Worker, Free-Lance

according to Soviet labor law, a person who performs one-time or occasional work for an enterprise, institution, or organization or work of a strictly defined type related to the basic activities of an institution. Free-lance workers include instructors of schools and courses who are paid by the hour, leaders of amateur artistic circles, and ticket distributors in theatrical amusement enterprises.

Labor relations with free-lance workers are formalized by written agreements, contracts, schedule-orders, and other documents. The labor of the free-lance workers is paid for in accordance with the standards and rates in effect at the enterprises and institutions for similar jobs performed by regular (listed) personnel. Most free-lance workers are covered by state social insurance; labor books are made out for these workers (Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions [VTsSPS] of Sept. 6, 1973, Collected Decrees of the USSR, 1973, no. 21, art. 115), and the workers are granted annual vacations with retention of salary on the normal terms. For individual categories of free-lance workers, such as physicians providing consultation at hospitals and polyclinics and receiving an hourly salary, wages are not paid for vacation time (explanation of the State Committee on Labor and the VTsSPS of Aug. 31, 1960, Biulleten’ of the State Committee on Labor, 1960, no. 11).