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Work in Progress

The Current’s series Work in Progress promises to explore developing trends and changes in how and why we work. We start with a very simple premise: everyone works, paid or not, and everyone has an opinion about work.

We will tap into the national work ethos to witness work … in progress.

A Brief History of the Work Ethic in Western Society

Work, for most of human history has been considered both hard and degrading. Take a look at Adam and Eve - they had a pretty sweet deal in Eden until they got the boot. Turns out God devised work as a curse … a punishment for Adam and Eve.

Jump ahead to the Greeks. The Greek word for work is ponos… it comes from the Latin word poena which means punishment. Manual labour was for slaves. But even some mental labour, such as the practical thinking required for the mechanical arts was deplored because it “brutalized the mind till it was unfit for thinking the truth”.

As time marched on, slave labour became the work of lay people, providing for the Christian monasteries and of course for themselves. But work had no intrinsic value It was just something you did to meet the physical needs of family and community and to avoid the idleness that always leads to sin. This was all divinely inspired and ordered.

But then, with the advent of the Protestant Reformation came the evolution of the Protestant work ethic… diligence, punctuality, deferment of gratification and the primacy of the work domain. Hard work allowed people the opportunity of heavenly rewards.

Finally work had value beyond subsistence.

Work, however, and our concept of it would change again and again - through the industrial revolution where hard work didn’t necessarily mean advancement or other rewards - and into the dawn of the information age wherein social scientists realized work is about more than money and efforts were made to help workers have more opportunity for autonomy and decision making in the work place and other job enrichment perks that replaced heaven for a more secular workforce.

Work In Progress - Archives

A Mining Town (Nov 16/09)

Steelworkers at the Inco mine in Sudbury have been on strike since July. The city has seen strikes before but this time the community support for the workers is showing how divided the community is about the role its past will play in its future.

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H1N1 & Work Relations (Nov 12/09)

We look at the ethics, economics and etiquette of staying home sick during the H1N1 flu pandemic. Employees are caught between staying home and leaving their colleagues to pick up the slack or going to work and infecting them. