Freedom - To Work?

On Workers’ Day, many of us with a sense of history and justice remember with respect those in the trade union movement worldwide who have struggled for ‘just wages’, better working conditions and – in places like South Africa – for political rights for those not born into the ‘right’ (i.e. upper) social class or with the ‘right’ (male) gender or (white) skin colour. At least since the Papal encyclical Rerum Novarum [Of New Things] in 1891, the Church has been commendably on the side of these good causes.

But what is the meaning of labour today? In many ways we are left in a state of confusion in an age where globalization and a whole new attitude to work has shifted what many of us consider both normal and morally just. In his last encyclical, Charity in Truth, Pope Benedict implicitly accepted that change has happened: he acknowledges that today both partners in a family have to work. The notion of a ‘family wage’ earned by the husband is past.

So too, the sociologists say, is the notion of lifetime employment at one company. In many countries, like Germany, we see the phasing out of permanent jobs in favour of fixed-term labour contracts. Even ‘established’ industries are no longer ‘safe’. Work goes to places where skills are high, wages ‘competitive’ (read: low) and labour unions are weak. People are expected to be flexible in what they can do – the more varied your ‘skills set’ the better. You may find yourself suddenly out of a job and needing to ‘re-tool’ for something else.

For the lucky the new economy offers many benefits. The growth of the Information economy and the ease with which such work can be decentralized – work from home – gives the lucky ones a chance of a working life in familiar surroundings, close to family, often with hours convivial to one’s natural ‘clock’. Changing one’s career path is no longer seen as professional indecision: if anything it suggests you are an enterprising and flexible person.

The downside is that not everyone is able to benefit. Unskilled and semiskilled workers are faced with an ever-decreasing number of jobs in an increasingly cutthroat market. Legislators have to decide, too, whether or not to go with progressive labour laws (as South Africa has), risking low foreign investment as a result, and ultimately face an economy where an employed labour ‘aristocracy’ of the employed coexist with a growing underclass of unemployed and unemployables. And people ask what hard-won freedom meant if poverty is not resolved.

We need a hardnosed look at what can be done. Education and skills training, tightly run and geared towards producing well-trained citizens may at least get more people working. Money is there: we have the highest percentage of budget spent on education in the world. But we lack results.

We need to crack down on maladministration and lazy, incompetent teachers – and learners. We must create a new generation of the numerate and literate (especially computer-literate). We must produce a generation who are masters of the global economic language: English. Chinese will come later. We can learn from China’s pragmatic Marxist leaders – do what works.

It’s a grim scenario; I don’t like it. But it’s the only sure-fire route to survival. It’s the price of freedom. Freedom does not thrive in poverty.