dignity of work essay for 2nd year

Essay on The Dignity of Labour with Outlines for Students

Essay on dignity of work with outline for 2nd year, f.a, fsc, b.a, bsc & b.com.

Here is an essay on The Dignity of Labour with Outline for the students of Graduation. However, Students of 2nd year, F.A, FSc, B.A, BSC and Bcom can prepare this essay for their exams. This essay has been taken from Functional English by (Imran Hashmi) Azeem Academy. You can write the same essay under the title, The Dignity of Work Essay or Essay on the Dignity of Work or Dignity of Work or Labour in Islam Essay. First of all, try to understand and learn the Outline of this essay to make it easy to remember the points of the essay. You can see more essay examples by going to English Essay Writing .

The Dignity of Labour Essay Outline:

By labour, we generally mean work done by hands.
There is nothing shameful in becoming a skill-worker.
In Islam all human being are equal. Islam does not allow distinction on the basis of profession.
In Islam hones work of all kinds is worth respecting.
Unfortunately, we ignore the bright example set by our Holy Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) and consider manual work as undignified.
In the advanced countries, the major cause of the development is that dignity of labour has got its due importance.
In the less developed countries like Pakistan, the major cause of backwardness is that we have misused the concept of dignity of labour.
We should give equal status to the labour class in society.

By labour, we generally mean work done by hands. Unfortunately, this word is used in a negative sense. There is nothing shameful in it. People having a narrow mind refer the word labour to professions adopted by carpenters, masons and their assistants. They also associate them with the lower middle class of society. As a matter of fact, these professions are benefactors of society. They play a vital role for peace and prosperity of our life. For example, mason builds a house to shelter us, a tailor sews clothes to cover our body and a farmer tills the soil to feed us.

We should not ignore that no office peon is employed in any office of the advance countries because in those countries every office worker feels no shame in doing the peon work himself. We are Pakistani and unfortunately, we feel it below our dignity.

If we read the history of nations like Japan, China, Germany etc., we shall learn that their economic development is based on attaching dignity to manual work. On the other hand, our Pakistani engineer will feel it below his dignity to join two wires and will say that it is the work of his subordinate mechanic.

In Islam all human beings are equal. Islam does not allow distinction on the basis of profession. The Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) used to work with his own hands. He carried bricks for the construction of the mosque and did not feel ashamed in mending his outworn shoes. In Islam, the honest work of all kinds is worth respecting. Even a sweeper deserves respect. In Islam work is worship.

Unfortunately, we ignore the bright example set by Holy Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) and consider manual work as undignified. We also look down upon the labour class.

People should change their thinking and should not hesitate in doing their jobs. This spirit will improve our economic condition. In the advanced countries, the major cause of the development is that dignity of labour has got its due importance.

In Pakistan, a large number of people are working in the houses of landlords. They only take the meal and clothes and server like slaves. Today every rich man always wishes to have a large number of servants in his home.

We have misused the concept of labour and this is the major cause of backwardness in our country. If we want to improve our economic condition, we should give equal status to the labour class in society.

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Dignity of work essay | dignity of labour essay with quotations | dignity of labour essay with outline.

essay on dignity of work, dignity of work essay with outline, importance of dignity of labour in points, dignity of labour pdf, dignity of work essay

Self-respect and dignity both in thoughts and actions have been the main traits of great personalities history preserves the names and deeds of such men in golden words as led their lives in a dignified manner. They did not give in before False ego, inferiority or superiority complex, and self-pity. they fixed some goals for themselves and then with unflinching determination, perseverance and diligence tried to achieve that goal.

They passed through many tests and trials but faced each ordeal with a smiling face without begging for mercy or seeking any dishonest means. their lives bear witness to the fact that labor, hard work, or diligence whether it is manual or mental pleasant or unpleasant is the only assurance or guarantee for a dignified and successful life. You can earn heaps of money by using dishonest and illegal means but this money can never earn you respect and dignity. A poor laborer who earns his living with his own hands is far more respectable than a millionaire who accumulates money through unfair means.

Money can give a dishonest person comforts in life but not a clean conscience and peace of mind. Peace is the lot of only the person who believes in the purity and dignity of work.

Our holy Prophet (PBUH) was the king of the kings. He could get every comfort and luxury of a life without doing any work himself. But he chose a dignified way of life. He worked as a shepherd and then as a merchant and earned his living by working with his own hands. Not only this but he also used to mend his clothes himself, clean his room, and do other domestic errands. His style of life lent dignity and importance to work. He advised his followers to work hard and not to feel shame in doing any kind of manual or menial work.

Idleness is like a moth that eats up a man's vitality and verve and makes him mentally mean and abject. The lazy and the work shirker do not hesitate from begging and even selling their honor for a few rupees. An idle person has no self-respect and so other people too do not respect him. It is said that an honorable death is better than a life full of humiliation and disgrace.

Some people consider manual work insulting and below their standards. They forget that it is manual work that translates mental work into reality and gives it a concrete form. the idea in mind is good but they are useful only when they are given some practical shape.

Work whether it is manual, menial, or mental is sacred if it is done with a good intention using honest means. Such work gives dignity, sobriety, and gravity to our personalities and leads us from one success to another.

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Essay on Dignity of Labour in English For Students and Children

We are Sharing Essay on Dignity of Labour in English for students and children. In this article, we have tried our best to give an essay about Dignity of Labour for Classes 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and Graduation in 200, 300, 400, 500, 800 1000 words, a Short essay on Dignity of Labour.

Short Essay on Dignity of Labour in English

Labour implies a piece of work as well as manual labour, i.e., those who work with their hands. hi ancient times, manual labour was looked down upon in society. The labourers were treated as slaves. This gave rise to a feeling of contempt for manual work Slavery has been banned and abolished of late. In modem times, people have begun to realise the dignity of labour. But there are few people of the higher class who still have a different view. Mahatma Gandhi himself wove the khadi garments he sore. He is a perfect example of the dignity of labour. Manual work is in no way inferior to mental work. When mind and hands combine, the results are praiseworthy. Honest work of all types is worthy of respect. Work is worship.

Essay on Dignity of Labour in English ( 500 words )

Labour implies ‘a task’ or ‘a piece of work’. It also implies ‘workers’, especially those who work with their hands. It refers to manual labour. Dignity means ‘honourable rank or position’. ‘Dignity of labour’ thus implies the honourable position of workers who work with their hands. Manual labour is distinguished from mental labour. When we do mental work, our minds work, but our hands remain still. In manual labour, we exercise our hands, whereas, in mental labour, we exercise our brain, i.e., the mind.

In ancient times, manual labourers were considered slaves. They were looked down upon in society. They were treated as inferiors. This gave rise to a feeling of contempt for manual work. The mason, the carpenter, the farmer were all differentiated from the other class of people. Slaves were victims of mockery and hatred. Slavery existed in almost all countries. It was more prevalent in America where the whites bought the blacks to employ them in the plantations. Later on, slavery was banned and abolished.

In modern times, people have become more civilised. They began to realise the dignity of labour. Manual labour is no longer looked down upon in society. There are few people belonging to the upper class who still have a different view. They think it below their dignity to do their work themselves. They employ servants to do the household activities and to look after their children.

Today, the worth of labour is recognised by all. There is no longer the feeling of contempt for manual work. Manual labourers today are treated as equals in society. India is a democratic country and all are considered equal in the eyes of law.

Mahatma Gandhi preached dignity of labour in the Sabarmati Ashram. He taught the dwellers to clean night soil’ with their own hands. During the struggle for Independence, Gandhiji advised the people to weave the clothes that they would wear. Gandhiji himself wove the khadi garments he wore. This is a perfect example of ‘the dignity of labour’.

Honest work is worthy of praise and credit. Today, manual work is in no way inferior to mental work. When mind and hands combine, the results are praiseworthy’. Monuments, forts or other historical buildings are the results of such a combination. The immortal works of sculptors and painters are also the results of such a combination.

Honest work of all types is dignified. They are worthy of respect. There is no discrimination between a sweeper and a mason, a carpenter and a doctor, a farmer and an engineer or a driver and a teacher. If all become doctors, engineers and teachers, there will be none to do the other types of work. Every honest work is important in society.

Children who always have servants to look after them or cater’ to their needs as they grow up, fail to understand the dignity of labour. They do not prove to be good and responsible citizens. They get spoiled from their very childhood. Parents should bring up their children, giving importance to the values of life.

One should not remain idle. One should not be ashamed to do labour. Work is worship. We work and get something in return. Work is an essential need for survival. We must, thus, value the dignity of labour.

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The dignity of Labor Essay |Outlines, Quotes, and good comprehension

1. introduction.

Every sort of labor is respectable

All types of labor contribute to the survival

2. Labor as a manual work

No alternative to working with hands

Labor as innovation in discoveries

3. History of manual work

Ancient people denigrated the value of manual labor

The modern era enlightened the grace of manual workers

4. Value of working with hands

Nations prosper by accepting the worth of manual workers

Variety of manual labor provides a variety of requirements

5. Respect of skilled workers

Holy Prophet (PBUH) teaches us to manual labor

Examples of hard works of Quaid-e-Azam

6. Labor as the satisfaction of the human soul

Not form of labor but intentions matter

Meaningful labor is personally enriched

7. Conclusion

“dignity of labor”.

The dignity of work can be defined as value and respect given to all forms of labor and work. It means the jobs related to manual labor should be given equal priorities and manual workers should be given equal rights to other workers. The first disobedience of Adam was eating the fruit of the forbidden tree which brought him the curse of the Lord. The curse was to the effect that man was ordered to earn his bread with his sweat and blood. Supposing some sort of labor as demeaning work is a hateful sense of human status. All types of labor equally contribute to the welfare and development of society. There passed a time when slaves were bought and sold openly in the market. In this way, their dignity was lost and they were forced to perform all sorts of hard works. Then time changed and now people are living in the independent and democratic era.

Labor as a manual work:

There is no alternative to working with hands. We cannot survive until we utilize our abilities. Although man is prior of all creatures in the world he cannot live without earning his bread. Nobody can bring him livelihood by waving a magic wand.

Generally, we mean working with hands is the definition of labor. Manual labor or working with hands is considered an inferior sort of work. In this world, nothing can be achieved without labor. Labor and industry contributed to the development of civilization. When we discuss basic human rights labor class is not enjoying the rights as white collared people and merchants. Even educated ones do not appreciate this class’s efforts. Only those people are preferred who own high profiled jobs. These so-called educated and civilized people do not even think that where the world would stand if no one worked.

“Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration” Abraham Lincoln

Labor is important for making innovations and changes. If after the discovery of the wheel no one has worked for making engines then we will still have been traveling on animals. Or after the discovery of the power of steam, if no one had worked to make a steam engine then what is the use of discovery of steam power? If there were no one to plow the fields, there would have been no crops. As the result, we would have been facing a scarcity of food. If an engineer is important for making buildings drawings then mason is also of equal or even more important for giving a proper shape to this drawing.

History of manual work:

Prosperity and development of nations depend on works done by its masses. If masses live their lives like Lotus-eaters, not only development is possible but also they would not survive long. No pain, no gain is the secret of all the developed nations. Depreciating manual labor is said and shameful act of current society. There is a vast history of people who denigrated the worth of manual labor and tried to tarnish the dignity of labor with hand. But time changed and people are now more modern and enlightened with the power of respect and status befitting to all kinds of labor. The sad image of the story is that this respect and honor of manual labor is still being denied in most parts of the world. Hence this is not a worldwide concept and laborers are still looked down on by upper-class society.

“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.” Cesar Chavez

The major cause of retardation in our country is that we do not appreciate our labor. That’s why people are forced to work in European and other developed states. They are still laborers in those countries but the main difference is that they are not treated with disregard by the people of those countries. However, they get good perks in those countries and decent benefits in return for their efforts. If we are willing to earn a good status in the view of other nations then we should give equal rights and benefits to the labor class as well. This is the only way of improving our economy.

Also, Labors should understand their worth and should not be ashamed of their manual work. Manual work bears equal importance as others do.

Value of working with hands:

The reality is that no community, society, or human can survive without manual labor. No nation can prosper without accepting the worth of farmers, industrial workers, masons, and minors who try to make day-to-day life possible. All of these manual labor are the key factors of making prosper and developed society. Every sort of labor is sacred whether it is manual, menial, or mental if it is done with honesty and truthfulness.

