d to the performance of the entire working
personnel, and the importance of the bonus in wage payments would be
enhanced.

The wage reform has been discussed in the context of a broad program,
announced by the BKP Central Committee plenum in December 1972, for a
general rise in incomes and an improvement in the population's level of
living. In the process the difference between urban and lagging rural
incomes is to be eliminated. Implementation of the program has been made
contingent upon the attainment of greater productivity and output
through workers' efforts to surpass production and efficiency targets
set by the government. These more difficult targets must be embodied in
what have been officially labeled workers' counterplans. The BKP and
the government have launched a new form of so-called socialist
competition among workers and economic units, the aim of which is to
exceed in performance the requirements of the counterplans.

Implementation of the standard of living program began with the
introduction of wage increases, effective March 1, 1973, for workers
employed under difficult or hazardous conditions, schoolteachers and
university faculties, physicians and medical personnel, and employees of
artistic and cultural institutions. Effective June 1 the minimum wage
for all types of work was raised from 65 to 80 leva per month, and a
level of 88 leva per month was decreed for all workers earning between
80 and 87 leva. The resultant distortion of the wage structure is to be
eliminated over a period of several years.

Another important measure affecting labor was announced in March 1973--a
gradual transition from a six-day, forty-six-hour workweek to a five-day
week of forty-two and a half hours. Under the BKP directive the
transition must be accomplished without loss in production; the loss in
worktime must be compensated by a corresponding rise in productivity.
The shorter workweek had been in effect on an experimental basis for
about 17 percent of the industrial workers since 1968. In 1973 and 1974
it was to be introduced in enterprises of the material production
sector, excluding agriculture, provided that the required rise in
productivity has been assured. In 1975 the reduced workweek will be
introduced in transport, for management of state economic enterprises,
and for persons employed in the field of services other than health
services and educational institutions. Preparations for experiments with
a shor