Do you know anyone who genuinely loves their job, greetingeach new work day with focused energy and joyful anticipation? Do you knowothers who dread going to work, can’t wait for the weekend and cringe at thesound of the alarm clock on Monday morning? What is it that makes workenjoyable and rewarding for some, while for others it is a torment? And why are so many people unemployed orunderemployed, living under the constant stress of not knowing how they willmanage from day to day?
Ten key components to job satisfaction include:
1.You like what you do.
2.Your work is fairly compensated, acknowledged andappreciated by others.
3.You have some say in shaping the parameters of your workeither directly on the job or via union participation.
4.You have positive relationships with co-workers, clients,supervisors, mentors, trainees and trainers.
5.Your work offers you a healthy amount of variety andchallenges.
6.You can access effective support systems for addressingproblems and conflicts.
7.You have opportunities for learning and stretchingyourself on the job.
8.The hours you devote to work allow ample time for family,friends and personal time.
9.You’re generally good at what you do and are open toconstructive feedback so that you can do better.
10.Your work is actually making people’s lives morewonderful without harming anyone.
If any of the above qualities is missing, dissatisfactionstarts setting in. If many are missing,it’s a recipe for distress affecting you and others around you.
The picture I’d like to paint is moving towards a worldwhere every person can say “all of the above” about their work. Impossible you say? Well, perhaps not in my lifetime, but if wedon’t dream of what we want and put our collective talents to achieving it,we’ll remain stuck in our present quagmire.
Humans from early childhood are naturally active, curious,creative and social beings who strive to meet their basic needs, take care ofeach other, solve problems as they arise and come up with new and better ideasfor doing all of this. Too often, theseimpulses are stifled by the way work is structured in so-called “advanced” and”civilized” societies.
In modern urban and industrialized settings, young peopleare conditioned that working hard, even if you’re unhappy on the job, isnecessary for survival. A certain levelof unemployment and job insecurity must be maintained so that people aregrateful for whatever paid work they can get.
In rural and indigenous communities with longstandingtraditions of healthy ties to the land, more and more people are being drivenoff of their ancestral lands and forced to work under abusive conditions asplantation laborers or in sweatshops.
Many workplaces ignore worker grievances, sending themessage: if you don’t like it you canquit, there are plenty more who want your job! Despite official policies to the contrary, many workers facediscrimination and bullying from supervisors and colleagues conditioned to getahead by putting others down.
The actual content of more and more jobs is soul-deadening and de-humanizing. High tech whizzes sit long hours at computers devising ever more complex and inscrutable financial and marketing instruments aimed at increasing and consolidating wealth for the few.
Others concoct an endless stream of consumer products that are superfluous, wasteful and often harmful, in the race for market share and profit. “Security” sector workers (soldiers, security guards, police, prison guards, airport screeners and other enforcers) are given tiny realms of power within rigid chains of command and trained to forcefully order others around, usually in the service of the rich.
Propaganda and PR sectors distort and manipulate messages to poison people’s minds with a narrative that upholds a grossly unequal and unjust capitalistic system.
Capitalism requires corporations to maximize profits for the few. They do so by increasing revenue via deceptive and manipulative marketing, while reducing costs–including labor costs–as much as possible.
Labor costs are minimized via union busting, lobbying against minimum wage increases, outsourcing, restructuring, layoffs, and shifting from fixed employment to contract piece work.
Automation is the ultimate cost-cutting measure, eliminating countless jobs permanently. Watch out, professional drivers–self-driving vehicles are on the way.
So how to get there from here?
Adam Simpson’s insightful TMS article notes: The Problemisn’t Robots Taking our Jobs. It’sOligarchs Taking our Power. “Training for the jobs of the future keeps workerstrapped as long as workers can’t shape how technology is used and who profitsfrom it.”