A human being is superior to all the creatures just because of their ability to work and power to think. Human is prior because of their capability of differentiating between good and bad. We are provided with all the things naturally like fruits, vegetables, air, and a lot of other blessings but not in a usable form. These blessings become functional with agriculture, industries, trading, and transformation. All these activities are interlinked and the common feature of all these kinds of transformation is labor. We require farmers, constructers, and industrial employees. Without these manual workers, we would not be able to survive like if farmers are not available there would be a scarcity of food. So we should be thankful to these entire professionals and laborers that become sources of providing us blessings of Almighty in proper form. In fact, all of this manual labor is the reason for our existence. This variety of manual labor provides a variety of our requirements. So this is just a distribution of labor that helps us to survive. Labor is labor, whether we are working while sitting in a cabin or on roads both, are interlinked with each other. This chain and cycle are important to be continued for our existence.

When it comes to human dignity, we cannot make compromises. Angela Merkel

Respect of skilled workers:

Our role model and biggest motivation for all mankind Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) teach us to work hard and present a lot of examples by His deeds in which he worked with his hands. He (PBUH) is a messenger of Allah Almighty still he used to mend his shoe with his own hands. Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) never hesitated to sew a patch of his shirt by himself. He (PBUH) used to milk his goats and get water from the well. In the battle of khandaq he participated in digging moat by himself that is why this battle is known as Ghazwa Khandaq.

The Holy Prophet (PBUH) said: “Your brothers are your servants whom ALLAH has made your subordinate, he should give them to eat for what he himself eats and wear for what he himself wears and do not put on the burden of any labor which may exhaust them”

Our industrious hero Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah once said:

“Work, work and work”

He used to work from day to night and for the independence of Muslims. His sister, Fatima Jinnah used to advise hos to take care of his health and reduce the amount of work. He used to smile over and reply:

“If the leaders of the nation will not work, who else will?”

Labor as the satisfaction of human soul:

Labor has several forms but all of them have been organized in manual and intellectual labor. Both of them bear equal rights and no one is inferior or superior to the other. Meaningful work and labor can be defined that is personally enriched and contributing positively. We all are responsible for our deeds and we are answerable to Lord in the end. So it is not the manual or mental work that is inferior or superior but it is the work done with which sort of intention.

“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” Vincent Van Gogh

If labor is working manually with his pure intentions then no doubt he is superior to all of the mental and intellectual labors as well. So, the aim and designation of doings is the major factor about which we should be careful.

Conclusion:

The dignity of labor means all occupations and professions whether based on intellectual or physical labor should enjoy equal rights and place in society. All the occupations are compounded to make societies prosper and develop. So it is concluded that there is no work and job inferior or superior. All sorts of labor are important for the survival of humankind. Every dutiful worker and every job being done with honesty and sincerity should be appreciated. Regardless of the concept of manual or mental labor, every job deserves honor and respect. We should understand that fellow beings are working to support society and their families as well. So we should not consider any job or labor as insignificant.

Valuing the dignity of work

Dr. Juan Somavia

In today’s world defending the dignity of work is a constant uphill struggle. Prevailing economic thinking sees work as a cost of production, which in a global economy has to be as low as possible in order to be competitive. It sees workers as consumers who because of their relative low wages need to be given easy access to credit to stimulate consumption and wind up with incredible debts. Nowhere in sight is the societal significance of work as a foundation of personal dignity, as a source of stability and development of families or as a contribution to communities at peace. This is the meaning of ‘decent work’. It is an effort at reminding ourselves that we are talking about policies that deal with the life of human beings not just bottom line issues. It is the reason why the International Labour Organization constitution tells us “Labour is not a commodity. i ” And we know that the quality of work defines in so many ways the quality of a society. And that’s what our policies should be about: keeping people moving into progressively better jobs with living wages, respect for worker rights, nondiscrimination and gender equality, facilitating workers organization and collective bargaining, universal social protection, adequate pensions and access to health care.

All societies face decent work challenges, particularly in the midst of the global crisis that still haunts us. Why is this so difficult? There are many converging historical and policy explanations, but there is a solid underlying fact: in the values of today’s world, capital is more important than labour. The signs have been all over the place—from the unacceptable growth of inequality to the shrinking share of wages in GDP. We must all reflect on the implications for social peace and political stability, including those benefitting from their present advantage.

But things are changing. Many emerging and developing countries have shown great policy autonomy in defining their crisis responses, guided by a keen eye on employment and social protection, as the 2014 Human Development Report advocates. Policies leading to the crisis overvalued the capacity of markets to self-regulate; undervalued the role of the State, public policy and regulations and devalued respect for the environment, the dignity of work and the social services and welfare functions in society. They led into a pattern of unsustainable, inefficient and unfair growth. We have slowly begun to close this policy cycle, but we don’t have a ready-made alternative prepared to take its place.

This is an extraordinary political opportunity and intellectual challenge for the United Nations System. Coming together around a creative post-2015 global vision with clear Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be a first step into a new policy cycle looking at what a post-crisis world should look like. And beyond the United Nations, we need to listen. There is great disquiet and insecurity in too many societies. . And that’s why the insistence of the 2014 Human Development Report on reclaiming the role of full employment, universal social protection and the road to decent work is so important. It builds on the existing consensus of the largest meeting of Heads of State and Government in the history of the United Nations. In their 2005 Summit they stated that “We strongly support fair globalization and resolve to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of our relevant national and international policies as well as our national development strategies. ii ” So, at least on paper, the commitment is there in no uncertain terms.

Let me finish with one example of the changes necessary for which I believe there is widespread consensus. Strong real economy investments, large and small, with their important job-creating capacity must displace financial operations from the driver’s seat of the global economy. The expansion of short-term profits in financial markets, with little employment to show for it, has channeled away resources from the longer term horizon of sustainable real economy enterprises. The world is awash in liquidity that needs to become productive investments through a regulatory framework ensuring that financial institutions fulfil their original role of channeling savings into the real economy. Also, expanding wage participation in GDP within reasonable inflation rates will increase real demand and serve as a source of sustainable development growth. Moving from committed minimum wage policies to a much fairer distribution of productivity gains and profits should be a point of departure. Dreams or potential reality? We shall see, but no doubt this is what politics and social struggles will be all about in the years to come.

This blog entry is slightly shortened version of a special contribution made to the 2014 Human Development Report “Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience” .

Dr. Juan Somavia is the former Director General of the International Labour Oganization.

Notes: i Constitution of the International Labour Organisation and Selected Texts. Geneva: International Labour Office. www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/leg/download/constitution.pdf . Accessed 25 March 2014. ii UN World Summit Outcome (A/60/L.I) 15 September, 2005. New York. www.un.org/womenwatch/ods/A-RES-60-1-E.pdf . Accessed 25 March 2014.

Photo credit: ILO/Jacek Cislo

The HDialogue blog is a platform for debate and discussion. Posts reflect the views of respective authors in their individual capacities and not the views of UNDP/HDRO.

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The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers

Genesis 2:1-3 God rests on the seventh day.

Genesis 2:15 God settles man in the garden of Eden to cultivate and care for it.

Deuteronomy 5:13-15 The Sabbath is for everyone—all are allowed to rest from their work.

Deuteronomy 14:28-29 The Lord blesses our work so that we may share its fruits with others.

Deuteronomy 24:14-15 Do not withhold wages from your workers, for their livelihood depends on them.

Sirach 34:26-27 To deprive an employee of wages is to commit murder.

Isaiah 58:3-7 To observe religious practices, but oppress your workers is false worship.

Jeremiah 22:13 Woe to him who treats his workers unjustly.

Matthew 20:1-16 All workers should be paid a just and living wage.

Mark 2:27 The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.

Luke 3:10-14 Practice integrity in your work.

Luke 12:13-21 One’s worth is not determined by an abundance of possessions.

James 5:1-6 Those who become rich by abusing their workers have sinned against God.

Tradition

“It is clear from the very first pages of the Bible that work is an essential part of human dignity; there we read that 'the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it' (Gen 2:15). Man is presented as a laborer who works the earth, harnesses the forces of nature and produces ‘the bread of anxious toil’ (Ps 127:2), in addition to cultivating his own gifts and talents. Labor also makes possible the development of society and provides for the sustenance, stability and fruitfulness of one’s family: ‘May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children’s children!’ (Ps 128:5-6).” (Pope Francis, The Joy of Love [ Amoris Laetitia ], nos. 23-24)

"Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God. It follows that, in the reality of today's global society, it is essential that 'we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone,' no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning. We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfillment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work." (Pope Francis, On Care for Our Common Home [ Laudato Si '], nos. 127-28)

"Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality. I am far from proposing an irresponsible populism, but the economy can no longer turn to remedies that are a new poison, such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded." (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel [ Evangelii Gaudium ], no. 204) "I would like to remind everyone, especially governments engaged in boosting the world's economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity: 'Man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life'." (Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth [ Caritas in Veritate ], no. 25, quoting Second Vatican Council, The Church in the Modern World [ Gaudium et Spes ], no. 63)

"The economic sphere is neither ethically neutral, or inherently inhuman or opposed to society. It is part and parcel of human activity and precisely because it is human, it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner." (Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth [ Caritas in Veritate ], no. 36)

"In many cases, poverty results from a violation of the dignity of human work, either because work opportunities are limited (through unemployment or underemployment), or 'because a low value is put on work and the rights that flow from it, especially the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family'." (Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth [ Caritas in Veritate ], no. 63)

"The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace." (St. John Paul II, The Hundredth Year [ Centesimus Annus ], no. 43)

"All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions, as well as to organize and join unions or other associations." (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, A Catholic Framework for Economic Life , no. 5)

"Work is, as has been said, an obligation, that is to say, a duty, on the part of man. . . Man must work, both because the Creator has commanded it and because of his own humanity, which requires work in order to be maintained and developed. Man must work out of regard for others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to, the country of which he is a child, and the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history." (St. John Paul II, On Human Work [ Laborem Exercens] , no. 16) "Work is a good thing for man-a good thing for his humanity-because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes 'more a human being'.” (St. John Paul II, On Human Work [ Laborem Exercens ], no. 9) "All these rights, together with the need for the workers themselves to secure them, give rise to yet another right: the right of association, that is to form associations for the purpose of defending the vital interests of those employed in the various professions. These associations are called labor or trade unions." (St. John Paul II, On Human Work [ Laborem Exercens ], no. 20) "As the Church solemnly reaffirmed in the recent Council, 'the beginning, the subject and the goal of all social institutions is and must be the human person.' All people have the right to work, to a chance to develop their qualities and their personalities in the exercise of their professions, to equitable remuneration which will enable them and their families 'to lead a worthy life on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level' and to assistance in case of need arising from sickness or age." (St. Paul VI, A Call to Action [ Octogesima Adveniens ], no. 14)

A philosopher’s view: the benefits and dignity of work

Professor of Philosophy, Macquarie University

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In a recent speech presented at the Sydney Institute, Julia Gillard reaffirmed her commitment to welfare reform aimed at full employment. This was justified not by the need for the government to cut its costs — there was no mention this time of a tough imminent budget–but by an _ethical _principle: work is a social good that governments ought to promote and help make available to everyone, if the circumstances allow it.

Furthermore, pursuit of the goal of full employment, on account of the “benefits and dignity” of working, is not just one political aim amongst others, but the central purpose of the Labor Party, as the prime minister depicted it in her speech. Under her leadership, “a new culture of work” would be entrenched.

Gillard’s speech raises some deep philosophical issues. Is work really a social good? If it is such a good, is it a special one, one that should be prioritized over others?

Is it the legitimate business of democratic governments to promote one conception of the good life over others (in this case, one that involves working) or to favour one particular culture or “ethos”?

Wouldn’t it be fairer to let people choose their own idea of what is good for them?

To get the question of whether work is really a social good into focus, it helps to specify, in suitably abstract terms, the kind of activity that work is.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle did this by way of a distinction between praxis , which is action done for its own sake, and poiesis , or activity aimed at the production of something useful.

The excellence or worth of _poiesis _consists entirely in the excellence or worth of the thing made by the activity.

This contrasts with _praxis _which, when it goes well, is its own end, worthwhile for its own sake.

Aristotle’s distinction between _poiesis _and _praxis _has had a huge influence on Western thinking about work.

It shaped Christian (especially but not exclusively Catholic) thinking about the value of work and was taken up in various ways by key philosophers of the Enlightenment, such as Adam Smith, and currents of Marxist and neo-classical economic thought in the twentieth century.

The conception of work as _poiesis _rather than _praxis _continues to be dominant to this day.

