The Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich orders with force of law:
Chapter I
Definition of Eastern Worker
Article 1
Eastern workers are those laborers of non-German national origin who inhabited the Reich Commissariat for the Ukraine, the General Commissariat for White Russia, or territories bordering on these territories to the east or on the former free states of Lithuania and Estonia, and who were brought into the German Reich, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and employed there after the occupation by the German armed forces.
Chapter II
Conditions of Employment
Article 2
General Conditions
The eastern workers employed in the Reich have an employment relationship of a special type. German labor code and labor protection provisions shall be applicable to them only insofar as specifically stated.
Article 3
Compensation
1. The eastern workers employed in the Reich shall receive compensation graded according to their work.
2. The amount of this compensation shall be determined from the tables which are attached as an appendix to this decree.
3. In determining the compensation which is to be paid individual eastern workers under the appended tables, the point of departure shall be the wage-rate (hourly, piece and premium wage-rates) of comparable German workers.
If a part of the reference wage consists of payment in goods, such payment shall be considered equivalent, in determining this wage, to the rate calculated for it for German workers in the enterprise in event of payment in cash.
Social security deductions and payments of all kinds to which the German workers are subject shall not be included in the determination of the reference wage.
With respect to incentive payments, these shall be computed, in determining the reference wage, at the same rate at which they are made to German workers in the enterprise for the same work. If the eastern worker's production falls behind the average production of a German worker, a correspondingly reduced reference wage will be the point of departure in determining the compensation to be paid him.
Extra pay for difficult work, dirty work, etc. shall be included in determining the proper reference wage for calculating the individual eastern worker's compensation.
4. The eastern worker shall receive compensation only for work actually performed; but the regulations on idleness resulting from bad weather may be applied in his case.
5. Higher compensation than that determined under those provisions may not be paid to eastern workers.
Article 4
Extra Rates and other Payments
Except as otherwise provided by the General Manpower Authority, eastern workers shall have no claim to extra compensation for overtime or Sunday, holiday, and night work. Per diem and maintenance payments, as well as travel and board expense payments, may not be made.
Article 5
Payment in Goods
1. The compensation due the individual eastern worker according to the tables appended to this decree shall be paid in cash at the end of the regular pay period for the enterprise after deduction of the equivalent of payments made in goods. The board and room furnished by the employer shall be computed according to the rates specified by the tables appended to this decree. Other payment in goods, such as clothing, shoes, etc., shall be computed at proportionate prices.
2. Employers may cover the commutation cost of eastern workers to and from the place of work for the entirety of eastern workers employed by them and make deductions for this expense from the amounts to be paid in cash according to the tables.
Article 6
Compensation in Case of Illness
For days on which the eastern worker is unable to work on account of sickness or accident, free board and room only shall be furnished by the employer, unless hospital care is given. In other respects the sick care of these workers shall be regulated by prescriptions issued by the Reich Minister of Labor.
Article 7
Leave and Family Visits
Leave and family visits will not be granted for the present. Detailed regulations concerning the institution of leave and family visits will be issued by the General Manpower Authority.
Article 8
Pay Invoices
Pay invoices shall not be issued to eastern workers.
Article 9
Exceptions
The Reich Trustee or Special Trustee of Labor may permit exceptions from the provisions of this decree in regard to the calculation of compensations.
Chapter III
Eastern Workers Tax
Article 10
Tax Obligation
1. Employers who use eastern workers within the German Reich, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, are subject to a tax in amounts specified by the tables appended to this decree (Eastern Workers Tax).
2. Agricultural employers must pay only one half of this tax.
Article 11
Accruement of the Tax
The Eastern Workers Tax accrues exclusively to the German Reich.
Article 12
Tax Exemption of Eastern Workers
Eastern workers must pay no wage tax nor citizen tax during their employment in the German Reich.
Chapter IV
Savings
Article 13
Eastern workers may lay up their compensation in whole or in part as savings with interest: the sum saved is transferred to the saver's homeland, and is there available to him or to members of his family according to detailed regulations issued by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories or by the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
Chapter V
Grant of Powers
Article 14
1. The General Manpower Authority shall be empowered to issue, in consultation with the interested Reich Ministers, regulations for the execution, implementation, and revision of Chapters I and II of this decree.
2. The Reich Minister of Finance shall be empowered to issue, in consultation with the General Manpower Authority, the Reich Minister of the Interior, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and, so far as eastern workers employed in agriculture are in question, with the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, regulations for the execution, implementation and revision of Chapter III of this decree.
3. The Reich Minister of Finance, in consultation with the General Manpower Authority, may change by executive order the amounts of the Eastern Workers Tax as specified in the appended tables.
4. The Reich Minister of Economic Affairs, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces shall be empowered to issue, in consultation with the General Manpower Authority, regulations for the execution and implementation of Chapter IV of this decree.
Chapter VI
Effective Date, Sphere of Validity
Article 15
1. This decree shall become effective 15 June 1942. The provisions of Chapters II and III shall be first applicable to compensation paid after 15 June 1942.
2. Articles 1 to 5 and Article 7, subsection 1, of the decree concerning taxing and treatment under the labor code for workers form the newly occupied eastern territories [StVAOst] of 20 January 1942 (RGBl I, p. 41), as well as the regulation of the Reich Minister of Labor concerning treatment under the labor code for workers from the newly occupied eastern territories of 9 February 1942 (Deutscher Reichsanz. No. 37 of 13 February 1942), shall become invalid on the effective date of this decree.
3. This decree shall be valid also in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and in the incorporated Eastern Territories.
Berlin, 30 June 1942|
Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume IV Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality Washington, DC : United States Government Printing Office, 1946 |