupational-qualification structure of personnel.

The occupational-and-skill structure of the workforce must be adequate to the structure of the material factors of production—this is a condition for the high efficiency of social production. This adequacy is ensured, on the one hand, by a certain stability of its elements and, on the other, by occupational and skill mobility. The connection between technological progress and the division of labor finds expression in the all-round mobility of personnel and, first of all, in their occupational and skill movement.

Occupational-and-skill mobility, considered in relation to individual labor power, means a change in the occupational profile and level of skill over the course of a worker’s labor activity. Individual mobility sums up processes based not only on socioeconomic but also on personal causes; therefore it can be studied by the methods of economic-sociological research. At the same time, occupational-and-skill mobility is also interpreted in relation to the aggregate worker. In this case its internal content is the change in the ratio of different occupational functions represented by the corresponding groups of workers. In the mobility of the aggregate worker, personal reasons for changes in labor do not appear. It is based on economic causes, on the changing needs of production. Therefore, the study of occupational mobility as applied to the aggregate worker can be carried out by methods of economic-statistical research into the occupational-and-skill structure of workers and its dynamics, which are most fully reflected in censuses of the occupational composition of the workforce. Such a method makes it possible to capture mobility trends over comparatively short periods of time, trends conditioned by technical and economic causes.

The dynamism of modern production includes the dynamism of the workforce; therefore the mobility of workers is today becoming an increasingly essential condition for the efficiency of social production. There are several reasons for this.

First, the scientific and technological revolution, within the lifetime of a single generation, eliminates a significant part of old occupations and creates a mass of new ones. One generation of workers, during the course of its working life, changes its occupational profile.

Second, structural shifts in the country’s economy bring about a fundamentally new combination of the occupational and skill structure of workers, requiring retraining and redistribution of personnel.

Third, the shortage of personnel, increasingly aggravated in connection with the decline in the birth rate, requires the release and redistribution of workers among regions and branches in order to provide all branches with personnel.

Fourth, the steady rise in the cost of a single job (seven times higher than a worker’s annual wage—7–8 thousand rubles) makes the question of the correspondence of the occupational structure to the structure of jobs a most important condition for the efficient use of the productive apparatus of socialist production.

The significance of all-round mobility is increased when its social aspects are taken into account (the question of the all-round development of the individual) and when the human factor in social progress grows.

Under conditions of rapid technological progress and fundamental structural shifts in the economy, occupational-and-skill mobility acquires ever greater importance. The diversity of forms and directions of technological progress gives rise to a diversity of forms

of occupational and skill mobility. These include, in particular:

a) an increase in the number and relative weight of occupations and specialties involving mechanized (automated) labor and a corresponding decrease in the number of occupations involving manual, nonmechanized labor;

b) the disappearance of a number of traditional occupations conditioned by the old division of labor, and the emergence of new occupations brought to life by modern directions of technological progress;

c) the growing role of broad-profile occupations and an increase in their relative weight in the occupational composition of workers;

d) growth in the number of workers engaged in setting up, repairing, and servicing machines and equipment;

e) a weakening of the attachment of occupations to particular branches and an increase in the role of “cross-cutting occupations”;

f) a rise in the average level of complexity of labor and growth in the relative weight of skilled and highly skilled workers;

g) the combining of occupations, specialties, and labor functions on the basis of improved forms of the division and cooperation of labor, etc.

A necessary condition for ensuring occupational and skill mobility is the improvement of the system for training and upgrading the qualifications of personnel. Under socialism, the state system of public education and vocational-technical training acts as the most important social prerequisite for accelerating the mobility of personnel.

The acceleration of technological progress and of the social development of society leads to an increase in the occupational and skill mobility of personnel. This process can be quantitatively determined with the help of the coefficient of occupational turnover and the coefficient of skill growth. Over the last 20 years, the first has increased from 1.5 to 2.6, and the second—from 1.2 to 3.6.

The process of intensifying occupational and skill mobility is characteristic of both socialist and capitalist production based on large-scale machine technology. However, the mechanism, form of realization, and social consequences are different.

Under capitalism, changes in the occupational and skill structure are determined by the goal of capitalist production and are permissible only as a means of increasing its profitability. Occupational and skill mobility develops spontaneously, and its costs are shifted onto the shoulders of the working people. The needs of capitalist enterprises for improving the occupational and skill structure of personnel come into conflict with the old division of labor, which the ruling class strives to perpetuate. In addition, mobility is impeded by the system of education and personnel training, which, by virtue of its class nature, does not create the necessary conditions for the all-round development of the working people’s personalities.

In socialist society, the process of occupational and skill mobility becomes planned and regulated. The improvement of the structure of the labor force affects the interests of definite groups of working people and presupposes influence upon them with the aim of correctly combining social and personal interests in the choice of occupation.

If capitalism is characterized by an antagonism between the economic and social criteria for changing the occupational structure, then in socialist society there are foundations for their internal unity. Under socialism, the goal of production is the fullest possible satisfaction of needs and the all-round development of the members of society. Occupa-

the occupational-qualification structure of personnel, from the point of view of its correspondence to the material factors of production, acts as a means of achieving the goal of socialist production, since it contributes to increasing its efficiency. From the point of view of the correspondence of the occupational-qualification structure to the tasks of the all-round development of the individual, it may be regarded as a goal of social production.