Work is widely seen as activity which is done exclusively for the sake of something else, as worth doing solely as a means to some external end.

Of course, gainful employment in a market economy always _is _done for the sake of something else: it is how most people make a living for themselves and their families. Work, as gainful employment, is an instrumental good.

It is instrumentally valuable from the individual worker’s point of view because of the income it brings.

And from a broader social-economic point of view, it is instrumental in the creation of the common wealth.

Now if this were the whole story about the value of work, then those who get an income without working, say by gaining an inheritance, or winning the lottery, or even claiming benefits, would not really be missing out on anything.

Indeed, they would be in the enviable position of receiving the benefits of work (income) without having to pay the costs (the effort, the time).

But it is clear that the lives of people who do not work are typically lacking in certain goods.

Research shows that physical and mental health are adversely affected by lack of work. You are more likely to suffer from obesity and depression, for example, if you are unemployed. This may be linked to another good that work helps to provide: self-esteem.

Self-esteem, in the sense of having a perception of the worth of one’s own existence, is bound up with the recognition one receives from others of one’s competences, achievements and contributions.

Your family and friends may love you just for who you are, and you may feel entitled to certain basic rights, like a right to basic welfare, just on account of being a person.

But the status of being a somebody , as the German philosopher Hegel famously put it, depends in modern societies on the public recognition of skills and achievements, which participation in a suitably regulated labour market is able to secure.

This brings us to another good that work can help to realise: the sense of being connected to something larger than oneself.

By participating in the division of labour, the French sociologist Durkheim observed, individuals can come to a livelier appreciation of their dependence on others and the need for cooperation.

And day-to-day practice in the activity of cooperative problem-solving, the American philosopher John Dewey persuasively argued, provides vital training for the citizens of a healthy democracy.

Health, the exercise and development of skills and capacities, self-esteem based on the recognition of one’s achievements, a sense of social connectedness and exposure to the demands of cooperation are some of the intrinsic goods associated with working life that are imperilled by lack of work.

Such goods are not subjective preferences, or expressions of cultural bias, but rationally justifiable ethical objectives that a government can legitimately seek to pursue.

But of course these goods are endangered not just by unemployment, but by the way in which work is actually organised .

Many jobs are in fact bad for your health, they stunt your capacities, they damage your self-esteem, leave you feeling isolated, and seem systematically designed to prevent you from cooperating with anyone.

So if the “new culture of work” called for by the prime minister is to have ethical weight, it needs to involve much more than the provision of more jobs: the _quality _of work has to improve.

For the benefits and dignity of work are as much a matter of what one _does _while working, and of the social relations one enjoys or endures there, as they are of the economic power it brings.

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Essay on the Dignity of Labor with Outline for Students

January 10, 2024

Kainat Shakeel

In our ever-evolving society, the conception of the dignity of labor holds profound significance. From historical perspectives to present-day challenges, admitting the value of every job is pivotal for fostering a harmonious and inclusive community.

The dignity of labor is a dateless conception that transcends artistic and societal boundaries. It goes beyond the type of work one engages in and encompasses the natural value every job holds in contributing to the well-being of society. In this essay, we will explore the historical elaboration of views on labor dignity, bandy the challenges faced by sloggers, and claw into the profitable impact of feting the value of every job.

Historical Perspectives

Throughout history, the perception of labor has experienced significant metamorphoses. In ancient societies, certain jobs were supposed more honorable than others, frequently grounded on societal scales. still, as societies evolved, there surfaced a consummation that every part, anyhow of its nature, played a vital part in the functioning of society.

The Value of Every Job

It’s essential to understand that the dignity of labor extends to all professions. Whether one is a croaker, a janitor, or an artist, each part contributes uniquely to the fabric of our community. This recognition fosters a sense of inclusivity and concinnity, breaking down societal walls and conceptions associated with particular occupations.

Challenges Faced by Laborers

Despite the universal significance of labor, workers frequently face colorful challenges. From societal prejudices to conceptions about certain professions, individuals may encounter walls that undermine their sense of dignity. It’s imperative to address these issues inclusively to produce a further indifferent work environment.

Economic Impact

Admitting the dignity of labor isn’t simply a moral imperative but also a sound profitable strategy. When every job is valued, it enhances overall productivity and contributes to the growth of frugality. Feting the link between labor dignity and profitable success is essential for erecting a sustainable and thriving society.

Particular Stories

Real-life stories of individuals prostrating societal impulses and chancing fulfillment in their work serve as important illustrations of the dignity of labor. These stories humanize the conception, making it relatable to compendiums from all walks of life. similar narratives inspire a shift in perspective, encouraging a more inclusive and regardful view of different professions.

Education and mindfulness

Education plays a pivotal part in shaping stations towards labor. By incorporating assignments on the dignity of labor into educational classes, we can inseminate a sense of respect for all professions from an early age. also, adding mindfulness about the significance of different places in society can contribute to a further enlightened and inclusive perspective.

Changing comprehensions

Enterprise and movements aimed at changing societal stations towards certain professions have gained instigation in recent times. Success stories of individualities breaking walls and grueling preconceived sundries demonstrate the power of collaborative efforts in reshaping comprehensions about the dignity of labor.

Global Perspectives

Stations towards labor dignity vary across different countries. By comparing and differing these perspectives, we gain precious perceptivity into the artistic nuances that shape societal views on work. international efforts to ameliorate working conditions and promote fair labor practices contribute to a global discussion on the significance of feting the dignity of every worker.

Government programs

The part of government programs in securing workers’ rights and promoting a fair and staid work environment can not be exaggerated. assaying the impact of legislation on labor conditions allows us to understand the positive changes brought about by nonsupervisory fabrics and identify areas for enhancement.

Technological Advances

Advancements in technology are reshaping the geography of work. While robotization and artificial intelligence bring about an unknown edge, they also pose challenges to the traditional conception of labor. Balancing technological progress with preserving labor dignity requires thoughtful consideration and ethical decision-making.

Future Trends

As we navigate the complications of the ultramodern work geography, it’s pivotal to anticipate unborn trends and their counteraccusations for labor dignity. From remote work to gig frugality, understanding the evolving nature of work is essential for ensuring that the dignity of labor remains a central tenet of our societal values.

The part of Unions

Labor unions have historically played a vital part in championing workers’ rights. Examining the influence of unions in different surroundings provides precious perceptivity into collaborative efforts to cover the dignity of labor. Their part in negotiating fair stipends, safe working conditions, and other essential benefits can not be exaggerated.

Empowering the Next Generation

Instilling a sense of dignity in labor from an early age is crucial to shaping the stations of the coming generation. Educational strategies that emphasize the value of different professions and promote a regardful view of all jobs contribute to erecting a society that values and respects every existent’s donation. In conclusion, the dignity of labor isn’t a conception confined to history but a living principle that shapes our present and unborn. Feting the value of every job, challenging conceptions, and championing fair labor practices are essential ways to create a society where every existent’s donation is conceded and admired.

Kainat Shakeel is a versatile Content Writer Head and Digital Marketer with a keen understanding of tech news, digital market trends, fashion, technology, laws, and regulations. As a storyteller in the digital realm, she weaves narratives that bridge the gap between technology and human experiences. With a passion for staying at the forefront of industry trends, her blog is a curated space where the worlds of fashion, tech, and legal landscapes converge.

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Essay / Paragraph on Dignity of Labour

by Sajid | Oct 15, 2020 | 11th English 2020

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America Needs to Restore Dignity of Work

The American dream is about the opportunity to earn happiness—and the government has a responsibility to facilitate that.

T here was once a path to a stable and prosperous life in America that has since closed off. It was a well-traveled path for many Americans: Graduate from high school and get a job, typically with a local manufacturer or one of the service industries associated with it, and earn enough to support a family. The idea was not only that it was possible to achieve this kind of success, but that anyone could achieve it—the American dream. That dream defines my family’s history, and its disappearance calls me to action today.

In 1956, my parents left behind a life of poverty in Cuba when they departed Havana with my 7-year-old brother for New York, and then for Miami soon after. My father started off taking whatever day jobs he could find before eventually becoming a bartender for most of his career, working various other jobs during the gaps. Once my younger sister and I were old enough, my mother started working again as a maid.

Between their two salaries and my dad’s tips, they made a good living, and I had a privileged childhood. My parents made enough to own a house, raise four children, and even allow my mother to spend most of her time at home when I was young. I was able to play football, go to college, and earn a law degree, because of the solid foundation built on the sacrifices my parents made for me and my siblings.

At some moments in our history, this sort of upward mobility has proved elusive. But when the United States has enjoyed booming new industries that offer good-paying jobs to large numbers of people, effective institutions of training and assimilation, and a strong communal spirit of aid and shared purpose, such opportunities have been broadly shared.

Oren Cass: Economic piety is a crisis for workers

Today, though, outside of a few concentrated pockets of high growth in digital technology, American industrial innovation has slowed and workers in once-populous industrial regions have lost stable employment. For increasing numbers of Americans , enrolling at a four-year college is more likely to lead to debt and ambiguity than to a clear and productive career. Local organizations that once provided workers with a sense of representation and community, such as unions, have seen their memberships and budgets decline into near-oblivion.

To feel the absence of the American dream, and to desire to re-create an America in which it exists, is to experience nostalgia, but of a particular kind. It is not necessarily a desire for the old things, for low-tech assembly lines, male-only colleges, or debilitating labor disputes. It is a desire for an old promise, that no matter what America looks like or how it has changed, a stable and prosperous life should be attainable for the many. It’s an undying spirit that defines and unites us as Americans.

I’m proud that my mother and father could provide, through their hard work and commitment to our family, the opportunity for me and my siblings to flourish. They came to America in a time of prosperity, when working-class immigrants could assimilate and thrive alongside Americans whose families had been here for generations.

When I was born, in the early 1970s, the median income for families like mine, with a few kids and parents with only high-school degrees, was nearly two and a half times the poverty line. Today it’s less than one parent’s paycheck away from the poverty line. Simply put, if my family faced the exact same circumstances today, we would not be middle class; we would be falling behind. And if hardworking Americans don’t have stable jobs that pay enough to buy a home and raise a family, our nation is in very serious trouble.

Caitlin Zaloom: Does the U.S. still have a “middle class”?

Many policy makers in Washington and commentators in New York realize that the 21st-century economy is causing deep disruptions to Americans’ work lives, and that something new must be done to help them succeed. The debate over the “future of work,” though, is too often concerned with what workers need to do in order to become more useful to businesses, placing the responsibility of adjusting to automation and outsourcing by pursuing job retraining on workers themselves. In the process, the discussion absolves government and business of any responsibility for creating an economy that exists to benefit working Americans.

Offering workers retraining and career education is a big part of the answer to our current dilemma. But constantly scrambling to keep up with the ever-shifting forces of globalization and automation is not the American dream. Applying these ex post facto fixes to a misaligned economy is not an attempt at a solution, but a justification. We’ve done better before, and we can do better now.

At its core, the American dream is about the opportunity to earn happiness. This kind of happiness is only made possible for most Americans by the dignity of work. If we do not rediscover and embrace that simple truth soon, low-paid rootlessness will be the future of work, and our nation will suffer for it. On public policy, both the right and the left are stale and sclerotic. Neither a singular focus on economic growth nor a reliance on more government is going to solve the challenges of our time. In this essay, I hope to present some other options.

F or all of the criticism it has received, the 2017 Republican tax law addressed a universally recognized problem: an old corporate tax structure that left us uncompetitive with the rest of the world. But let’s not mistake this first step for the final destination. The question workers face going forward isn’t whether tax cuts will bring capital back to the United States; it’s where that capital will go once it’s here.

When conservatives think of business tax cuts, we too often think that corporations are all like General Motors in the 1950s—functioning, productive companies making American goods with American labor. That’s just not how it works anymore. Many large corporations today act more like financial assets, allocating capital as if their stock price and dividend payout were the firm’s products instead of the goods or services that drove their success to begin with.

Trusting in a corporate tax cut alone to generate innovation and boost productivity is the thinking of the past. A corporate tax-rate cut makes all corporate assets more valuable, causing a bigger return to investment no matter how it is used. In our globalized and financialized economy, though, it’s as likely to induce stock buybacks as it is to spur the construction of new American factories.

