Broad-sweeping wage reforms were instituted in the Soviet Union during
the Khrushchev era, from 1956 through 1962. These were intended to move
Soviet industrial workers away from the mindset of overfulfilling
quotas that had characterised the Soviet economy during the preceding
Stalinist period, and toward a more efficient financial incentive.
Throughout the Stalinist period, most Soviet workers had been paid for
their work based on a piece-rate system. Thus their individual wages
were directly tied to the amount of work they achieved. This policy was
intended to encourage workers to toil and therefore increase production
as much as possible. The piece-rate system led to an enormous level of
bureaucracy and contributed to huge inefficiencies in Soviet industry.
Additionally, factory managers frequently manipulated the personal
production quotas given to workers to prevent workers' wages from
falling too low. The wage reforms sought to remove these wage practices
and offer an efficient financial incentive to Soviet workers by
standardising their wages and reducing their dependence on overtime or
bonus payments.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_reform_in_the_Soviet_Union%2C_1956%E2%80%931962>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1348:
The first-ever appointments to the Order of the Garter, an order of
chivalry founded by King Edward III of England and still bestowed on
recipients in the Commonwealth realms, were announced.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Garter>
1951:
American journalist William N. Oatis was arrested for espionage by the
Communist government of Czechoslovakia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_N._Oatis>
1967:
Soyuz 1 , the first mission of the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, launched
from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1>
1979:
Activist Blair Peach suffered fatal head injuries after being knocked
unconscious during an Anti-Nazi League demonstration in Southall,
London, against a British National Front election meeting in the town
hall.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_Peach>
1985:
The Coca-Cola Company introduced "New Coke" to replace its flagship
soft drink Coca-Cola, which generated so much negative response that
the company put the original formula back on the market less than three
months later.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
handsy (adj):
1. (informal) Prone to touching other people with one's hands,
especially inappropriately.
2. (golf) Moving the hands and wrists excessively when making a stroke
or swing
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/handsy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
33px
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to
earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the
poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and
a name.
--William Shakespeare
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare>