r the
years after 1965 had not been published by mid-1970 except for official
statements that the planned levels had not been reached.

The lag of productivity has been attributed by the Central Committee to
a pronounced shortage of skilled manpower and to various manifestations
of poor labor discipline and faulty management. Chief among the cited
shortcomings in the field of labor are excessive absenteeism, resulting
in part from inadequate medical and public dining facilities; loafing on
the job; and a generally negligent attitude toward work that entails a
loss of time and a low quality of the product. On the management side,
the main shortcomings include poor organization of production,
acceptance of unjustifiably low work output norms, and labor hoarding.

Both workers and managers have been accused of a reluctance to adopt
progressive production techniques and of frequently putting their own
personal interest or that of their enterprise ahead of the public good.
A disorganization of the material supply arising from frequent
noncompletion of production assignments and poor coordination among
plants and industry branches has also been cited as an important factor
responsible for substantial losses of worktime and, consequently, of
reduced productivity.

Enterprise managers have been repeatedly accused of irresponsibility in
the use of resources, which has entailed a wasteful use of machinery and
labor. Inadequate planning of production schedules and poor maintenance
are said to cause an inordinate loss of machine time. Managers have also
been charged with abusing the legal provision that allows them to employ
up to 2 percent more workers (presumably to meet emergencies or to
increase output) than are called for by the enterprise plan. Such abuse
has been facilitated by the elimination sometime in the middle or late
1960s of the control by banks over enterprise funds allotted for the
payment of wages.

A change in the method of productivity planning, which involved a
redefinition of productivity as a calculated index, is reported to have
been widely misinterpreted as downgrading the importance of
productivity. This misconception has been reinforced by the circumstance
that productivity levels are planned for only about 70 percent of the
nonagricultural workers.

In many enterprises labor norms--that is, the minimum amount of work a
worker in any given job is required to perform per unit of time--are
officially