The extreme pressures on the planet and environment were described in Section 2. The world’s working peoples are similarly under unbearable pressure. [See preparatory papers.] 

3.1 What do we mean by work?

The Consultation used a broad concept of work throughout its deliberations, including the formal wage and production sectors of the economy, the rural and informal sectors, self-employed, homeworkers, subsistence activities, and the wide-range of unpaid activities, particularly the household "caring" and support activities of women and children and community service and voluntary activities.

Such a broad focus on work emphasizes the importance of examining work not simply as a part of the economic system -- but as well as a fundamental aspect of our social, cultural and political systems.

3.2 Employment and work

Especially in industrialized economies, "employment" generally refers to recorded wage employment. Analysis of resource allocation requires going beyond this inadequate view to the broader concept of work, which includes wage employment, self-employment, unrecorded informal employment, and work done in families and communities. Work is integral to all societies and economies.

Unrecorded work may be wage employment in small enterprises (in the informal sector) as well as "casual" or second roster (outside of social security systems) employment by larger companies. It includes family employment in family enterprises. It also encompasses a good deal of what is formally classified as self-employment, for example market porters in Ghana or homeworkers producing lace in India. Such informal sector employment constitutes half of non-agricultural employment in many Southern economies.

The concept of being employed thus needs to be clearly understood for broad economic, social, analytical and descriptive purposes, as the total number of persons who are economically active. Even in so-called industrial economies, this total is substantially above recorded wage and salary employment while in southern countries and in so-called "economies in transition", the total is even larger.

However, even the term "economically active" raises questions which are of real importance. Women engaged primarily in domestic work within their own households -- caring for children, cooking, sewing, washing, housekeeping -- are usually not classified as economically active. Statistically, this is purely a conventional definition: the same tasks when done in another household or an enterprise are treated as economic activity constituting employment. The issue, however, is more than semantic or statistical, because affects how women’s total work is perceived and rewarded as well as their access (or lack of it) to status and participation in both the household and society resulting from it.

This type of work, as well as much of the work done in the area of community service (work to uphold, sustain and nurture community life) is unpaid. The desirable objective is not necessarily that such unremunerated work be entirely paid. However, it should be recognized, registered, and counted as economically productive work. It should also be differently distributed, and in some of its forms, pay should be given to avoid prevalent injustice.

There are different types of unemployment and underemployment. Some relate to technological developments, others may be seasonal or cyclical, structural, frictional, or related to economic transformation processes. These different types of unemployment and underemployment require different policy answers.

3.3 Work should be shared

Work is not equitably shared, either within societies or across continents. For instance, trade restrictions often require developing countries to export their natural (i.e., environmental) resources to more industrialized countries under terms which prevent them from generating employment and income by carrying out the processing and production activities their own countries.

3.4 Work as a right and a responsibility

In a sustainable world, work is both a right and a responsibility. The right to work is recognized by the international community, e.g., in the UN Declaration on Human Rights, the ILO Convention No. 122, and the Commitment on Full Employment as adopted by the World Summit on Social Development.

The right to work is mirrored by the responsibility to work: both paid and unpaid work need to be shared in a sustainable world.

3.5 Work and sustainability  [See preparatory paper: Job Creating Policies and the Environment, Non-market values in labor economies. Beat Bürgenmeier.]

Clearly the massive unemployment and underemployment evident in today’s society is costly and unsustainable in the long-term. Short-term, it is a critical factor directly related to the tragic levels of poverty and social exclusion in developing, developed and transition economies. To be without work is to be virtually excluded from today’s society. Actions to promote employment creation and income generating work will play a vital role in both alleviating poverty and promoting social cohesion: a prerequisite for sustainable societies. Furthermore, the sharing of unpaid work related to caring of families, environment and the less fortunate within society also needs to become a valued asset and recognized as a contribution to a sustainable society. Unemployment and social exclusion are not simple signs of an economic problem; but rather they also represent a breakdown in basic social, ethical, cultural and spiritual values and principles.

