DIRECTORATE OF MANPOWER AND LABOR SHORTAGES IN RUMANIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00457R015100240001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 8, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 28, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

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, Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP82-00457R015100240001-4
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COUNTRY
SUBJECT
DATE OF
INFO.
PLACE
ACQUIRED
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AG
CLASSIFICATION SECRET/CONTROL - U. S. OFFICIALS ONLY
SECURITY INFORMATION
Rumania
INFORMATION REPORT REPORT
CD NO.
DATE DISTR. 28 November 1952
Directorate of Manpower and NO. OF PAGES 3
Labor Shortages in Rumania
NO. OF ENCLS.
(LISTED BELOW)
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
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THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORDATION AFFECTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE
OF THE UNITED STATES, DIMON TOE MEANING OF TITLE la, SECTIONS 797
AND 794, OF THE U.S.'Ll700C, AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR REVE-
LATION OF ITS CONTENTS TO OR RECEIPT BY AN OSAMU:IRMO PERSON IS
PROHIBITED EIT LAW. THS REPRODUCTION OF. THIS PORN IS PROHIBITED.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
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1. The Directorate of Manpower (Directiunea Generala al Bratelor de Mance), '
located off Strada Brezoianu, is under the direct control of the Ministeri-
al Council and works in close cooperation with the Supreme Planning
Commission, the Prisons Directorate, and the Danube-Black Sea Canal Works.
The Manpower Directorate maintains a record of all skilled and semi-
skilled labor in Rumania, based on the figures submitted by its
subordinate organizations. It also registers the main labor requirements,
endeavors to supply these by distributing 'the available labor in
accordance with the system of priorities laid down by the Planning
Commission, and trains skilled and semi-skilled workers.
2. The Directorate has three organizational levels: "territorial", i.e. the
main divisions of Rumania; "regional", coinciding with the district
administrative offices; and "local", at each local labor exchange. There
are territorial labor directorates in each of the provincial capitals,
including Iasi for Moldavia, Targu Mures for the new Transylvanian re-
public, and Timisoara for the Banat area. The regional offices are in the
22 district centers. There are local offices in each village Sfatul Popular
(Council), In .addition, every factory, collective, cooperative or office.
must have a representative of the Manpower Directorate.
3, About August 1951 a regulation was published requiring all state enter-
prises, factories and offices to keep duplicate records of all its
employees, one copy of Which must be sent to the local labor office. The
record is entered on a form containing a space for personal data on the
left side and for military data on the right. These forms are consolidated
by the local office, aid forwarded to the regional offices and from there to
the territorial and head offices. Factories and collectives, in making out
their annual repOrts, must state their labor needs for the coming year, with
the number of skilled and unskilled workers required. These applications
CLASSIFICATION SECRET/CONTROL - U. S. OFFICIALS ONLY
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are made out in triplicate and forwarded directly to the regional manpower
office. This enables the Manpower Directorate to shift surplus labor as
it becomes available. A register of unemployed is kept by the local labor
office.
4. Local labor offices are required to establish training and re-training
courses for workers by making use of the facilities of local factories,
mines and collectives. Before the beginning of 1952 these training
courses were under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, but
administration and financing have now come under the Labor Directorates.
Instructors are still supplied by the Ministry of Education. In
Bucharest there are training courses of this type attached to most of the
large factories, including the Matyas Rakosi (formerly Lemaitre) Works,
the 23 August (formerly MAlaxa) Works, Competrol and Industria Bumbacului.
There is a school for printers and typesetters in'the Scanteia building.
There are schools of mining at Petrosani and Baia Mare (where a graduate
school of mining and metallurgy is also planned), schools for metal workers
at Hunedoara and Resita, and a school at the Uioara Chemical Works. Most
of these training schools have well-equipped workshops. The regular train-
ing schools are attended by young people under 18, who are maintained at
hostels during their training. Workers over 18 are sent to re-training'
schools where instruction is more superficial. All workers graduated from
these schools are placed by the Manpower Directorate,
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5. There is a serious shortage of skilled labor, particularly in the heavy
and chemical industries; this has been partly responsible for the failure
to complete the Five-Year Plan. The Chemical Combine (formerly Pirotechnica)
in Bucharest, for instance, has six skilled men to supervise 120 unskilled
workers. An average of two of the Stilled men are absent on sick leave; as
a result, the factory is able to use only four of its eight furnaces,while
the production plan was calculated on the basis of eight furnaces. The
Ministry of Metallurgy and Chemical Industry has applied for permission 50X1-HUM
to bring specialists from Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Originally it had
been intended to bring skilled workers from but this was forbidden
by the Securitate for security reasons. Because of the shortage of skilled
technicians Sovrompetrol has engaged an engineer, a certain Koenig, a
specialist in deep-drilling, who was in prison for four years in the USSR
as a counter-revolutionary. Koenig is considered politically unreliable.