Read: The 7 myths of the GOP tax bill

It doesn’t have to work this way. Supply-side theory—that increased investment benefits workers in the long run—only works if investment actually increases. That is why, in our 2015 tax plan , Senator Mike Lee of Utah and I argued that the top priority of tax reform should be encouraging capital investment. And that is why I will soon introduce a plan to expand and make permanent the full-expensing provisions from last year’s tax-law effort and end the tax code’s favoritism for companies that spend their tax cuts on stock buybacks.

By allowing businesses to immediately deduct their investment in improving their products and workers, full-expensing better increases the value of investments that are tied to American labor. The Heritage Foundation called it the “most important [reform] for economic growth” because “it benefits businesses that are actively investing and creating jobs in the U.S.”

It’s not always in the financial interest of nationless corporations to increase their investment in American workers. Changing that will require a stick to accompany the carrot of full-expensing. At present, Wall Street rewards companies for engaging in stock buybacks, temporarily increasing their stock prices at the expense of productive investment. While companies should be free to buy their own stock, there should be no tax advantage for stock buybacks over other forms of capital allocation, as the deferral of capital-gains taxes currently allows.

Taxing stock buybacks at the same rate as dividends would ensure that corporations are not reducing their investment merely for tax purposes. Under my proposal, a company that wants to use its tax cuts to build a new factory could deduct the costs of the facility, but a company that wants to use its tax cuts to buy back its own stock wouldn’t get any additional tax benefit for doing so.

The conventional wisdom among corporate management and investors today is that buybacks don’t come at the expense of investment, because they return capital to shareholders to be put to better use elsewhere. This objection misses the point. When a corporation uses its profits to buy back stock, it is actively deciding that returning capital to shareholders is a better activity for business than investing in the company’s product or workforce. The tax preference for buybacks tilts the scale in this direction, creating a bias against productive investment.

We shouldn’t be surprised that an economy that encourages indefinite financialization over confidently making big bets on building the future has yielded a work life that is fractured, unstable, and low paying. To reassert the dignity of work, we need to start building an economy that invests in its workers and the things they make. Making American corporations act like the drivers of investment they once were would be a start.

T here is perhaps no greater cultural expression of what we consider dignified work than the priorities of our education system. We praise the achievement of a four-year-college degree, but look down on technical-skill certifications. We count ridiculous classes on pop culture as credits toward college degrees, but not wood shop. We subsidize high-end universities’ tuitions and endowments, but tax the paychecks of young workers gaining experience in the field.

Higher education has gone from being an accelerator of opportunity, as it was after World War II, to being a main driver of economic and social inequality today. The status quo model of higher education stifles competition, encourages soaring tuition costs, traps competent potential workers in unproductive academic bureaucracies, and limits opportunities for nontraditional students, such as working parents. Families and students need a system that embraces the new ways people can learn and acquire skills without having to go the traditional four-year-college-degree track.

Read: The world might be better off without college for everyone

The Higher Education Innovation Act, which I introduced with Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, would start to address these challenges. It proposes an alternative accreditation system that would allow new institutions to meet students’ needs with innovative educational products. Imagine some high-school seniors interested in becoming aircraft mechanics. Hands-on learning supplemented by low-cost online engineering courses might suit them better than a more expensive traditional degree built around a core curriculum.

We should reform student loans, too. We can increase transparency for borrowers by abandoning the current interest-based model, which hides the true cost of the loan and reduces incentives for colleges to bring down their tuition costs. If students instead pay a single, upfront loan-financing fee, which could be spread out through the lifetime of the loan, they could see on the front end exactly what they would be getting into, while avoiding the trap of ever-growing interest payments that delay graduates’ financial ability to start a family and build a life after school.

I’ll readily admit that those entrenched in the higher-education system and those who are unwilling to adapt stand to lose from reforms such as these. That’s partly the point. We simply cannot afford to waste our money and young peoples’ future work lives on the four-year-degree-industrial complex.

The old consensus, which made a a college degree a requirement for success, has harmed young Americans and their dignity, shoving them out of an honest day’s work and into the complicated world of ambiguous skills and unambiguous debt. We need to transform it into a well-trod path to prosperity for the many.

A ny discussion of the dignity of work should mention unions. No other American organizations occupy the same unique space as labor unions, which straddle the line between jobs and community. At their local levels, unions have historically served as an integrating force for the dignity of work.

This has not been the case for big-name organized labor for some time now, and workers know it. Since 1983, the number of private-sector union members fell by about 37 percent, from about 12 million to 7.6 million. Only 7 percent of the private-sector workforce is unionized. The overwhelming majority of Big Labor’s political activities are focused on helping Democrats, while an increasing share of its membership votes Republican. Time and time again, when given the opportunity to form a classic adversarial-model union, workers have opted against doing so .

Read: A world without work

This is the unsurprising outcome of a labor-organization model that no longer represents the interests of its workers. But the decline of unions, insofar as they represented important places for workers and their families to secure the conditions of the American dream, is not something to be celebrated.

One of my earliest political memories is of marching the picket line with my father, a casino bartender in Las Vegas at the time, in a Culinary Workers Union strike. I didn’t fully grasp the issues involved then, but I knew my father and the workers at the other hotels were asking to just be treated fairly for their work. This concept—that they created value for the hotel and had a right to share in that value—is not radical.

To have labor organizations that represent workers’ interests again, we should go back to the basics. As my father understood then, and as most workers understand today, workers are productive for their employers. They can organize to ensure that their compensation is commensurate to their value, like my father’s union did in that strike, but also to increase their value, like by providing a good American community for my immigrant family, or in building the skills of young workers.

Labor organizations could still serve these valuable roles today, if only we would abandon an old model of regulation that doesn’t. The backbone of labor law remains the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and many of the law’s major provisions have remained unchanged since 1947. It enshrines a model of labor relations that pits worker against manager, in which government regulation tells workers what they should value and success is defined as gaining power over the other side, without regard for the value workers and employers might create together.

Federal labor law should be reformed to make possible a more productive relationship between workers and employers. As Oren Cass proposes in his book The Once and Future Worker , this could take the form of new labor “co-ops” in the model of Germany’s sectoral workers’ groups, which negotiate wages and benefits, and provide training and apprenticeships for their workers.

These voluntary, dues-paying organizations and their associated worker representatives could receive federal charters that would allow them to administer benefits such as unemployment insurance and worker-training programs. They would be banned from the kind of institutional political organization Big Labor has become bogged down in and would have the flexibility to negotiate beyond the extent of federal labor law in some areas.

Rebuilding the dignity of work means fighting for a work life that suits the needs of our workers. By recognizing the legitimate value of labor organizations and embracing creative ideas for restoring their importance in workers’ lives, we can better align the interests of our economy with the dignity of workers.

F or too long , government and business leaders alike have stood back and endorsed supposedly unstoppable global forces that have made life harder for working Americans. But inaction will not restore the dignity of work or usher in a new American century that values dignified work and wages like the last one.

The 21st century offers a real opportunity to reconstruct the great American middle class. By making companies and workers more productive, helping students be better prepared, and improving the working lives of the working class, we can create fields and industries that never existed before, offering careers and jobs that pay decent wages and provide stability to working families.

The “dignity of work” is not an ideology, nor is it a total theory of what is wrong with our country, however much we may crave one in a polarizing time. It is the lived reality of Americans: the day-in, day-out work to provide for their families and build a future for their children that is better than what they had to begin with. The “dignity of work” is both a recognition of how hard it is to achieve the American dream, and the reward for getting there.

To begin rebuilding a flourishing nation, we need to remember that, and make dignified work possible for the many.

Essay on “Dignity of Labour” for School, College Students, Long and Short English Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12, College and Competitive Exams.

Dignity of Labour

Essay No. 01

The dignity of labour means respect and value given to all forms of work. It refers to equal respect for the jobs that involve manual labour. In earlier times, daily several slaves were bought and sold openly in the markets. They lost their dignity and performed all sorts of hard and laborious works. Today, we are living in an independent and democratic age. It has been realized by most of the people that all forms of labour contribute to the welfare and development of society. The labourers through trade unions and different groups have gained success in attaining a recognized position in society.

When we talk about basic rights, the working class do not enjoy that respect which is enjoyed by business executives, white-collared people and merchants. Many learned people do not appreciate and practice. the principle of dignity of labour. They prefer high-profile jobs. For example, a science graduate, who is the son of a wealthy farmer, would like to take up any job in a nearby city rather than to follow his father’s occupation. Thus, it is not wise to look down upon manual labour.

Manual labour is extremely important and necessary for the smooth functioning in society. Although today most of the work in industries and factories is done by machines, production can be paused without the manual assistance of the workers. Lakhs of labourers work imines, agricultural sectors, construction fields and industries. Although they work with the help of machines, it is their duty to operate and maintain the machines. Invention and introduction of machinery have given rise to a new class of industrial workers. If the workers slow or stop the manufacturing of the essential goods even for a few days than the entire nation can suffer a severe setback. Thus, it is our main duty to show them respect and offer dignity.

In many western countries, the dignity of labour is recognized. Young people do not mind in earning money by doing pan-time work as food delivery boy or waiters at the restaurant. Much of the domestic work like cooking food and washing clothes is done by the members of the family. However, in countries like India, domestic servants are scarce and their demands for wages are very high. Many middle-class families pay more to servants to maintain their prestige in society.

A sense of dignity of labour should be conveyed to students in schools and colleges. They should be encouraged to participate in various kinds of programmes. If their minds are cleared of the view that none of the works is undignified and humiliating, the problem of unemployment will be solved to some extent.

Essay No. 02

A domestic help- she cleans, she washes, she even runs house errands but at the end of the day, she is yelled at for leaving a small little mark on the otherwise clean floor. Lenin founded Communism. Mark came up with the idea of socialism. But in a democracy like India, people have the right to do what they want, right? They can treat people of so-called lower stature in any which way.

An honest day’s work does not earn a person’s respect. And not much money either. So in the modern-day and age money earns respect, not the job you do. A mechanic, a domestic help, a driver cannot walk with their heads held high. Even though they work an equal amount of time (sometimes even more), they are looked down upon.

Who decides which work is better? Who decides which form of work deserves respect? Shouldn’t an honest and descent job be enough? But it’s not the case. The dignity of labor is a thing of the past, seems as though it never even existed. The definition of the dignity of labor is no work should be looked on upon. No one should be treated with any less respect just because of the work they do.

In a democratic system, the rights of the people are protected. Everyone is equal in the eyes of law, the government, and the country. But no one is equal in each other’s eyes. Of late the present environment of the society, the dignity of labor is considered one of the major topics dealing with laborers. The ongoing debate on this topic has reached its peak with people coming to know about their rights. Society has come to terms with the act that every job performed by a laborer is a tough one. Also, it has been understood that he is specialized in these jobs and these jobs are an integral part of the functioning of society. These jobs might be considered menial but think about it. Will you get up and wash the utensils every day? Will you wash your car?

The answer to all of the above is that we have to respect every form of work and thus the solution to all of this is Dignity of Labor. Respect people who work, as this will help not only increase employment but also provide the basis for a healthy society.

Essay No. 03

Nature provides us with everything we need, but not in usable forms. With our various activities like agriculture, trade, industry, and learning, we transform the gifts given to us by the Almighty into products useful to us. As a common feature of all these activities, labour in one form or another is an important factor that makes such transformation possible. It is, in fact, the key factor to our very existence. The variety labour matches a variety of our needs. Therefore, each form of labour is important to us in its own way while few people among us work the iron is in nature to make steel, which builds our industries, some others generate power from water, coal or oil, to run them. If another group tills the land to raise crops, yet another transforms them into vital food. It is such distribution of labour among ourselves that helps us survive. We cannot imagine what our lives would be like. If we were unwilling to work or unprepared to engage in different occupations.

Life is a struggle; one must fight the battle of life valiantly. Everybody who takes birth has to die one day. Therefore, one should make the best of life. Time at our disposal is very short. We must make the best use of every minute given to us by God. Life consists of action, not contemplation. Those who do not act, but go on hesitating and postponing things, achieve nothing in life. Such persons as going on thinking and brooding can never attain the height of glory.

A short life full of action is much better than a long life of inactivity and indolence. Tennyson has rightly remarked that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name. A man lives in deeds, not in years. Age or longevity does not matter. What matters is what one makes of life. Ben Jonson, the scholar-poet writes :

“It is not growing big in bulk like a tree Doth make man better be.”

Life is not an idle dream. Every beat of our heart is taking us nearer to our death. We must not lose any time in crying over the past or worrying about the present. H.W. Longfellow writes in his ‘Psalm of life’ :

“Trust no future, however pleasant; Let the dead past bury its dead Act, act in the living present Heart within, and God overhead.”