The value of work in society today is primarily allocated on the basis of the monetization of work within the predominant economic/market system. Work in the informal sector is often inadequately paid, whereas employment in the formal sector is valued on the basis of productivity as measured in market prices. Unpaid work, particularly of women, is totally unrecognized in the present economic system, despite its highly significant unregistered contribution to the productivity of both the formal and informal sector. Unpaid work provides essential transducive/caring functions related to families, society and nature. In a sustainable society, unpaid work needs to be recognized and rewarded for its intrinsic social, cultural and spiritual value, not simply evaluated within the economic system through monetization of presently "externalized" environmental and social costs.

Employment represents much more than a source of income; it is a source of fulfillment, self-identity and sense of belonging and participation in society.

A sustainable society provides for the protection of workers to ensure equitable income and equal opportunity, healthy and safe working conditions, freedom of association and human dignity.

These factors contribute to an improved quality of work and life for all.

3.6 Environmental quality of work

Human work, to be meaningful and sustainable, also needs to be respectful of the environment and human dignity. In fact, however, much work human beings are doing, or are forced to do, has negative consequences for the environment. Many people are confronted with the dilemma of either accepting a destructive role in nature or to their own health and safety, or the loss of their revenue. For many, this constitutes a deep moral conflict. Therefore, every effort needs to be made for work to become environmentally responsible. Work needs to be assessed not only on economic grounds, but on ecological and social grounds as well. As ecological consciousness sharpens, more and more human activity appears dubious. Many more activities are being banned by legislation or consumer pressure. At the same time, new environmental jobs, i.e., work in protecting and rehabilitating the environment, recycling, repair and reuse, are becoming available. It would be illusory to assume that the development of environmental jobs alone will overcome unemployment. In Germany, for instance, such positions represent an addition of only 1-3% of new jobs. Nevertheless, such new sources of employment are welcome to the changing labor market. It must be noted, however, that some new environment related jobs also present special challenges to ensure that workers are properly protected, e.g., workers involved in the clean up of hazardous waste sites and the de-commissioning of nuclear facilities.

3.7 Issues for further reflection

The Consultation’s review of the world of work drew particular attention to a number of issues which influence the sustainability of societies and therefore deserve further reflection and consideration in the future as to how they can be central agenda items for a new political culture:

1. there is growing and alarming evidence that more individuals and entire groups within the population are becoming marginalized or excluded from any economic, social and political system;
2. despite great physical work, many people are inadequately rewarded by revenue, income or even minimal subsistence;
3. the problems of unemployment and underemployment lead not only to economic difficulty, but to psychological and social conflict as well, particularly among the younger and older parts of society, arising from the feeling of "uselessness" and the lack of belonging to and participating in society;
4. the prevalent and unfair model of relying upon the unpaid work of women to provide essential caring and other family support activities, most often also in addition to their "work" outside the family environment;
5. the existence of "non-traditional" work situations as a result of structural adjustments, as, for example, in transition economies where people are officially employed but do not receive their income, or in developing countries where people have official employment but earn so little income that they spend part of their official working time at other income-generating activities (legal and illegal);
6. efforts to significantly increase productivity through new technologies and new work organization arrangements have contributed to the decrease in total employment levels and a rise in unemployment, as well as shifting workers from the formal sector into more precarious working situations, e.g., without contracts, occupational safety and health and other social protection;
7. current technological developments are changing the nature of work and, on the whole, do not contribute to sustainability. Work in a sustainable world requires that technologies prevent overuse of the natural environment, affirm the dignity of human beings, and mobilize labor as a source of energy which, at least in part, can replace the use of depletable energy sources;
8. the overdependence on economic measures of productivity, which tend to ignore and/or under-value caring and support functions for people and the environment;
9. at the same time that some societies are confronted with unsustainable levels of unemployment, many workers within those societies are overworked through excessive stress and overtime.

Report Chapter 3, page 1 of 1