Negotiations are now in progress for the recruiting of Hungarian and
Czechoslovak instructors for trade schools.
6. Negotiations have been begun for the establishment of a large chemical
manufacturing combine located between Beius and Satu Mare, which is to
process the rare earths found in that district. The enterprise is to be a
joint Hungarian - Rumanian enterprise under Soviet control. The management
is also to be half Rumanian and half Hungarian, with a Soviet General
Manager and two Soviet advisers. Skilled labor is to be supplied by
Hungary.
7. There has been passive resistance to the Manpower Directorate in Transylvania,
particularly among the Hungarians. In 1949-1950, when work was begun on
the Danube-Black Sea Canal Works, the Directorate appealed to artisans in
Transylvania to volunteer for work on the Canal. Good rates of pay were
being offered at the time, but the response was poor. At Targul Sacuesc,.
for instance, only two carpenters and three bricklayers came forward.
Conditions for workers on the Canal have deteriorated considerably since
1950. Paid skilled labor is beginning to disappear since living conditions,
particularly food and water, have become worse. As a result, an arrange-
ment was made between the management Of the Canal Works and the Prisons
Directorate for prison labors'grantinza one-in-three remission of sentence
for skilled laborers willing to work on the Canal. It later developed that
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3
of 120 prisoners who volunteered for work at the Canal from Targu-Ocna,
only three were really skilled; the rest had to be employed on unskilled
work.
8. By 1951 not even the prisons could supply sufficient labor for the Canal,
and some new method of recruiting labor had to be devised. It was then
decided, upon recommendation of the Soviet advisers of 'the Canal Manage-
ment, to establish separate labor battalions. In these battalions youths
of bourgeois origin whose training in the regular army was not desirable '
could perform their equivalent of military service. The working conditions
of the men of the labor battalions are similar to that of prisoners,
except that the former have to supply their own clothing. Labor battalions
were employed at the following places:
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a. Bucharest: the Scanteia building,the Radio Palace, and the Opera.
b. Bicaz: the hydroelectric station, the dam and roads.
c. Black Sea-Danube Canal: punishment brigades only.
d. Large units were employed in the cotton plantations in the Dobrogea
area and the Danube flats, Most of these were Transylvanians.
9. The original Prisons Directorate (Directiunea Penitenciarilor) was a
part of the Ministry of the Interior. In 1950, as a result of the need for
labor on the Canal, a new body was created known as Exterior Labor Department
-- ? -4 Asens Directofate,PirecttuneatMuncii Exterioare a Detinutilor).
BY July 1952 the work on the Canal wasabout half done, but the pace had
slowed down since the beginning of 1952. In July 1952 a larger number
of prisoners was again sent, and work was speeded up again.
10. A brigade of about 220 prisoners revolted at Poarta Alba about July 1951.
Two guards were killed during the fighting but it is not known how many
prisoners were killed. The remainder were immediately distributed singly
to various prisons.
U. In April or May 1952 a new law was published requiring workers to sign
individual contracts with their places of work in addition to the collective
contract. This contract binds them to remainlin their place of work until
a specified date, and holds that an endeavor on the part of workers to leave
is sabotage. A further clause states that the employer is entitled not
only to move the worker to branches and allied companies of the enter-
prise, but also to other enterprises if he sees fit. The contract remains
valid despite the change. Following this law Sovrompetrol offered good
working conditions for 12 mechanics and an unknown number of welders and
building workers. These men were secured through the Manpower Directorate.
When they had spent three months with Sovrompetrol they were transferred
to the Canal without further warning. Several of the men refused to go and
it was desired to apply the new sabotage law; however, instructions were
issued that as individual contracts had not yet been concluded in all
enterprises the law was not to be applied at this time.
SECRET/CONTROL - U. S. OFFICIALS ONLY
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08 CIA-RDP82-00457R015100240001-4