Modern Labour – A cruel Reality

The word labour, as we all know, includes both physical and mental efforts undertaken by humans in the expectation of a reward. The categories of Labour varies from gardening, farming, masonry, working in a factory, driving a cab and more recently working as professionals in companies worth billions.

I once asked an auto-rickshaw driver, how much did he make in a month. His answer, to my surprise, was more than my gross monthly salary. Alright, the half of you must be shocked and the other half can stop laughing now.  Yes, the fact is more than half of the current youth does something which suits the title of modern labourer. I take the credit of being one and there is a pretty good chance that you, the reader is, if not, your spouse, your brother, best friend or atleast your neighbourer is.

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We all take up these professional or software or insurance jobs in the charm of sitting in a comfy cushioned chair in an air conditioned office, for the potential of buying flats in high rise buildings, along with getting married to a rich guy or  for fancy ransom( uhh dowry ) , for an enhancement of family status and for the major fantasy of going abroad. But, we often end up being a slogger, though a sophisticated one.

We all get up early in the morning, get all dressed up like we are the mangers and march out of our homes. It is less of a march but more of a race to reach office on time but least conveyance charges. We live with room- mates as pocket cannot allow a 15k apartment and we take pride in that. We take shared autos to save for a CCD coffee. We kill our leisure time and work overtime in the hope of being paid extra. But it again is a fallacy, a mason gets extra wages for overtime but we don’t. Remuneration is a tricky thing for us. High Appraisals is a myth.

Most companies are not able to judge the performance as they have loose boundaries. They end up over-rewarding low level performers and under-rewarding high level performers. Humara to saala kat hi jata hai hamesha.

I recently read a board that said, Donate Car For Charity. I had an immediate thought that Charity begins at home. I sold my car or donated it for Tax Credit. This is how we modern labourers mortgage not our homes but our likes and hobbies to survive in this Dog Eat Dog World.

Now let me draw a parallelism between my life( a well-dressed neat person, working in a corporate office , a modern labourer ) and the life of a primitive and prejudiced labourer.

It is often said that labour gets succumbed, if time gone, labour wasted. Is it in our case? No, we have the privilege of postponing it until the target date.

Economists say Labour is inseparable from the labourer. A teacher if doesn’t go to school, it is not possible to bring the ability to teach at school leaving him at home. But for us, Work from Home has ruined the economic principle. My manager on a vacation to Yellowstone National Park struggled for network to get us all in a conference call. This is the form of labour I am talking about.

Weak bargaining power of a labourer. In our case too, its true. We are under paid, overworked flock of professionals. There is enormous of supply of people who are willing to be slaughtered by these head honchos.

It started off as an esteemed profession (not that it is not anymore, only a little too common). Now from nobody to anybody to everybody all are professionals working their asses off for a meagre pay cheque. If no pay rise or a bonus, we are appreciated in a unique style and have a day being celebrated to honour us, the MAY DAY !! To conclude, I would say let’s take pride in whatever we do. There will come a day, when we would have people working for us. Until then, let’s sing Ban gaya kutta, dekho bandh gaya patta.

This is an insight to life of a modern labour.

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