Though originally all occupations that were necessary and useful to humanity were encouraged and respected. However, as time passed some prejudices developed against certain occupations especially against those occupations that were relatively unimportant or unpleasant, and those that involved more physical effort than the others, were discriminated against. This tendency, along with the practice of deciding the social status of people, on the basis of their occupations, created unrest in society. Thus before long, the concept of distribution of labour, so essential for the health of society, ended up as its main bane. The unfortunate consequences of the distribution of labour and the deep-rooted prejudices against certain occupations were the main causes of casteism and untouchability, which have been plugging the Indian society for centuries. Through the efforts of many philanthropists and social reformers, who upheld the dignity of labour and restored respect for occupations, much of the prejudices have been eliminated.

However, much more needs to be done before we can realize the ideals of egalitarianism and social amity. Modern education, which helped change the outlook of people, was another factor that revived the dignity of labour. The life of Mahatma Gandhi is a typical example of the contribution of modern education in revolutionizing living. Though Gandhiji was born in a traditional, orthodox Hindu family and had a career as a successful lawyer the exposure he had to the outside world, earned him respect for all types of occupations. Gandhiji’s example is all the more important, because, unlike most others, he practiced the virtues of labour that he preached. It was his practice of cleaning his toilet, which was normally the job or scavengers, that ensured a sense of dignity for that job. He willingly did menial jobs on the farm, and while in jail, learned to cobble shoes. He virtually glamorized the occupation of spinning to the extent, that people of all classes and castes adopted the practice in their lives. Gandhiji’s identical respect for all occupations and his willingness to do or learn all manners of work, helped him establish self-sustaining communities, in India and South Africa. To this day the members of these communities honour the dignity of the labour and do all their work themselves, with no dependence of any kind on others. Thus, respect for labour and ensuring its dignity, give us a sense of independence. If nourished in all the members of community property and that too at the proper stage of life, the dignity of labour will help foster healthy relationships among them, thereby contributing to the strength of the community.

Absolute-Study

Hindi Essay, English Essay, Punjabi Essay, Biography, General Knowledge, Ielts Essay, Social Issues Essay, Letter Writing in Hindi, English and Punjabi, Moral Stories in Hindi, English and Punjabi.

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It help me to learn about Dignity of Labour. And also to participate in elocution competition?? I \ ‘

It was a very very very very nice essay . I really like it so much .I can participate in elocution competition .

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Essay on Dignity at Work

This short essay discusses the issues related to dignity at work and highlights the importance of having a paid job.

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Pablo Gilabert

This paper offers a justification of labor rights based on an interpretation of the idea of human dignity. According to the dignitarian approach, we have reason to organize social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable capacities of human beings that give rise to their dignity. That dignity is a deontic status in virtue of which people are owed certain forms of respect and concern. Dignity at work involves the treatment of people in accordance to the ideal of solidaristic empowerment as it pertains to their life as workers. This requires that we generate feasible and reasonable social schemes to support each other as we pursue the development and exercise of our valuable capacities to produce in personally and socially beneficial ways. The spectrum of dignitarian justice goes from basic rights to decent working conditions to maximal rights to flourish in working practices that are free from domination, alienation, and exploitation.

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2 Dignity and Meaningful Work

Norman E. Bowie is Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He is past president of the Society for Business Ethics and former Executive Director of the American Philosophical Association. In 2009 the Society for Business Ethics honored him with an award for scholarly achievement. His primary research interest is business ethics, where he is best known for his application of Kant’s moral philosophy to ethical issues in business.

Published: 11 February 2019
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The central importance of dignity for meaningful work justifies an obligation to provide meaningful work. This is because people have intrinsic worth as “dignity beyond price” and also because, through meaningful work, people experience themselves as dignified persons. In the Kantian formulation, people have dignity because they have the capacity for autonomy and self-government, and therefore can be held to be responsible. This chapter takes dignity to be based on such universal characteristics, and argues that since meaningful work is a route to dignity then we must pay attention to the ways in which we can ameliorate struggles to experience our dignity in work. The normative characteristics of work designed to promote rational capacities include freedom to choose and to exercise autonomy, and conditions for independence such as sufficient pay. Management practices are highlighted which meet such normative conditions. Examples include open book management, recruitment, training, and participatory practices.

For many, work is something unpleasant one must do in order to obtain the necessities of life as well as the goods and services one needs for a life of quality. This view of work as a necessary drudgery has a long history. The Bible reports that when Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden, one of the burdens Adam would have to bear is hard work—“by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” At the beginning of the industrial age, when manufacturing could take advantage of the division of labor, none other than Adam Smith, who had extolled the efficiency of the pin factory, had this to say about work in such factories.

The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are, perhaps, always the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging … His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society, this is the state into which the laboring poor, that is the great body of people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it. 1

Clearly the workers Smith described have neither meaningful work nor dignity.

Even in the twenty-first century, many throughout the world labor at jobs which provide neither dignity nor meaning. Even in advanced societies, an unfavorable attitude to work is captured in such phrases as TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday), Blue Monday, and Hump Day (Wednesday is half way to Friday). Thus, despite the vast of amount of time that most human beings spend at work, work is seen by many as without meaning.

Work and Dignity

But does it have to be this way? There are many occupations, often identified as callings, where work is meaningful because it gives a sense of purpose to one’s life. The professions, first responders, healthcare providers more generally, teachers, and even athletes find their work to be meaningful and to provide them with dignity. The key to a change in perspectives about work is dignity. Dignity holds a central position in any consideration of meaningful work. On the one hand, dignity provides a normative justification for an obligation on managers and others to provide meaningful work. Because persons have, as Kant said, a “dignity beyond price,” (Kant, 1990 [1785]: 51) and because work holds such an essential place in the lives of most people, workers are entitled to the most meaningful work that can be practically provided. On the other hand, meaningful work allows people to achieve dignity, and thus meaningful work is a key component in individual self-actualization. Thus dignity provides the ground for an obligation to provide meaningful work and dignity is what workers achieve when they have the opportunity to engage in meaningful work. Understanding what human dignity is and how it can be achieved helps provide criteria as to what constitutes meaningful work. These essential points about the relation between dignity and meaningful work are well recognized by a number of leading classical and contemporary thinkers.

Despite the Biblical injunction that you must earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, Catholic social teaching has insisted that work can be a means to human dignity so long as the workplace is organized so as to be supportive of meaningful work. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII issued his encyclical Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor). That document is primarily addressed to the rights and duties regarding the ownership of property. However, with respect to the relation between the employer and the employee the document says:

The following duties bind the wealthy owner and the employer: not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character. They are reminded that according to natural reason and Christian philosophy, working for gain is creditable not shameful to a man, since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood; but to misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers—that is truly shameful and inhumane. (Pope Leo XIII, 2002 [1981]: paragraph 20)

The papal encyclical that is most explicit concerning the dignity of work is Pope John Paul II’s 1981 papal encyclical Laborem Exercens :

it [work] is a good thing for man. It is good not only in the sense it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it … Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being, and indeed, in a sense, becomes “more a human being.” (Pope John Paul II, 1981 : #9)

Classical philosophers throughout the eighteenth century did not write much that was explicitly about meaningful work, although they wrote a great deal about human dignity. One could choose from a number of authors, but given Kant’s emphasis on dignity, perhaps an exploration of Kant’s position on dignity and work deserves special emphasis.

Kant’s Account of Dignity

Kant is famous for saying that a person possesses a dignity that is beyond all price. Specifically, Kant says:

In the realm of ends everything has either a price or dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent, has dignity. (Kant, 1990 [1785]: 51)

But, first, why do persons possess a dignity that is beyond all price? Kant argues that persons have dignity because human beings are capable of autonomy and thus are capable of self-governance. As autonomous beings capable of self-governance, they are also responsible beings, since autonomy and self-governance are conditions for responsibility. A person who is not autonomous and who is not capable of self-governance cannot be responsible. That’s why little children or the mentally ill are not considered responsible beings. Thus there is a conceptual link between being a human being, being an autonomous being, being capable of self-governance, and being a responsible being.

Autonomous responsible beings are capable of making and following their own laws; they are not simply subject to the causal laws of nature. Human beings are different from billiard balls. Anyone who recognizes that she is autonomous should recognize that she is responsible for her actions and thus she should recognize that she is a moral being. From this Kant argues that the fact that one is a moral being enables us to say that such a being possesses dignity. 2

Morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be an end in himself because only through it is it possible to be a lawgiving member in the realm of ends. Thus morality, and humanity, insofar as it is capable of morality, alone have dignity. (Kant, 1990 [1785]: 52)

This emphasis on dignity and respect undercuts the notion that Kant’s ethics is primarily an austere ethic of duty. As T. E. Hill puts it:

[For Kant] moral conduct is the practical exercise of the noble capacity to be rational and self-governing; a capacity which sets us apart from the lower animals and gives us dignity. Kant’s ethics is as much an ethics of self-esteem as it is an ethics of duty. (Hill, 1992 : 36–7)

But why should a person recognize the dignity of other persons? Now as a point of logic a person who recognizes that he or she is responsible and thus has dignity should ascribe dignity to other people who have the same capacity to be autonomous and responsible beings. As Kant says:

Rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily thinks of his own existence in this way, and thus far it is a subjective principle of human actions. Also every rational being thinks of his existence on the same rational ground which holds also for myself; thus it is at the same time an objective principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of the will. (Kant, 1990 [1785]: 36)

This quotation provides Kant’s argument for the necessity of including all other persons within the scope of the respect for persons principle (treating the humanity in a person as an end and never as a means only) and for the assertion that all human beings have a dignity that is beyond price. The argument is based on consistency. What we say about ourselves, we must say about similar cases, namely about other human beings.

The Most Recent Perspectives on Dignity

Although the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971 legitimized serious philosophical work in normative ethics and political economy, little was written on meaningful work. An exception is Adina Schwartz’s 1982 article, “Meaningful Work,” where she argued that menial jobs such as those described by Adam Smith in the passage quoted earlier were morally unacceptable because they violated the autonomy of the individuals who performed them (Schwartz, 1982 ). Although Schwartz did not explicitly adopt a Kantian framework for her analysis, her focus on the violation of individual autonomy is certainly compatible with Kant’s account as articulated above.

In her American Philosophical Association presidential address, Professor Linda Zagzebski paid special attention to Kant’s account of dignity. She noted two different ways of looking at dignity embedded in Kant’s account (Zagzebski, 2016 ). A person can have dignity because a person has value that is beyond all price. A person has dignity because he or she has infinite value. But a person can also have dignity because each is irreplaceable, since each is unique. Zagzebski then considered whether these two strains are consistent, since the former bases dignity on a common characteristic of human beings while the latter bases dignity on each person’s uniqueness. In this chapter we have limited our account of dignity to some common characteristic such as the ability to reason morally as the basis of dignity.

Michael Rosen’s contemporary analysis of dignity lists three strands of dignity: 1) dignity as status, 2) dignity as intrinsic value, and 3) dignity as dignified manner or bearing. 3 Kant’s account is clearly in the second strand, which is the strand that is most relevant to a discussion of meaningful work. Rosen emphasizes that all three strands have moved toward equality. With respect to the first strand, where dignity was reserved for people of a certain rank or social class, as Rosen points out, as early as Cicero that status was given to all human beings. Thus for our concerns here the first strand collapses into the second. The third strand points to the fact that people who struggle against adversity are described as having dignity. 4 Given the emphasis on providing meaningful work as a means to dignity, our discussion seeks ways to eliminate or at least ameliorate the struggle to obtain dignity in one’s job.

George Kateb’s ( 2011 ) contemporary analysis of dignity, which is very much in the second strand, defends dignity for all individual human beings and for the species of humanity as well. Although Kateb’s arguments for the dignity of the species of humanity are interesting and worthy of discussion, our focus on meaningful work can proceed by limiting dignity to individual human beings. With respect to individual human beings, Kateb is very much in the Kantian tradition that the dignity of human beings applies to all human beings equally.

