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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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was the top man. He organized and operated the labor movement, and it was a bona fide true labor movement. Its duty was to look out for the interests and welfare of the laboring men, the working people. This man whose name is Kuznetzov was himself a working man. I said, “But is he a working man?”

“Oh yes, he's a working man. He is a working man. He's one of the workers.”

Well, I learned in the course of that and other conversations that a worker is not necessarily a man who labors with his hands at the bench. Practically everybody in Russia is “a worker.” They call each one a worker. There is no way of distinguishing between a manual worker and a mental worker and a scientist worker or a literary worker. They're workers. I don't know who isn't a worker. They all call themselves workers. That was what he meant--that Kuznetzov was a worker, and that he was designated by the Government to form and organize and operate these unions.

I said, “But is the union at liberty to demand and request changes in the hours of labor? changes in the foremen or supervisors? changes in the renumeration for the labor?”

“Oh, yes indeed. And as a matter of fact this was one of the principal things that they were consulted on all the time. They met regularly in the factory. Kuznetzov, who was the head of the whole labor movement, would in turn designate in every factory a man to head up the union in that factory.





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