Formation of industrial workers pension in pre-revolutionary Russia by example of employees of large gold mining companies in Eastern Siberia

The question of provision of pensions and development of the pension legislation for the employees of the industrial enterprises of pre-revolutionary Russia on the example of workers of Eastern Siberia gold-mining organizations is considered. Gold mining was the dominant sector in the economy of the Siberian region which involved most of the workers and employees. From the second half of the 19th century the region of Eastern Siberia becomes the gold mining center of the Russian Empire. The largest gold-mining companies (first of all ''Lena Goldfields'' and ''The Industry Company in Different Places of Eastern Siberia'') that extracted most of the gold in Russia were situated there. Having many workers these companies were the first in the gold-mining world to start developing the provision of pensions for the personnel. The main conclusions the author of the article makes in the research are the following. In the Russian Empire the pension legislation for workers in the industrial sphere including gold mining was not actually developed. Because of the continuous growth of industrial enterprise workers' actions the central and local executive authorities paid attention to the social legal status of industrial workers only at the end of the 19th century. There appeared first laws regulating the working conditions and the social legal status of workers. The adoption of these laws which were the first concessions by the power to the worker and the employee dragged on for many years compelling industrial enterprise workers to act as initiators of the change of the social legal status by, for instance, developing projects of pension and insurance banks at the enterprise. At the specified gold-mining enterprises of Eastern Siberia employees also tried to control the development of pension banks for company employees. The lack of certain skills in law and unwillingness of company owners to create similar banks slowed their opening. Before the Revolution of 1917 there were only a few of them. The main conclusion of the author's research is that social security of employees at Siberian gold-mining enterprises was at quite a low level.

Keywords

Authors

References