大象传媒

Our relationship with work can be summed up in two words: It鈥檚 complicated.

Here in the United States (and elsewhere, too), work dominates our lives. Upon meeting someone new, our standard first question is 鈥淲hat do you do for a living?鈥� Our identities, even our names, often reflect an occupation.

And yet, for too many people, their work is a thankless task for which they are undercompensated. It provides just enough sustenance to get through the day, so they can wake up the next and start over. And the countless hours take a toll on physical and mental health, relationships, and families. 

鈥淚鈥檒l sleep when I鈥檓 dead鈥� is a common refrain. Earlier generations said, 鈥�,鈥� a phrase that may have come from a 4th-century letter written by St. Jerome, in which he captured the essence of the ancient workaholic: fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum. Or, 鈥淓ngage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.鈥�

There鈥檚 nothing like the threat of eternal damnation to motivate you to drag yourself out the door for another day in the trenches. 

Some people may like, or even love, the work they do. But for many others, 鈥渨ork鈥� is a compendium of indignities鈥攍ow pay, inadequate benefits, toxic and abusive environments, to say nothing of the disrespect, discrimination, and exclusion that greets many people of color and other historically excluded groups.

But what if it wasn鈥檛? What if 鈥渨ork鈥� were a thing we chose to do with our time because we wanted to do it and not because we needed to keep destitution at bay? What if our worth as people in society was measured by something other than where we punch a clock? What if work was something that lifted up and supported our whole lives, instead of something that we endure just so that we may live?

A Past Rooted in Slavery

A straight line can be drawn through the history of work in Western societies, from the slavery of the Roman Empire (), to the feudalism of medieval Europe, to the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. That line is ownership鈥攖he wealthy could buy and sell people, land, or labor to accrue more wealth, all at the expense of the poor.

Whether one places the beginning of capitalism in the heart of industrializing England or in the merchant classes of the Renaissance, by the time , the economic system was rooted firmly in place across Europe and the Americas. 

鈥淢arx鈥檚 point (one of many) was that slavery, feudalism, and capitalism have something very similar in common. In all of those systems, a very small number of people are in the catbird seat,鈥� says Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a visiting professor at the New School in New York City.

Capitalism鈥檚 initial promise, Wolff contends, was that it would replace slavery and feudalism, which is what formed the intellectual backdrop of the American and French revolutions. Many workers and even elites saw the end of these oppressive systems to be a step toward freedom. But deposing monarchies and freeing serfs often just resulted in the replacement of one overlord with another, as wealth transferred from the landed gentry to a new moneyed elite (who in some cases were the same people), and businesses were incentivized to keep their workers poor and powerless. 

鈥淐apitalism is its own obstacle to achieving the very things capitalism promised in overthrowing feudalism and slavery,鈥� Wolff says.

Today, the workplace remains dehumanizing, even with more labor protections in place than in eras past.

The 40-hour work week was itself a compromise. Enacted in U.S. law in 1940, it was intended not to prevent laborers from working 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week, but to by preventing one person from holding what is now the equivalent of two or more full-time jobs. Even today, there are enough loopholes in federal law that many employees simply can鈥檛 clock out at 5 p.m. if they want to remain employed.

Pair this with a widespread societal notion that we must love our jobs, or find them 鈥渇ulfilling,鈥� and we鈥檙e set up with a disconnect, given that so many jobs are grinding, exhausting, demeaning, and even dangerous. But we do them because we need the money. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged our communities and upended the world economy, it became clear there was a demand for something new. Unregulated capitalism was shown to be broken: Supply chains shattered, workplaces became disease vectors, and relationships with families and friends were severed by death, chronic illness, and polarization. 

The , the highest recorded level since 1948, according to the Congressional Research Service. Between January and April of that year, more than 22 million non-farm jobs were lost. Other people found themselves labeled 鈥渆ssential workers,鈥� forced to continue working in person in order to keep the and the deliveries of food, toilet paper, and cleaning products dashing to the doors of middle-class people now working from the relative safety of their homes. 

鈥�,鈥� especially in health care, child care, education, and public safety鈥攎any of whom are women, people of color, or both鈥攈ad to make significant adaptations to how they performed their jobs, and many health care workers experienced significantly of risk of infection, . Lacking government mandates, only some businesses offered hazard pay for those forced to work in close quarters, and even that meager benefit quickly expired.

One notable effect of this radical societal reordering has come to be termed the 鈥淕reat Resignation.鈥� , according to the Society for Human Resource Management. And while many of those workers quit because they鈥檙e fed up with an unrewarding job, others are rethinking the overall role of work in their lives, or fighting to improve their working conditions by at companies like Amazon and Starbucks, or even staging . 

