|
Eschewing the Label
NMB, Florida Labor Day, 2001 A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.
ESCHEWING THE LABEL
REFUSING AND CONFUSING WHAT IS WORK
Labor Day is not a holy day. It has become more of a holiday. Once it was
meant to salute the laboring class. Now it signals the start of the
academic year, the real year of work now that summer heat and vacation are
over.
It occurs to me that many of my co-workers eschewed the label of "worker".
They were "professionals" and professionals did not work. They directed the
labor of others. Workers had to unite to lose their chains so that is why
we got unionism. In a way we got Labor Day in order to distinguish it from
all other days where "slave labor" competed with it. "Slave wages" were the
lot of those who imagined their worth was greater than the realism of their
bosses.
Now, bosses did no work - according to those whom the bosses bossed. If
you ask real bosses what was the value of their work they would say you
couldn't pay anyone enough to do what they did. And that is the anomaly.
When is work not work? Work is not work when bosses, professionals and
artists perform their duties.
Is duty work? Well, it may be when you talk in terms of loyalty to the
paycheck, to your boss who is good to you, to the firm whose welfare is
yours and to your co-workers where you all are members of the same "team".
I am thinking of the term "volunteerism". I volunteer to read textbooks on
tape for the blind and dyslexic. That is the way the blind and the reading
disabled can get affordable help in their studies. Other volunteers can
perform duties at hospitals but that never seems to bring down the price of
medical services. Nurses, like teachers, are supposed to be "public
servants" so they do not need much in the way of pay - according to popular
belief. Politicians who are voted into office are supposed to be public
servants but somehow they seem to come away enhanced and worth more and are
paid more - after their period of service.
It used to be the ideal was that a worker should enjoy the fruits of
his/her labor. Can you believe that the male worker still enjoys greater
fruits than his female counterpart? It also used to be that there was
sanctity in work and that a fair day's pay should be received for a fair
day's work.
The most haunting and telling use of the word "labor" is the sentence meted
out to some criminals. Their crime deserves punishment by "hard labor"
Few "workers" enjoy the label of work. They work for a paycheck and not
for the nobility of work. They have in the past worked to afford the price
of a drink to drown their sorrows to blot out the endless and thankless
labor they performed that no decent man would ask another to do. Happy
Labor Day.
Quoted in Daniel A Ricker WATCHDOG REPORT
V2, NO. 17 9/03/2001
"There are cases where the job possesses the man even after
quitting time. Aside from occupational ticks of hourly workers
and the fitful sleep of salaried ones, there are instances of a man's
singular preoccupation with work. It may affect his attitude
toward all of life. And art." Studs Terkel - Working - 1972
Carol's Evaluation: 9 out of 10.
|
 |
|