Work is a fundamental aspect of the human condition: it has personal, social, and transcendental dimensions which are inextricably linked

For the person, work is not only a means for survival but an expression of intrinsic human dignity. Work provides livelihood, respect, status, companionship and a sense of accomplishment. It is not a commodity but an essential component of life. It does not derive its primary value and sense from being a means of production, or an instrument for prosperity, but from being performed by human beings. Indispensable to material welfare, work is also a path for the spiritual development of the person.

Work is self-realization and is a bridge between the individual and society. Work provides for the maintenance and enhancement of the community. Human beings have an inherent need to achieve something that is recognized and valued by society. Satisfaction, even happiness comes with a work that requires effort and at the same time brings some measure of good to others. The social dimension of work is also an ethical dimension. Work is part of social morality and social ethics.

Work has a transcendental, or metaphysical, or cosmological dimension as the working person participates in the continuing creation of the world. In the process of working, the person transforms herself and transforms her environment. Work is participation in the cosmic world. Work is to maintain and improve the ecology of the planet, and to enhance the capacity of future generations to live in harmony with the universe.

Work is also a right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the principles that sustain the ILO, established the right to work, the right to free choice of employment, the right to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Work is much more than the holding or completion of a “job”. This word, increasingly used as a synonym of work, or employment, come from the old English “gobbe” that was taken from the French “gober” and means to swallow a bite of food. It connotes the ephemeral and the precarious and at the same time conveys a sense of inevitability. Expressions such as “the job has to be done” evokes duty and an absence of alternative and of choice.

Work is central to the individual and society, and yet it should not be everything, neither for the individual nor for the community. There are activities which are not work and which should be respected. Individuals must have the time and the capacity for recreation, contemplation, prayer and meditation. There is creativity in work, but there is wisdom in reflection and withdrawal from the agitations of daily life. Society, to be harmonious, needs individuals engaging in a great variety of activities and institutions offering opportunities for material as well as artistic and spiritual pursuits.

The spirit of the time remains “productivist”. In economically developed societies, individuals and families are engaged in a race for the meeting of needs that accumulate more rapidly than the means to satisfy them. Services, such as education and health care, are increasingly onerous. Consumer goods in greater and greater quantity and diversity are aggressively offered through advertising, the pressure of conformism and the search for social status. Role models are doers and achievers having gained control of powerful corporations. And the model of development offered to societies which are traditional, or different, or economically less advanced, is still a model based on work, economic growth and consumption.

Seemingly, it is a recurrent temptation of human beings to make work the raison d’etre and the ultima ratio of their lives. Very old texts such as the Bible contain admonishments to people immersed in their labour and forgetting their religious and spiritual duties. Thus, it would be too superficial to blame modernity and globalization for attitudes and behaviors that might be rooted in the very weaknesses of human nature. Sometimes, perhaps often, one works to avoid boredom. Work can be an escape, a means to avoid facing the difficult questions that stem from the imperfect human condition. Work, done patiently and lovingly, is source of wisdom and spiritual development. Work as a refuge encourages agitation and spiritual vacuity.

Work is nevertheless a major issue of public policy, for only a minority of the world population is in a position to treat work as a means for personal and social development

There is ample evidence that a lot of people cannot find a remunerated work that would suit their qualifications and requirements, that others are “underemployed” in occupations that do not provide a sufficient income, and that still others are subjected to working conditions considered as unacceptable by the international standards that most countries have accepted to honor since a number of decades. Often, the same individual and the same family for several generations, go successively through these ordeals of unemployment, underemployment and exploitation. For these, the right to work is an abstract notion and the meaning of work is reduced to a daily struggle for survival.

Truly enough, an unknown but probably significant enough number of the individuals and families subjected to these conditions manage to keep their dignity and do not let themselves be crushed by adversity. But the dignity of a society, and the responsibility of all those who hold a parcel of power – in villages, cities, governments, international organizations, corporations and enterprises and businesses of all sizes – demand that everything possible be done to prevent and correct the behaviors and situations that are an offence to human dignity.

It is also true that the present working opportunities and working conditions in the world are, on average, better today than one or two centuries ago. In most societies, a greater proportion of men and women are doing a less painful and better remunerated work. But official data and reports from respected organizations, notably the United Nations and the International Labour Organization, show that the progress achieved in the decades following World War II have been stopped or cancelled in recent years. What might be called the globalization trend, or the spreading of global capitalism, or the domination of a neo-liberal vision of economy and society since the beginning of the 1980s, has coincided with high levels of unemployment, a growth of the informal sector, and a deterioration of working conditions.

A number of facets of this negative trend were mentioned:

• Increased competition and the domination of financial markets over a growing part of the world economy encourage the treatment of work and labour as a commodity.
• The rise of corporate power and control of the market place leads to an emphasis on profit and a neglect of human welfare; this is opening the gates for market excesses and negative side effects such as corruption, inequities and greed; and this is accompanied by a frequent suppression of labor unions formation, a weakening of the powers of organized workers and greater temptations and possibilities for the exploitation of workers.
• At the same time, the informal sector still offers much less guarantees than the organized and visible enterprises and corporations for respect of workers rights and sufficient remunerations.
• The conception of what is work and what is a useful work shows signs of impoverishment. Research in general, and particularly fundamental research, is being devalued. Only research having a direct application, for defense or for the particular product or service that a corporation is marketing, is strongly encouraged and financed.
• The domination of technologies and the rigorous specialization that ensue lead to a division of labour that may be beneficial to productivity as traditionally measured, but is certainly detrimental to the holistic character of a number of professions. Physicians, for instance, have in most economically advanced societies great difficulties in remaining healers.
• At the same time, a number of new professions are developing in these same affluent societies, for example for the care of the aging. What used to be a family duty, or more recently a reason for placement in an hospice, is now a remunerated and respectable work.
• Work in agriculture and in particular what is called subsistence agriculture is diminishing. Overall, data from the ILO show that, in the world, employment in services is now superior to employment in agriculture. This trend is still commonly interpreted as an indicator of development and progress. Or, at the very least, it is seen an unavoidable evolution. Sharply divergent views on this question were expressed by participants in this gathering.
• The question of the increasing number of people migrating across borders and continents in search of a remunerated work also gave rise to the expression of different views.

The notion of “decent work” promoted by the ILO should become a universally accepted objective and enforceable norm

Decent works refers to the recognition of human dignity and to the capability of expressing this dignity and the arrangements and human relations that characterize a specific community. Decent work is a universal concept with a great variety of concrete and practical applications. It is universal because it involves four conditions, which ought to be seen as four “categorical imperatives”: (1) there must be the possibility of freedom of association; (2) there must be the possibility of collective bargaining; (3) there must be an eradication of the worst forms of child labour, so that the young can be educated even if they have to work; and (4) there must be elimination of all forms of discrimination.

The ILO can, at this point, only use persuasion to disseminate the norm of decent work. The spirit of the time is not favourable to international law and international regulations. Only the WTO has the capacity to formulate judgments and to adjudicate on disputes. For some, the WTO should have comparable power on matters of labour or on questions of the environment. For others, the ILO should be given “teeth”. And an overall institution, the United Nations, should be able to adjudicate between different claims and divergent judgments. Only a brief discussion took place on this most important issue.