The notion that it is a person’s ability to act on grounds of morality (the categorical imperative) that gives human beings dignity has been endorsed by contemporary business ethicists as well. Joseph Margolis recognizes that there are many pressures in business that inhibit employees from doing the right thing. As difficult as it is to overcome these pressures, some employees do in fact resist them. Margolis refers to the moment of resistance as the moment of dignity:

Human beings must be capable of responding deliberately to ethical challenges even amid tremendous social and psychological pressures. That is what it means, quite literally, to be responsible. Proposals for preserving moral responsibility thus attempt to rescue the moment of dignity: the possibility that in any given episode, a person can still exercise those faculties that identify a human being as distinctively human—faculties that endow each human being with the capacity to develop and pursue purposes. (Margolis, 2001 )

The task for business ethicists and ethical managers is to find and develop those conditions that support action at the moment of dignity. Margolis’s analysis is very much in the spirit of Kant, who argues that it is free action motivated by morality that gives a person the dignity that is beyond price.

A Kantian Account of Meaningful Work

There is a need at this point to tie Kant’s account of dignity and respect for persons to work. First, Kant argues that work is necessary for the development of selfhood:

Life is the faculty of spontaneous activity, the awareness of all our human powers. Occupation gives us this awareness … Without occupation man cannot live happily. If he earns his bread, he eats it with greater pleasure than if it is doled out to him … Man feels more contented after heavy work than when he has done no work; for by work he has set his powers in motion. (Kant, 1930 [1775]: 160–1)

Thus it appears that work is a duty that one has to oneself. It contributes to independence and to our self-conception. Although Kant does not say so explicitly, one can infer from his remarks that working provides self-respect.

In addition Kant actually endorses wealth and the pleasure it brings. However, to work simply in order to earn money is to display the vice of miserliness, a vice that is even worse than avarice. So long as work is required to make money so that one can provide for one’s needs and pleasures, and in so doing make oneself independent, work has value. Selected comments of Kant’s will establish his view.

A man whose possessions are sufficient for his needs is well-to-do … All wealth is means … for satisfying the owner’s wants, free purposes and inclinations … By dependence on others, man loses in worth, and so a man of independent means is an object of respect … But the miser finds a direct pleasure in money itself, although money is nothing but a pure means … The spendthrift is a lovable simpleton, the miser is a detestable fool. The former has not destroyed his better self and might face the misfortune that awaits him with courage, but the latter is a man of poor character. (Kant, 1930 [1775]: 177, 181, 185)

These selected quotations are from Kant’s brief remarks, which amount to less than ten pages and represent student notes from his lectures on ethics in the 1770s, before he had written his more critical works on ethical theory. Nonetheless, they provide a starting point for a Kantian theory of meaningful work and for the obligations of employers with respect to providing it.

In his recent book, The Thought of Work , John Budd provides a number of traditional views on the nature of work (Budd, 2011 ). Many, such as work as freedom, as personal fulfillment, and as identity all provide insights into why work is essential to human dignity. Budd’s account of work as occupational citizenship is especially compatible with the Kantian account of meaningful work given here. Budd contends that under the occupational citizenship view:

From this perspective, workers are citizens who are entitled to decent working and living conditions that are determined by standards of human dignity, not supply and demand, and to meaningful forms of self-determination in the workplace that go beyond the freedom to quit. In other words, workers are entitled to equity—fairness in the distribution of economic rewards, the administration of employment policies, and the provision of economic security—and voice, which means meaningful participation in workplace decision-making. (Budd, 2011 : 59)

Budd’s occupational citizenship view is incompatible with a straightforward market efficiency view that sees workers simply as factors of production that can be hired or fired as their price in the marketplace falls or rises. In Kantian language, workers cannot simply be used as a means to profit for the stockholders. Human beings possess a dignity that makes it immoral to use them simply as a means for the purposes of others.

Given Kant’s remarks on work and his ethical philosophy grounded in human dignity, I propose the following conditions of a Kantian theory of meaningful work: 5

Meaningful work is work that is freely chosen and provides opportunities for the worker to exercise autonomy on the job.

The work relationship must support the autonomy and rationality of human beings. Work that unnecessarily deadens autonomy or that undermines rationality is immoral.

Meaningful work is work that provides a salary sufficient for the worker to exercise her independence and provides for her physical well-being and the satisfaction of some of her desires.

Meaningful work is work that enables a person to develop her rational capacities.

Meaningful work is work that does not interfere with a person’s moral development.

Meaningful work is work that is not paternalistic in the sense of interfering with the worker’s conception of how she wishes to obtain happiness.

I emphasize that these conditions are not descriptive of how employees or employers would define meaningful work. Rather, these characteristics are normative conditions for meaningful work that I believe can be derived from Kant’s moral philosophy and from his explicit comments on work.

Management Practices that Support Meaningful Work

If this definition of meaningful work is accepted, then we must ask what management practices would contribute to providing meaningful work to all employees. 6 What is sought here is a description of a business organization that provides dignity through meaningful work. In their 2015 article, Thomas Donaldson and James Walsh have made dignity one of the intrinsic values central to the purpose of business. They argue that for a business to honor dignity as an intrinsic value it ought to treat each participant with respect in accordance with what they call a dignity threshold, which they define as “the minimum level of respect accorded to each Business Participant necessary to allow the agglomeration of Benefit to qualify as Business Success” (Donaldson and Walsh, 2015 ). In what follows I describe a number of business practices that would enable a business to meet and perhaps surpass this dignity threshold.

One practice is open book management—a practice that goes far in giving employees autonomy on the job. This technique, developed by Jack Stack at the Springfield Remanufacturing Company, is not new. Stack’s book The Great Game of Business was published in 1994, however the book was not a fad. It was updated, expanded, and published again in 2013. The underlying philosophy of open book management is that persons should be treated as responsible autonomous beings. A precondition of such treatment is that employees have the information needed to make responsible decisions. The author of an early book on open book management, John Case, called this “empowerment with brains” (Case, 1995 : 85–96).

Under open book management employees are given all the financial information about the company. They are also under a profit-sharing plan where what they make is in large part determined by the profit of the company. With complete information and the proper incentives, employees behave responsibly without the necessity for layers of supervision.

How does open book management do what it does? The simplest answer is this. People get a chance to act, to take responsibility, rather than just doing their job … No supervisor or department head can anticipate or handle all … situations. A company that hired enough managers to do so would go broke from the overhead. Open book management gets people on the job doing things right. And it teaches them to make smart decisions … because they can see the impact of their decisions on the relevant numbers. (Case, 1995 : 45, 46)

The adoption of practices like open book management would go far toward correcting the asymmetrical information that managers possess and that gives rise to the charge that the employment contract is often deceptive. Any time the firm faces a situation that might involve the layoff of employees, employees as well as managers would have access to all the relevant information. Deception in such circumstances would be much more difficult. Open book management also greatly increases employee autonomy, including autonomy with respect to company ethics programs. Put this all together and what open book management does is to enhance workers’ dignity.

Early adherents to open book management at the end of the twentieth century included Herman Miller, Allstate Insurance, and Intel. Toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first, John Case informed The Economist that 100 US firms practiced some form of open book management ( Economist , 2009 ).

Does a commitment of providing meaningful work for employees require companies to adopt open book management? “No.” There may be other management techniques that contribute to the dignity of employees. For example Jeffrey Pfeffer in his 1994 book, Competitive Advantage Through People , identified sixteen human resource practices for managing people successfully. In listing the sixteen practices, it is easy to see how they would make work more meaningful. They include 1) employment security, 2) selectivity in recruiting, 3) high wages, 4) incentive pay, 5) employee ownership, 6) information sharing, 7) participation and empowerment, 8) team and job redesign, 9) training and skill development, 10) cross-utilization and cross-training, 11) symbolic egalitarianism, 12) wage compression, 13) promotion from within, 14), a long-term perspective, 15) the measurement of practices, and 16) an overarching philosophy (Pfeffer, 1994 : 100–4). Let us see more specifically how these conditions make work more meaningful and enhance dignity.

So long as business firms provide jobs that provide sufficient wealth, they contribute to the independence and thus to the dignity and self-respect of their employees. The true contribution of capitalism would be that it provides jobs that help provide self-respect. Meaningful work is work that provides an adequate wage. High wages are obvious as a means to this goal. Job security is important for providing job stability, which means that employees with an adequate wage will likely continue to have an adequate wage. Job security is essential because it is necessary for achieving the characteristics of meaningful work as outlined in our definition. Wage compression refers to a policy that reduces large differences in pay between the top officials in the corporation and other employees, as well as differences between individuals at roughly the same functional level. If wage compression were adopted horizontally, the Vice President for Finance would not earn a premium over the Vice President for Personnel as is now the case in most United States companies. The ratio between the pay of top executives and the least well paid in the firm has steadily risen. Wage compression is a way of reversing that trend. Profit sharing is a practical way of helping to achieve that. Another important component of meaningful work is autonomy and independence. Advocates of participation and empowerment in the workplace speak directly to the issue of how autonomy and independence are to be achieved. Participation is a requirement in decisions regarding layoffs if the employment contract is not to be viewed as coercive. That is why a technique like open book management is so effective in supporting meaningful work.

Another requirement of meaningful work is that the work should contribute to the development of employees’ rational capacities. Selectivity in recruiting, information sharing, training, and participation either directly or indirectly in the running of the business all contribute to the development of employees’ rational capacities. By selecting the right people in the first place, you do not get people who are overqualified for the job. Working on a job for which you are overqualified is usually boring and frustrating because it does not make the best use of your rational capacities. One technique for promoting information sharing is open book management. Providing all employees with the numbers makes them more informed and better decision-makers. Information sharing is facilitated through teams. Teamwork enables us to learn skills and perspectives from other team members. All contribute to tackling a business problem, and as a result of team effort the knowledge base of team members is increased.

Cross-training is a technique that allows employees to do many different jobs. Routine assembly line work is often work that is dull, boring, and repetitious. By training a worker to do many different jobs a firm can eliminate or greatly mitigate the drudgery of assembly line manufacturing. Cross-utilization makes teamwork possible and vice versa. Japan has successfully practiced cross-utilization in its auto plants for decades and this practice has increasingly been adopted by automobile manufacturers in the United States.

One of Kant’s imperfect duties is the duty that each of us has to develop our talents. All the management practices discussed in the previous paragraph contribute to skill development which is both valuable in itself and helps meet the obligation to develop our talents.

Symbolic egalitarianism is also necessary for self-respect and is a condition of fairness. It breaks down some of the class barriers that say not only is the work that I do different from yours, but it is more valuable than yours, and thus I am a more valuable person. The person who is doing what is perceived to be inferior work thus loses self-respect and loses it unjustly. A business firm is a cooperative enterprise and thus every task is valuable to the enterprise. Market conditions, and other legitimate factors, may justify the fact that we pay one job category more than another, but these conditions do not justify inequality of respect. Open book management and the use of teams help implement symbolic egalitarianism. Jobs are renamed to provide more respect. Garbage collectors become sanitation workers. Some may think changing the names of jobs is frivolous and so it is if the name changes are not accompanied by many, or at least some, of the human resource practices that contribute to meaningful work. But sensitivity to what a job is called is one aspect of treating employees as an end, and thus one aspect of treating them with respect.

Other Perspectives on Dignity and Meaningful Work

This chapter has treated dignity as a quality that human beings possess as a result of being human—usually as a result of having a certain trait such as being created in God’s image or possessing reason and free will. Special emphasis has been placed on Kant’s view that the capacity for moral reasoning is the trait that provides human dignity.

But there are other views. Some scholars also refer to a dignity that is earned through some action or actions of an individual. In the context of work, dignity would be earned through hard work; dignity is not simply something that human beings possess without any action on their parts. Some have referred to this as contingent dignity (Pirson, Goodpaster, and Dierksmeier, 2016 : 466). No doubt one can achieve a kind of dignity in this way. A losing sports team can regain dignity if it defeats a superior team and it is common for an outmatched team to play hard just for the sake of dignity. I would even argue that one should work hard to obtain contingent dignity. Contingent dignity is well accepted in society and is relatively uncontroversial. I have chosen to emphasize the dignity that all human beings have just because they are human because I believe this way of understanding dignity provides dignity even to those who cannot achieve contingent dignity, and that concept of dignity places responsibilities on employers that they would not have if our notion of “dignity” was limited to contingent dignity.