Overcoming the Grind Culture of the Present

The pandemic proved to be the tipping point. Many of the people who died during the early stages of the pandemic were the essential workers in the service, health care, and manufacturing sectors: 鈥淭hose who kept the world moving while others had the privilege of staying home,鈥� says Angelica Geter, the chief strategy officer of the in Atlanta. 

Geter, who also holds a doctorate of public health, says that this was mostly Black and Brown workers, and especially women.

Most workers who died from COVID in 2020, before vaccines became available, were in retail, service, or blue-collar jobs that offered no opportunities for remote work.

According to one 2022 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, most workers who died from COVID in 2020, before vaccines became available, were in that offered no opportunities for remote work. Nearly 45% of non-White women in low-wage jobs worked in the service industry, and about 60% of men of any race in low-wage jobs worked in blue-collar professions. 

Another study documented the death rate of and found that among essential workers, those higher rates were also because Black people are disproportionately represented among many jobs that expose them to higher risks of infection.

The decision for many of those people was simple: go to work and risk illness, or stay at home with their families and risk impoverishment. The pandemic exposed the inequalities that we already knew about but seldom saw in such stark terms.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 exactly what COVID did,鈥� Geter says. 鈥淚t painted the whole picture and brought it forth.鈥�

The Black Women鈥檚 Health Imperative was founded in 1983 to target the most pressing issues facing Black women and girls in the U.S. Its long-running initiatives include programs in diabetes prevention, HIV prevention and care, a network at historically Black colleges and universities, and distributing menstrual products in Black communities. 

Frustration with discrimination, racism, and workplace toxicity, along with the cumulative negative health effects, boiled over when COVID exerted maximum pressure on the workplace and brought many people outside into the streets.

It was not a coincidence that years of frustration with discrimination, racism, and workplace toxicity, along with the cumulative negative health effects, boiled over when COVID exerted maximum pressure on the workplace and brought many people outside into the streets, first protesting poor working conditions, and then racism and police brutality. 

鈥淓nough was enough,鈥� Geter says.

鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 make the connection between being overworked and the impact on your health,鈥� Geter adds. Recovery from burnout can take years, because it often has been compounded by the experience of discrimination. Even the expectation of discrimination or microaggressions in the workplace , which can lead to precursors of heart disease, breast cancer, and other health conditions that disproportionately affect Black women.

鈥淲hen I go into an office of other people, I represent the entire Black community,鈥� Geter says. 鈥淭he stress of anticipation of that鈥攊t just wears on you.鈥�

Many companies tried to meet that need for their own workers with enhanced benefits during the pandemic and new diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

鈥淒uring 2020 we saw Fortune 500, Fortune 1,000 companies allocate billions of dollars to promote equity in their workplaces,鈥� Geter says. 鈥淭hey needed tools and information and resources to know what to do with them.鈥�

But DEI programs alone aren鈥檛 enough to make sustainable changes. There are still too many barriers that keep people of color out of promotions, hiring opportunities, pay increases, and retention. Education is needed, but so is accountability, and the funding to pay for both.

鈥淚f we don鈥檛 create change that empowers the people who have the least amount of privilege and experience discrimination the most, we will see the same issues over and over again,鈥� Geter says.

The Health Imperative鈥檚 answer to that was to develop a multipart initiative, including an employee-centered 鈥渨ellness toolkit鈥� for businesses that highlights workplace culture, training, hiring, and research that centers the voices of Black women鈥攊n an effort to reduce the physical, mental, and emotional harm that so many experience in their workplace environments.

Tiffany Jana, a writer, speaker, and pleasure activist who has consulted with businesses for nearly 20 years to create more human-centered workplaces, also says it鈥檚 necessary that businesses recognize what their employees are going through in the present day, not just as employees, but as full human beings.

鈥淲hat I think is missing from the workplace is the acknowledgement and the honoring of, essentially, the sanctity of humanity,鈥� Jana says. 鈥淓veryone who chooses to raise their hand and then come and work for your company, that鈥檚 a deeply sacred gift, that鈥檚 an incredibly special, beautiful thing that we have failed to honor appropriately.鈥�

Another consideration for businesses in creating a more people-centered workplace lies in their structure as profit-making enterprises. Jana has incorporated two of their three companies as that adhere to triple-bottom-line accounting: focusing as much on social and environmental concerns as profits.

鈥淥ver the last, say, eight, nine years, the pressure has been coming up from the bottom. [People] within organizations and institutions are saying, 鈥榃ait a minute, you know, we really love the work, we really love the company, but we don鈥檛 feel like we鈥檙e being valued,鈥欌�� Jana says. 鈥淎nd they鈥檝e been demanding culture-based work to help create an environment that is more gracious and welcoming and human-centered.鈥�

A More Collective, Human Future

If the current trend in workplace evolution is toward a more human-centered environment, the question then becomes whether that evolution is possible in businesses whose only goal is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Wolff, who has , says it isn鈥檛. But what can support a human-centered future is more worker-owned co-ops and democratic governance structures, and not just in small shops or artisan manufacturers. 

鈥淚鈥檓 not sure that scaling is all that big a deal,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f making big units is going to cost us the ability to have a democratic system, we should at least question the size, and if that鈥檚 necessary.鈥�

The world already has seen how a smaller co-op can evolve into a larger but still democratic organization. Mondrag贸n, a diversified corporation founded in 1956 in Spain鈥檚 Basque region, , with 80,000 employees, and incorporates democratic decision-making at all levels of the company.

It is arguably one of Spain鈥檚 most successful companies, with branches in 31 countries. It incorporates 96 self-governing cooperatives in .

Mondrag贸n is only the largest example. About two-thirds of the 4.5 million people in the Italian region of Emilia Romagna, one of the wealthiest areas in the European Union, are co-op members, and they produce 30% of the region鈥檚 gross domestic product.

It鈥檚 a society in which co-ops and top-down businesses coexist peacefully.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a real laboratory for the question 鈥楬ow could a society be a mixed society?鈥欌�� Wolff says. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e normalized it.鈥�

In the U.S., examples of thriving co-ops include , a run largely by Hispanic immigrant women. Founded in Brooklyn, New York, in 2006, the organization is now in the city.

The history of co-ops in the U.S. extends back to pre-colonization Indigenous communities, and practices created in the Black community after the Civil War, rooted in African traditions. 

Indigenous societies were and still are much more communitarian. Strong ties to families and tribes keep many Native Americans in close proximity to their communities. That makes for some difficult choices: If forced to choose between having a job and building a career in a distant city, or returning to a rural reservation to care for family and participate in their culture, many choose the latter.

That also contributes to the level of unemployment in Indigenous societies, which is already the highest in the nation.

In one study, in which several , the lead researcher, Ahmed Al-Asfour, then a professor at Oglala Lakota College and now the director of the Center for Workforce Development at Southern Illinois University, found that strong community ties often took priority in decisions about work.

鈥淎s one participant said, it is all about 鈥榳e鈥� not 鈥業鈥� and this is a core belief for individuals living in collectivistic societies,鈥� Al-Asfour wrote. 

That鈥檚 led to a mismatch between those ties and the expectations of the non-Native economy. 

鈥淭he discrimination highlighted in the interviews stresses the cultural tensions between Natives and non-Natives as the Natives鈥� culture, values, and traditions continue to be undermined and underscored by non-Natives,鈥� Al-Asfour wrote.

We Can Get There From Here

A wholesale evolution of capitalism into a more democratic system is possible, but it has to start with a shift in ideology, Wolff says.

鈥淗uman beings have come to adapt to capitalism by thinking there is something necessary or logical or socially efficient by having the nature of work defined by and governed by profitability,鈥� he says. 

In other words, we have bought into the idea that pay is equivalent to worth.

But that ideology doesn鈥檛 measure all of the consequences of a human being who works: The effort of performing labor changes the body and mind of the worker, it changes people who interact with the worker, and it changes the natural environment.

If work were to be truly fully compensated, 鈥測ou鈥檇 have to do what hasn鈥檛 ever been done: Figure out all the effects,鈥� Wolff says.

That means structural change becomes as important as an ideological shift. If a business that makes a product loses its market, the business usually cuts workforce to preserve its profits. A democratically run co-op that prioritizes worker well-being might take a different action鈥攃hange products being made, retrain workers, or cut hours of work so production meets the existing demand.

鈥淭his kind of structural change鈥攚hich is anathema in capitalism鈥攖his also would have to be in place. That would make this a much easier conversation,鈥� Wolff says.

Another key development would be a society that disassociates value from the workplace. Policies like universal health care or basic income would reduce the need for people to remain in dehumanizing jobs and allow them to pursue endeavors more in line with their value system.

That鈥檚 something Tiffany Jana has tried to pursue in their own life, , and encouraging others to follow that example.

鈥淲hen I meet people, I don鈥檛 ask them, 鈥榃hat do you do?鈥� or 鈥榃here do you work?鈥欌�� Jana says. 鈥淚 ask them, 鈥楬ow do you spend your time?鈥� And it confuses the crap out of them.鈥�

鈥淓ach of us has a beautiful opportunity, in this season, to decide how we want to define ourselves, how we want to contribute to this new societal structure, this new way of being, and then work diligently towards creating that change,鈥� Jana says.