Take All--Gorbachev Urals Visit

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Basically everything -- is in material production. So, we still have much work, we can employ people. But a system of re-training is needed, a plan of action is needed. This must be understood by everyone! I am convinced that in our country today unemployment occurs where we do not think things out, do not work things out. We shall keep our promise. When we are ready to talk with people, when we have thought everything through, we shall present well-thought out measures, we shall submit them to society's judgement. They will have to be worked out in each region, in each labor collective.

From the hall the request was heard for an opinion on the latest publications in the press about the so-called economics of shock therapy Polish-fashion.

(M.S. Gorbachev) So the press has frightened people? From this hall, from Sverdlovsk, the whole press must be told, and the journlists who are here present must learn and tell others: In these matters particularly well-considered judgements are needed, publications must not carry only the element of alarm.

The speech by A.R. Sagalovich, head of mechanical workshop No. 15, touched on an important aspect of radicalization of the reform. In my opinion, he said, enterprises are entering the market economy by various paths. This means it is necessary to take into account the state of the basic assets of each specific plant. Some have more worn assets and other newer ones.

Today there is a leasehold law. But often, when the division of money in the collective begins according to the coefficient of the share of work, the system does not work. Where people are good the system really works. Where the collective has not taken shape, it does not operate.

The underestimation of the role of managers of collectives is connected on this plane. Yes, there is a struggle against the administrative-command system, but on the production level a paradox arises: I, for example, have not been able to find a section chief for six months. No one wants it, no one wishes to work as a foreman. Discipline in such a situation breaks down. Even if you put a militiaman before the shift ends. Tension in relations between the workers and management is growing.

In order to advance further, the question needs to be asked regarding the role of the manager, the organizer of production and the specialists, and regarding the responsibility for the course of economic reform and his role in the course of that reform.

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[Excerpts] (M.S. Gorbachev) And don't you feel remote tremors in connection with reform and a change in the situation: That it is already necessary to prove one's right and entitlement by competence, conscientiousness, and the capability to work better? For soon everybody will have to prove this. Does not such a way of putting things have an effect on discipline, on responsibility, and on conscientiousness? (A.P. Sagalovich) It does not. Well, maybe to a certain degree. Of course much is connected to the payment for labor, but this system is not working yet. My opinion is that at the level of the top manager of a structural subsection, a factory, for example, it 's possible to manage somehow in the old fashion. But further work must be carried out in accordance with some other integral system.

I would like to share my thoughts on the problems of price-formation, the workshop chief continued. It is, of course, difficult for me to judge on