Not everyone would accept the definition of meaningful work proposed here. Let us consider some other possibilities. First, there is a division between those who propose an objective definition of meaningful work and those who provide a subjective definition. The issue between these two camps can be explained as follows. The objectivists argue that work can be meaningful whether or not the worker finds it so. Thus a worker who finds meaning in jobs that violate the criteria for meaningful work is mistaken and he or she is wrong in his or her point of view. Similarly a worker who has a job that meets the criteria for meaningful work but nonetheless does not find the job personally meaningful is mistaken. The subjectivists accuse the objectivists of imposing an account of meaningful work on workers and thus disrespecting the viewpoint of the person who is actually experiencing the work environment on the job. The objectivists counter by saying that the conditions that create respect and dignity are empirically determinable and morally grounded. If a person finds meaning in a job that is degrading, the person’s consciousness needs to be raised. The happy slave is not engaging in meaningful work that supports dignity and self-respect. 7

There is also a division among the objectivists; some propose a relatively “thin” theory of meaningful work. The definition used in this chapter is an example of a “thin” theory of meaningful work. Others, such as Joseph DesJardins and Joanne Ciulla support a “thicker” theory of meaningful work. Those supporting the thick theory argue that work is really meaningful only if it is socially useful or “worthy.” Two quotations will illustrate the position of the “thick” theorists. 8

DesJardins says the following:

I would suggest the following three standards for judging goods and services to distinguish meaningful work from less meaningful work. Meaningful work produces: (a) goods and services that satisfy human needs (rather than preferences); (b) contributes to the common good; and (c) is of high quality. (DesJardins, 2012 : 145)

Joanne Ciulla describes worthy work as follows:

Worthy work is work that is morally and/or aesthetically valuable. It is objective … Worthy work has a purpose that most people can see is good in some way … The most worthy jobs are those that have worthy purposes. They are jobs in which people help others, alleviate suffering, eliminate difficult, dangerous, or tedious toil, make someone healthier and happier, aesthetically or intellectually enrich people, or improve the environment in which we all live. (Ciulla, 2012 : 126, 127)

A supporter of the thin theory might find much to be sympathetic with in the DesJardins and Ciulla accounts. For example, many business ethicists have always thought that some occupations were noble, in the sense that the work contributed to a broader social good even if it did not result in high pay. Those who have positions in occupations with the characteristics Ciulla identifies are in fact doing worthy work. Indeed critics of the capitalist wage system would like to see some of those occupations have more respect, which would provide those in these occupations the dignity they deserve. Public school teachers in grades K through 12 are sometimes referred to as mere babysitters—a characterization that demeans both teachers and babysitters. We have all heard the phrase, “If you can’t do, teach.” Yet teachers are surely doing what Ciulla would characterize as worthy work. Moreover, reformers want more people engaged in worthy work and perhaps technological changes might increase the number of occupations that provide worthy work.

However, supporters of a “thin” account would be reluctant to substitute Ciulla’s notion of “worthy work” for a thin concept of “meaningful work” like the one provided here. The “thin” theorists believe the class of meaningful work is larger than the class of worthy work. 9 In the article quoted above, DesJardins speaks disparagingly of those who produce junk food rather than nutritious food and those surgeons who operate to enlarge breasts rather than repair a heart valve. I think DesJardins’s negative comments here show the dangers of a more thick theory of the good. When carried to an extreme, it can sound elitist and paternalistic. In the world of business, there is a place for McDonalds isn’t there?

But my real disagreement with DesJardins is that his notion is too restrictive. Not all work can meet the thick theory criteria for meaningful work. Surely some jobs need to be directed at satisfying human preferences. Some people make snowmobiles and others make chocolate candy. One could argue that neither of these occupations satisfies human needs as opposed to preferences. Yet these occupations, along with similar ones, can be made more meaningful by having management adopt practices like those outlined earlier. Worthy work is a worthy ideal. Meaningful work is a practical goal—at least that is what the objectivists would argue. To some extent an objectivist could adopt the best of both positions. Nearly all jobs can be made more meaningful but there will always be a wide range of jobs that are not worthy jobs as Ciulla defines “worthy jobs.” What I find attractive about the list of business practices that recognize the importance of people for competitive success is that they are nearly universal in the sense that nearly all jobs can be managed accordingly and when managed in that way nearly all jobs would become more meaningful, and thus the dignity of all workers would be enhanced.

Recently there has been an explosion of interest in the impact of robots and artificial intelligence on jobs. What happens to meaningful work and dignity in a world where a large number of people do not have to work at all? Two articles from a Wharton Business School publication point out the stark reality. A piece from November 30 points out that manufacturing output in 2015 was at an all-time high but over the last three and a half decades manufacturers have shed more than 7 million jobs (Wharton Business School, 2016a ). Much more stuff was produced with 7 million fewer workers. Of these lost jobs, 80 percent were the result of technology rather than the result of moving facilities overseas. What is true regarding the United States is also true with respect to most developed countries (Wharton Business School, 2016a ). Robots endowed with artificial intelligence would be assigned to do much of the work that human beings do now. Recently a New York Times piece described a military that used drones with artificial intelligence to track down enemy combatants. No human soldiers would be involved. Technology is far along on driverless cars and trucks. What is the implication of this for commercial truck drivers and insurers who sell auto insurance? (Presumably the self-driving cars are safer than human drivers.) Not even fast-food workers are safe. A San Francisco robotics company has built a robot that can make a hamburger from scratch without any human intervention (Clifford, 2016 ). What are the implications of all of this? More details are presented in the December 6, 2016 interview with venture capitalist Art Bilger (Wharton Business School, 2016b ). Bilger argues that we could lose 47 percent of all jobs within twenty-five years. He asks what our society would be like with a 25 percent, 30 percent, or even 35 percent unemployment rate (Wharton Business School, 2016b ).

Some, like Nietzsche, simply find no dignity in work, perhaps because Nietzsche saw workers as necessary slaves for those who use leisure to provide culture. 10 As Nietzsche said: “The misery of toiling men must still increase in order to make the production of the world of art possible to a small number of Olympian men.” 11 If Nietzsche’s view were correct, then substituting robots for people and providing a decent standard of living for all would be a plus. However, the contention here is that meaningful work can—and even now in some jobs does—provide people with dignity. If jobs disappear, replacing income is not sufficient because it is not income that provides meaning. One of Budd’s frameworks for conceptualizing work was work as identity. Tracing the idea back to Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger—among others—Budd points out that to a great extent our conception of ourselves—our identity—is in large part determined by the job we have. “Thinking about work as identity allows us to consider what makes humans distinctly human” (Budd, 2011 : 153). The title of a work by John Danahar ( 2017 ) gets the issue exactly right: “Will Life Be Worth Living in a World Without Work?” Another way to make the point is to recognize that work is a source of psychological and social meaning (Budd, 2011 : 145). Beyond giving workers a sense of identity, meaningful work is the satisfaction one gets in work whether through the creation of a socially useful product, teamwork, or just the feeling of independence that a meaningful job provides. In that way meaningful work provides dignity and a purpose to life. As Bilger pointed out, “Having a purpose in life is, I think, an important piece of the stability of a society” (Wharton Business School, 2016b ).

Suddenly people are asking the right question. Even if the government provided everyone with a basic standard of living—a big if—could those without work still find a path to dignity and self-respect? Is work so essential to a meaningful life that people without work could not obtain self-respect—in part because they could not obtain respect from those who do work? Answers to these questions are elusive and create a major challenge to those who would link work, meaningful work, and dignity.

Bowie, N. E. ( 1998 ). “A Kantian theory of meaningful work.” Journal of Business Ethics , 7, 1083–92.

Bowie, N. E. ( 2012 ). “A reply to my critics.” In D. G. Arnold and J. D. Harris (eds.), Kantian Business Ethics: Critical perspectives , pp. 175–90. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Bowie, N. E. ( 2017 ). Business Ethics: A Kantian perspective . New York: Cambridge University Press.

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DesJardins, J. R. ( 2012 ). “Meaningful work.” In D. G. Arnold and J. D. Harris (eds.), Kantian Business Ethics: Critical Perspectives , pp. 132–47. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Donaldson, T. and Walsh, J. ( 2015 ). “Toward a theory of business.” Research in Organizational Behavior , 35, 181–207.

Economist. (2009). “ Open-book management. ” The Economist , June 8. Available at: http://www.economist.com/node/13809344 [accessed March 4, 2016].

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Kant, I. ( 1930 [1775]). Lectures on Ethics , translated by L. Infield . Indianapolis: Hackett.

Kant, I. ( 1990 [1785]). Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals , translated by L.W. Beck . New York: Macmillan.

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Pfeffer, J. ( 1994 ). Competitive Advantage Through People . Brighton, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Pirson, M. , Goodpaster, K. , and Dierksmeier, C. ( 2016 ). “Human dignity and business.” Business Ethics Quarterly , 26(4), 465–78.

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Rosen, M. ( 2012 ). Dignity . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Wolf, S. ( 2010 ). Meaning in Life and Why it Matters . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Zagzebski, L. ( 2016 ). “The dignity of persons and the value of uniqueness.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association , 90, 55–70.

Smith ( 1976 [1776]: part II , 303). For those using other editions, see Book V Chapter 1 , article 2nd “Of the Expense of the Institutions for the Education of Youth.”

This interpretation of Kant’s rationale for attributing dignity to persons is consistent with that of Michael Rosen ( 2012 ) and with George Kateb ( 2011 ).

Rosen ( 2012 ). See section 1 for a full account.

Rosen ( 2012 ). See his discussion of the aesthetic dimension of this strand in his section, “Grace and Dignity,” pp. 31–8.

These conditions were originally advanced in Bowie ( 1998 ).

This section is closely adapted from Bowie ( 2017 ), which in turn is adapted from Bowie ( 1998 ).

Susan Wolf has tried to incorporate elements of both the subjectivist and the objectivist view in her important book Meaning in Life and Why it Matters . She calls her position the Fitting Fulfillment View. On that view “a life is meaningful insofar as its subjective attachments are to things or goals that are objectively worthwhile” (Wolf, 2010 : 34–5). Interestingly, Meaning in Life and Why it Matters has nothing to say about “meaningful work” nor much to say about “dignity.” Neither term appears in the index of that work.

This discussion of DesJardins and Ciulla is taken from Bowie ( 2012 ).

Of course the notion of “worthy jobs” can be stretched to include nearly all jobs. The job of bank teller provides an opportunity for discussion. A bank teller does help people complete business transactions, but is that sufficient to fall under Ciulla’s definition of worthy work? Arguably the job of bank teller does not fall under her definition. If so, the kind of business practices endorsed by Pfeffer could make the job of a bank teller more meaningful even if not more worthy.

For details on this see Rosen ( 2012 : 42–6).

Nietzsche ( 1964 ), quoted in Rosen ( 2012 ).

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Question and Answer forum for K12 Students

Reflective Essay Topic – The Dignity Of Labour

You can find Previous Year Reflective Essay Topics asked in ICSE board exams.

Introduction: Work is worship: Its importance

People recognise us by our work.
Perfection requires dedication.
Bhagwad Gita extols ‘Karma’ (Duty)

Conclusion: All work is divine for without it one can achieve nothing.

Work is worship for as we all know, “An idle mind is a devil’s workshop.” Work provides livelihood and helps keep the devil (other vices) at bay. Not only does it provide sustenance, but gives purpose to our life, differentiating us from other creatures in the universe. In the words of a poet, “I slept and dreamt that life was beauty. I woke and found that life was duty”.

“What you are will show in what you do,” said Thomas Alva Edison. People and the society recognise us by our work. This is because life is action not contemplation. Work enables us to improve our quality of life, so that the society enjoys the fruit of labour. All work is dignified, for it is better than living on doles or charity. Besides giving dignity to life, it generates tremendous self-confidence and self-esteem. People do not break down from overwork, but from worry and dissipation.

Work generates energy and optimism, which makes life pleasant. Ordinary people have risen to great heights by excelling in their work, like Florence Nightingale, Albert Einstein and thousands of others. Their hard work and devotion to duty made them immortal.

Work does not mean doing the daily chores, but also doing it with excellence. The work could be in manufacturing a product, or rendering a service. It should be done with sincerity, devotion and strict discipline, so that the right product or service Can be delivered at the best price.

Lord Krishna in the Bhagwad Gita, extolling the virtue of ‘Karma’ (Duty) exhorted Arjun to do his duty, without expecting or waiting for reward or recognition. This is for work is divine and our moral duty to accomplish. In our daily life we observe the artisan, workman and trader offering a short prayer before commencing work for the day. They celebrate Vishwakarma puja with great pomp and show, offering prayer to the deity of creation. This is a manifestation of reverence to work, which they regard as divine and sacred.

Work creates opportunities which could be missed if one is idle or daydreaming. In the words of Thomas Alva Edison, “Opportunities is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Indeed numerous rags to riches stories of ordinary people like Bill Gates and Dirubhai Ambani validate the above statement. Their sincerity and devotion to work, enabled them to seize opportunities that came their way with both hands.