As Simpson points out, “Capitalism also relies on what is popularly referred to as ‘unskilled’ labor [e.g. in food systems and on farms]. It is labor that is both essential in maintaining society (and capitalism itself) and simultaneously poorly compensated–if compensated at all.
Without the minimum wage workers in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, the ‘high-tech’ company’s executives get nothing—and neither do Amazon’s high-skilled software development engineers and machine learning scientists.”
It’s time to dismantle the capitalist house of cards propped up by low wage workers hoodwinked into believing that their survival depends on the whims of wealthy oligarchs.
What if more and more workers looked around and asked each other, why are we doing this? What if we instead believe in the collective power of our own skills and relationships with each other, engage in global strikes, let the structure collapse, and re-build a more solid and sustainable one? The house we can all live in would have a quality-of-life floor of a minimum living standard, a ceiling of maximum personal material wealth, and a beautiful garden, open to the sky, where everyone can enjoy unlimited social, intellectual and cultural wealth.
In the process we need to democratize power by getting money out of politics and eliminating excessive profit motives for a few. Truly democratic government institutions can focus on providing high quality basic services to all.
Private sector enterprises should be incentivized to become worker owned cooperatives, practicing workplace democracy. Instead of being exploited, agricultural workers who grow the food we rely on for our very survival are especially deserving of optimal working conditions, generous compensation and elevated status.
In order to prepare our children for the future of work weneed to teach them in school about worker solidarity and the history of thelabor movement. Instead of being proddedto compete for limited spaces at universities and scarce “dream” jobs(guaranteeing that many will lose out), young people should be learning how tobuild a society where every job is a good job.
We should teach children about worker ownership models such as the extensive worker cooperative network in Mondragon, Spain; Cuba’s transition of many former state-owned enterprises to worker cooperatives; Italy’s rich tradition of cooperatives including social cooperatives for those facing barriers to employment; indigenous traditions of communal labor; and worker cooperatives in their own neighborhoods.
From early ages on, children and adults need extensive practice in collective decision making and peaceful conflict resolution.
We need to vastly expand all job sectors that actually makepeople’s lives more wonderful: organic food production; infrastructure andhousing construction; useful, innovative and environmentally friendlyindustries; fair trade commerce; the arts and recreation; public banking;honest and people-centered journalism; education at all levels; and the vastarray of healing professions, including counseling, coaching andmentoring. We need to instillcooperation over competition as the driving engine of human activity, with amassive influx of mediators to ensure inevitable conflicts are resolved inhealthy ways that serve all parties’ needs.
We should minimize or eliminate jobs in de-humanizing,coercive and deceptive sectors like private finance, insurance, military,polluting industries, and PR, offering ample “re-skilling” and job placement inall of the above life-affirming sectors.
We can bust the myth that prospects of exorbitant payoutsare necessary motivators for technical advancements. In Gaviotas, Colombia, a few decades ago,community-minded engineers developed highly innovative and ecological systemsfor energy production and local agriculture motivated by the sheer joy offiguring it out and for the benefit it brought to others.
As technology and automation evolve, we should reduceworking hours for everyone, leaving more time for leisure, family, friends, andlearning. Community volunteerism duringpeople’s spare time and in retirement should be encouraged.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23, affirms everyone’s right to dignified work under favorable conditions and protection against unemployment. Everyone can contribute in some way. Parents and family caregivers who are not in the formal workforce should have support to raise children and care for loved ones.
The severely disabled can still engage in stimulating activities and be taken care of. Those who appear lazy or unwilling to work are likely depressed and need a healing intervention to integrate them into a productive and inclusive community. The elderly should be able to retire with comfortable pensions to honor past contributions, yet encouraged to stay involved and contribute in whatever ways they choose.
Humans do have the capacity to make this happen! By harnessing our imagination, intelligence,energy, and solidarity we can most certainly figure out how to heal thepathologies of greed and violence; how to utilize and share the earth’sabundant resources to give everyone, including future generations, a joyfullife.
TRANSCEND Media Service