The Unions of Ukraine are organized exactly as the unions in Russia and have the same functions, and for that reason a special treatment of this subject at this time is unnecessary. In Ukraine there are a total of 1,173,000 workers organized in the unions. These numbers fall on 13 gouvernements. Of these 280,000 are railroad workers, 162,000 are soviet employees, 134,000 mine workers, 113,000 metal workers, 72,000 workers in the food stuffs industry, 58,000 in the sugar industry, 58,700 telegraph and postal employees, 49,660 agricultural laborers on the soviet estates, 42,135 employees of the hospitals and asylums, 38,000 educational workers (teachers, party agitators, journalists), 31,500 clothing workers, 23,800 chemical and glass workers, 22,900 leather workers, 20,600 building construction workers, 18,800 wood workers, 18,000 tobacco workers, 13,000 textile workers, 11,000 graphical workers and 3,000 paper workers.
Membership in the unions is obligatory for the workers. They elect factory councils. These factory councils elect a soviet in their industry for a whole gouvernement. This gouvernement soviet elects an executive committee consisting of 9-14 men. In this soviet are also the representatives of the Commissariat of labor and of the Supreme Council of National Economy. These commissariats carry on their activities through the unions. Or, expressing it differently, the Supreme Council of National Economy organizes production through its representatives in the unions, whose orders must be carried out unconditionally, they decide what the workers shall do and how they shall work. The Commissariat of Labor controls the workers through its representatives in the unions, whose orders must also be strictly carried out over the workers: where and how long they must work. The workers in their unions have no influence ovev production, nor over the conditions of work.
The executive committee o/ the gouvernement Soviets has 5 departments: 1) The economic department, 2) Wage tariffs, 3) Education, 4) Organization and Instruction, 5) General Business. Each department has further its sub-departments. The Economic Department is subdivided into two sub-departments: 1) For organization of Industry, 2) For distribution of provisions and working clothes. But the workers have not the right to control the labors of the departments, but only have the right to decide over such work as is assigned to them by the department.
Industry in Ukraine may be devided in three parts : The largest industry, the metal industry, is under the direct control of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the industries of the second and third class stand under the provisional council of the Supreme Council of National Economy. There are in Ukraine 42 larger and 14 smaller textile factories. The large metal works of the country, 16 in number, are combined into one great trust. The mines of the Don basin are divided into 16
districts, which are subject to the central executive committee of the unions of the whole of Ukraine, subdivided in the manner described above.
The working hours are legally determined to 8 hours daily, but during the war there was overtime work in all those industries which were connected with the war. The renumeration for overtime consists principally of natural products. The workers receive more bread.