Eulogisng the virtue of work Rabindra Nath Tagore said, “God is there where the tiller is tilling the hard soil and the path maker is breaking the stones’.’ Indeed all work is divine and by working hard we enjoy the fruit of labour, which tastes sweet. One achieves nothing without effort for “No gain, no pain, no thorn, no throne; No gall no glory, no cross, no crown.”

Assignments

‘All work and no play make Jack a dull boy’. Discuss.
Man is a tool-making animal. Discuss.
“Honour and shame from no conditions arise. Act well your part, there all the honour lies”. Discuss.

Essay (Composition)

Dignity of Labour Essay and Composition for all class students

Essay on Dignity of Labour

The dignity of Labour Essay ; The work of a clerk, a teacher, a professor, a lawyer, a doctor does not require much physical labour. On the contrary, the work of a cultivator, a miner, an artisan requires physical labour. Respecting the work of the cultivators, miners, artisans etc. as the work of the clerk, the teacher, the lawyer and the doctor, we mean there is the dignity of labour.

Read more essay> Newspaper Essay & Composition

There are two kinds of labour. One is manual and other is intellectual. Manual labour refers to physical labour and intellectual labour stands for the activities related to our brain. Each of them has the dignity of its own and none is inferior to the other.

There is a great importance of manual labour in human life. We grow crops, build houses and factories, construct roads and streets, etc. by manual labour. Manual labour is also necessary for the fields, mines, mills, and ships. If the sweepers, the porters, the carpenters, mason, the blacksmith, and the peasants did not perform their duties, the whole of mankind could not have enjoyed the present result of civilization, it gives us good physical exercise. It also keeps our body fit and strong. It helps the continuation of our existence in this world. We cannot live without food, water, clothes, and houses. But these are gifts of manual labour. So manual labour is more essential than the intellectual.

Read more> Unemployment Problem in Bangladesh Composition and Essay

In our country, people usually do not respect manual labour. They think that manual labour lowers down their position in society. So they hate manual labour. On the other hand, a man with a little bit of education does not even wash his own clothes because of his vanity. But this picture is quite different in the developed countries of the world. For instance, Tolstoy came from a very rich family. He himself did manual work like another peasant. Great men of the world believe that manual labour can never lower down the prestige of a man.

Though still the outlook of our countrymen has not yet completely changed, we should understand that manual labour makes a man great and dignified. An ordinary labourer is better than an educated idle man. So, we should feel that there is the dignity of labour in every sphere of life.

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Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Dignity of Labour” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Dignity of Labour

Essay No. 01

“In the sweat of thy face thou shalt earn thy bread” was the Divine Judgment on the Fallen Man. Ever since man has been labouring hard to keep himself alive. He digs, drives and drags, tills the soil, works at the mill and does a lot of other things to keep his body and soul together. He may find his work hard and unpleasant, but there is no escape from it; it is necessary, universal and inevitable. Life and labour are inseparable.

When life was simple and society less complex, the high and the low alike had to do manual work as a matter of course. But it is no longer so. The indignity attached to manual work is the outcome of the division of labour. The complex nature of the modern society and the introduction of machinery have helped to perpetuate and increase this sense of indignity. It is only when some works are reserved for a few while the rest are given to the common man that the distinction arises. It is only when some men grow rich, powerful and important and find manual work too hard for them, that they set it apart for the common people. These people in due course of time come to be regarded as inferior. Later, the relation of master and servants is established. However, the contempt which master felt for their paid workers gradually came to be transformed from men to their work. When machines came to do those works, which had been formerly done by hand, man who continued to do those works were regarded no better than lifeless machines and were looked down upon. This is how in course of time some works were regarded low and undignified.

It is a sad state of affairs. For the foundation of all good works there must be joy and sense of honour. We can never do a work well if we are constantly reminded that the work we are doing is mean and humiliating. We must be convinced that the work is useful and honourable. We must feel joy in doing it. So men, who are engaged in manual labour, must be made to feel the worth of their work and the joy and honour to be derived from it. Honour is a legitimate spur and is its own reward.

So men occupying higher positions began to preach the dignity of labour in order to get work done by the workers. The simple and the uneducated labourers came to believe in the truth of the assertion. The moment they realized the truth, no more did they feel themselves depressed, unfortunate and inferior; no more their work appeared humiliating. A new consciousness of power was felt and a new throbbing of life was perceived. They began to do not only work but also felt a new sense of dignity, strength and solidarity. Hence, behind the vast organization and power of labouring class in modern times, there is this growing conviction of the value and dignity of labour. The dignity of labour is now recognized at least as a policy.

The distinction between one work as noble and another as ignoble is purely a man-made one. All works rank the same because each has its own use, value and purpose in a social, economic and political organization. If this be so, there is no logic in looking down upon manual labour. The man who drives the plough is as important in his place as he who rules a kingdom. There are different kinds of work, no doubt, one requiring more brain and the other more brawn, but that is no reason why one should be regarded as dishonourable and ignoble and the other honourable. Each has its worth in its own place and therefore each is noble.

On manual labour depends the life of the world. Who can deny dignity to that kind of labour which feeds and clothes mankind, does harm to nobody and is as old as human existence ? And there is no logic in looking down upon those who are engaged in such a work ? Older than all preached gospels is the unpreached, ever-enduring gospel, laborer —Work is Worship.

Essay No. 02

The Dignity of Labour

Outline: The meaning of the phrase – the dignity of labour not appreciated in India – a legacy of the British system of education – conclusion.

All forms of labour are valuable and should be respected. This is the essential meaning of the phrase ‘dignity of labour.’ Jobs involving manual labour should not be looked down upon. One has a right to dislike them and not to take to them if they really do not suit one’s temperament, but that is no reason why they and the people who earn an honest living by doing them should he held in contempt. Nor should one fight shy of doing manual work on account of a false sense of prestige. It should be realised that all forms of labour contribute to the welfare of society.

Many educated men in India do not appreciate and practise the principle of the dignity of labour. They prefer white – collar jobs to other kinds of work involving manual labour, even though the latter are more easily available and more lucrative. For example, an Arts graduate who is the son of a prosperous farmer, would like to be a clerk in a city bank rather than follow his father’s profession. In spite of the fact that there is more demand for turners, fitters, and technicians, our young men continue to qualify themselves for sedentary posts which are limited in number. The tendency to avoid manual labour is also noticeable in the domestic sphere. It is supposed to be infra dig for the lady of the house to do domestic chores like washing clothes or scrubbing pots. The ‘in’ thing is to employ servants to do such work. In large cities where servants are scarce and demand exorbitant wages, many middle class families have to pay through their nose in order to maintain their so – called prestige or dignity.

This antipathy to manual labour is partly a legacy of the British system of education. One of the objects of that system of education was to produce clerks and petty officers without whose aid the administration could not be run. Educated Indians vied with one another to become white – collared employees of the Government, neglecting independent ways of earning a living. This tendency still persists to a considerable extent, and many an educated youth is reluctant to take up a job which involves physical labour or field work. In many Western countries, particularly in America, dignity of labour is recognised. Students do not mind earning money by doing part -time work as lift – men or waiters at restaurants. Much of the domestic work like cooking food and washing clothes is done by the members of the family.

A sense of dignity of labour should be instilled into the young in schools, and colleges. They should be encouraged to participate in slum clearance or rural uplift programmes. If their minds are cleared of the notion that certain kinds of labour are undignified, the problem of unemployment will be solved to some extent.

Essay No. 03

A work should be considered inferior or lowly. All men work to earn their living. If one is a business man, the other is a serviceman. If one is a lawyer, the other is a doctor. A labourer has to work either on the field or on the roadside. They may find their job hard yet it has its own dignity. The indignity attached to manual work is the outcome of division of labour. Those people who grow rich and powerful do easy jobs. They find manual work hard and keep it for the common man. They forget that the work done by the common man is more important. The labourer, the peasant, the sweeper and factory workers are the back bone of the society. It is these people who give us food to eat, house to live in and clothes to put on. The work done by this class of the society should not be sneered at. Otherwise they will not derive happiness from their jobs. Men who are engaged in manual work must be made to feel that their labour is not undignified. It is on their manual labour that the life of the world depends.

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Essay on The Dignity of Labour with Outlines for Students
Here is an essay on The Dignity of Labour with Outline for the students of Graduation. However, Students of 2nd year, F.A, FSc, B.A, BSC and Bcom can prepare this essay for their exams. This essay has been taken from Functional English by (Imran Hashmi) Azeem Academy. You can write the same essay under the title, The Dignity of Work Essay or ...
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When mind and hands combine, the results are praiseworthy. Honest work of all types is worthy of respect. Work is worship. Essay on Dignity of Labour in English ( 500 words ) Labour implies 'a task' or 'a piece of work'. It also implies 'workers', especially those who work with their hands. It refers to manual labour.
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The dignity of labor is a dateless conception that transcends artistic and societal boundaries. It goes beyond the type of work one engages in and encompasses the natural value every job holds in contributing to the well-being of society. In this essay, we will explore the historical elaboration of views on labor dignity, bandy the challenges ...
Dignity of Labour(Paragraph / Composition / Essay )
Paragraph WritingComposition / Essay WritingDignity of LabourThere are two kinds of labour-manual and intellectual. Each of them has dignity of its own and none is inferior to the other. The work of a clerk, a teacher, a professor, a lawyer, a doctor does require much mental labour. On the contrary, the work of a labourer, a miner, an artisan requires physical labour.
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Dignity of Labour. Essay No. 01. The dignity of labour means respect and value given to all forms of work. It refers to equal respect for the jobs that involve manual labour. In earlier times, daily several slaves were bought and sold openly in the markets. They lost their dignity and performed all sorts of hard and laborious works.
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Introduction This short essay discusses the issues related to dignity at work. Firstly, this essay presents the arguments in order to highlight the importance of dignity of having a paid job. ... For instance '' Joe possessed in his work and boasted of a year's worth of coils without a single rejection'' (Seider, 1984:26, as cited in ...
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Reflective Essay Topic
Reflective Essay Topic - The Dignity Of Labour. Introduction: Work is worship: Its importance. People recognise us by our work. Perfection requires dedication. Conclusion: All work is divine for without it one can achieve nothing. Work is worship for as we all know, "An idle mind is a devil's workshop.". Work provides livelihood and ...
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1. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DIGNITY OF WORK IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT The dignity of work has been recently emphasized from secular (Pirson, 2017, Donaldson and Wash, 2015) and religious (Sison et al., 2016) perspectives. However, in practice, this dignity is not always respected, either for cultural reasons (e.g., Mahalingam
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The dignity of Labour Essay; The work of a clerk, a teacher, a professor, a lawyer, a doctor does not require much physical labour. On the contrary, the work of a cultivator, a miner, an artisan requires physical labour. Respecting the work of the cultivators, miners, artisans etc. as the work of the clerk, the teacher, the lawyer and the ...
Essay, Paragraph or Speech on "Dignity of Labour" Complete Essay
Essay No. 03. Dignity of Labour. A work should be considered inferior or lowly. All men work to earn their living. If one is a business man, the other is a serviceman. If one is a lawyer, the other is a doctor. A labourer has to work either on the field or on the roadside. They may find their job hard yet it has its own dignity.
Dignity of Work (English Notes)
I am a teacher in a school. dignity of work it is famous saying work is the key to actually is also true there is will, there is dignity of work means hard work ... Excerpts, Essay Questions AND Sample Essays; Ch11 - Chapter 11 solution for Intermediate Accounting by Donald E. Kieso, Jerry J. ... Academic year: 2014/2015. Helpful? 0 0. Report ...
Dignity of labour
The intellectuals and scientists have become memorable because of their labor. Our duty: We have to work hard we should use our time we must not neglect or abhor any type of work. We have to give the dignity of labor. in this way, we can get success in life. Conclusion: Human life is impossible without work.

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Essay on Dignity of Labour in English For Students and Children

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The dignity of Labor Essay |Outlines, Quotes, and good comprehension

2. Labor as a manual work

3. History of manual work

4. Value of working with hands

5. Respect of skilled workers

6. Labor as the satisfaction of the human soul

7. Conclusion

Labor as a manual work:

History of manual work:

Value of working with hands:

Respect of skilled workers:

Labor as the satisfaction of human soul:

Conclusion:

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Valuing the dignity of work

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