Labor Discussions

I spoke with a friend yesterday about what I had read in The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi concerning  manual labor, about the dignity of physical work.  My friend has spent many years as a labor organizer and for some years before that was an history professor.  My friend is a very learned man and has read all the great labor organizers of the Twentieth Century.

He was fine, in theory, with Gandhi's ideas.  "They should be a great family living in unity and harmony, capital not only looking to the material welfare of the labourers but their moral welfare also, - capitalists being the trustees for the welfare of the labouring classes under them."  He said, however, that this rarely happened.

As I watch the news in this country, I hear big business people talking about being responsible to their share holders, but never their workers.  That means being responsible to profits.  To squeezing every dollar out of the bottom line.  If there is more money to be made assembling widgets in Mexico because labor is cheaper, throw the American worker out on the street.

And while Gandhi, himself, was certainly "a scavenger, weaver, spinner, farmer and what not," he was also a writer and publisher.  He wrote ninety volumes. Ninety volumes is no small intellectual effort.  He published newspapers.  Hardly manual labor.  He was a member of Parliament.  He gave speeches.  Identifying with labor, yes.  A laborer, no.

But my friend's point was that the relationship between capital and labor has almost always been contentious and often, capital has been exploitive of labor.  I mean, that's what started the labor movement in this country. 

And what is redemptive or spiritual about putting Slot A in Tab B hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, whether or not you are being exploited.  I've done these jobs.  When I thought I was doing something good, helping teens or protecting the nation or just earning money for my wife and child, I could sustain my spirit, but even then, eventually...I felt ground down, not lifted up.  Probably my own failings.

And why does Gandhi and so many other spiritual people down grade mental labor?  Why is getting my hands dirty more valued?

And yet, every time I am served by a waitperson at any kind of a food facility, I remember the work my wife did for our family, serving food in a cheap diner, with love and gratitude and I tip my server generously.

It's a confusing subject.