Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The article’s objective is to determine the status of social security for workers in Western Siberia in the late XIX - early XX centuries; to characterize measures taken by the government for improvement of situation and to assess their efficiency. Since the late XIX century the new stage of modernization had begun in Siberia, characterized by the beginning of industrialization and industrial revolution in all sectors of economy. The working class emerged, and one of the pressing issues it faced was inadequate social security for those workers who became disabled through occupational injuries or because of old age. Failure to comply with safety regulations, exploitation of workers in sweatshops, as well as workers’ ignorance led to a significant increase in occupational accidents and diseases. The majority of disabled workers were left to their fate and if they had no relatives able to take care of them, they were simply doomed to death, poverty or crime. However, the government took legislative measures to improve situation in welfare. According to the new laws in the case of occupational injury or death the workers or family members could receive monetary compensations. However, all these measures only partially addressed the problem, so the general situation remained unchanged. The author notes that remnants of estate system affected the State’s attitude towards social security for workers. The government provided compensation for state workers, with no regard for workers in private sector. The research is based on methodological framework of modernization theory. Underlying the study are the principles of historicism, determinism and consistency. Correlation between legislation and the state of affairs in the sphere of social security for workers are investigated based on a historical-systematic method, while the diachronic method is applied to study how this process developed over time.