What is Our Work Worth?
As soon as we hit the marvelous age of sixteen we are able to join the workforce. We become contributing members of society. This is how it has been for centuries, and how it will continue to be. The only difference is now we are questioning the worth of our labors, and how we should be compensated for it. As was stated by Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish “[The eighteenth century] was certainly not the first time that the body had become the object of such imperious and pressing investments; in every society, the body was in the grip of very strict powers, which imposed on it constraints, prohibitions or obligations.”
Our bodies have always had to be up to the part, and be able to withstand grueling labor. Especially since being a part of the workforce is expected of us. One has always had to do their part in the household. Even now that things are more industrialized and hunting for our meals isn’t a necessity, we still find ourselves working for all of it. We are still clocking in to provide for our household. The work is just much different now.
The famous 9 to 5 schedule: wake up in the morning, take an hour to commute, then go home to prepare for the next day and do it all again. There are very few people that genuinely enjoy having to do this every day. The rest of us complain that we don’t get paid enough and are constantly fighting for better pay. An example of this is the recent strike of McDonald’s workers asking for higher wages, $15 an hour to be precise. The counter-argument is that fast food workers shouldn’t be paid as much as EMT workers. This argument makes sense, but in the same instance devalues another person’s time. However, that isn’t what is being considered. It is purely based on the work alone. One stands behind a register getting yelled at by cheap people while the other holds someone’s life in their hands from the moment they arrive at the scene until they can hand them off to a medical professional. How this pay rate is determined can definitely be questioned. Who is the mastermind behind our wages? Not minimum wage, but differentiating the blue collar from the white collar. Who draws the line that separates those whose work deserves the least amount of pay you can possibly give a person, and who should earn a little bit more?