Thus, the optimal occupational-qualification structure of personnel must simultaneously correspond to the criteria of both economic and social progress. Socialism creates fundamentally new socio-economic conditions for accelerating the all-round mobility of personnel. However, the unity of economic and social criteria is contradictory, since technical progress and occupational and qualification shifts are carried out both through centralized state measures and through decentralized decisions by individual enterprises. In this connection, it is possible for the current economic interests of enterprises and the interests of the people as a whole to fail to coincide in questions of occupational and qualification structure. The contradictions are also connected with the fact that, for a long time, social planning did not receive proper development in our country; therefore, a one-sided, exaggeratedly narrow economic approach to the problem of the occupational structure of personnel was observed.

In order to achieve the harmonious unity of economic and social criteria in questions of occupational and qualification structure, it is necessary to proceed not only from the needs of technical progress—which in itself is obvious—but also from the structure itself, which must be optimal from the standpoint of both economic and social criteria.

The implementation of measures accelerating occupational and qualification mobility presupposes the priority of the nationwide socio-economic interests. Only in this case can the current economic interests of the enterprise be properly combined with the profound socio-economic interests of society as a whole. Conscious management of the process of occupational and qualification mobility is built on the basis of knowledge of its regularities, forms, features, and contradictions.

Occupational mobility unfolds in reality on the basis of a concrete occupational-qualification structure. The fullest picture of this structure and of the processes of its change is provided by the materials of occupational censuses periodically conducted by Soviet statistics. The study of occupational-qualification mobility presupposes, as an obligatory condition, analysis of these materials.

Analysis of the mass economic-statistical material made it possible to identify the main tendencies of occupational-qualification mobility. First of all, it should be noted that this process proceeds differentially in the various branches of industry. This is due to the specific features of both the occupational and the qualification division of labor, which are directly determined by the combination of the material elements of production, specific in each branch, and reflect their changes. The state technical policy of preferential development of progressive branches of industry also leads to different rates of occupational mobility in individual branches.

Common to all branches is the absolute and relative growth in the numbers employed in occupations and specialties of mechanized labor and the decline in the share of manual-labor occupations. In this process—

there are contradictions, expressed above all in the fact that the absolute size of the contingents of workers engaged in manual labor is also increasing. Another contradiction of this process is the lag in the growth rates of the mechanization of women’s labor in industry.

The structure of workers employed in operations of the main technological process is characterized by a high proportion of occupations involving mechanized labor. Here occupational mobility, understood from the standpoint of employment in mechanized labor, is most intensive. The slowed rates of occupational mobility in auxiliary production appear to be one of the real contradictions in the improvement of the structure of the labor force.

It is important to take into account that occupational mobility, in its pace and forms, is substantially differentiated among groups of workers employed at different stages of the technological process. The highest level of labor mechanization is observed at the stage of mechanical processing of objects of labor, in operations with a predominance of chemical and physicochemical processes, and also in the production of heat and electric power. Significant reserves of manual, non-mechanized labor exist in the main technological processes—in assembly and installation work; in auxiliary processes—in loading and unloading work, operations for technical quality control of products, construction repair, etc.

The process of skill mobility develops unevenly across branches, economic regions, and enterprises. The reasons for this unevenness lie not only in techno-economic factors, but are to a considerable degree connected with shortcomings in the social planning of the process of skill growth, with elements of spontaneity in the distribution of the labor force, and with the insufficient development of material incentives for retaining qualified personnel in the eastern regions of the country.

Under modern conditions of the development of technical progress, the most important tendency in occupational and skill mobility is the combining of occupations, specialties, and labor functions in the most diverse forms. This direction makes it possible to solve both the economic tasks of increasing labor efficiency and the social tasks of the all-round development of the individual.

An analysis of the occupational-skill mobility of industrial personnel makes it possible to put forward, among others, the following proposals, intended to promote increased production efficiency and the resolution of the most important social problems of socialist labor.

A. In all measures for the mechanization of labor and technical progress in industry, the existing differentiation in the level of mechanization of labor should be taken into account, so as to promote the gradual elimination of differences among branches, economic regions, enterprises, and technological sections in the degree of mechanization of labor.

B. A series of measures is needed to accelerate the mechanization of women’s labor and to prevent the use of women in areas involving heavy manual labor.

C. State-wide measures for improving the structure of the labor force must be supplemented by the efforts of the enterprises themselves in developing and implementing plans for social development aimed at accelerating occupational and skill mobility. It is necessary to strengthen the interest of enterprises in carrying out

of progressive occupational shifts and in the elimination of heavy manual labor.

G. To draw the attention of research and development, design, and engineering organizations to solving the problems of mechanizing the production sectors that lag most in this respect (assembly and installation work, loading and transport operations, technical quality control of products, filling, packaging, warehouse work, and construction repair).

D. Taking into account the substantial gap in the skill level of industrial workers in the western and eastern regions of the country, it is necessary to accelerate the development of the network of vocational and technical education in the regions east of the Urals, and to increase the material interest of workers and engineering and technical personnel in Siberia and the Far East, with the aim of creating permanent qualified cadres in these regions of the country.

E. The acceleration of the objective process of occupational and skill mobility is promoted to a considerable extent by the combining of professions, specialties, and labor functions; the development of multi-machine servicing; the introduction of effective forms of collective work; and the creation of effective economic incentives for combining professions and labor functions.

Occupational and skill mobility, as an expression of the progressive tendencies of modern large-scale machine production, must be considered as an independent indicator of the effective use of living labor. Therefore, it appears rational to develop special coefficients characterizing the rates and level of occupational and skill mobility of workers at enterprises and in branches of industry. The evaluation of the effectiveness of individual forms of vocational and technical training should include, as an independent criterion, the speed of occupational and skill advancement.

The Directives of the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU on the five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1971–1975 set the task of eliminating heavy physical labor in the coming years in all branches of the national economy. This is a kind of social order, the fulfillment of which has been internally prepared by the progress of technology and conditioned by the strengthening of social planning.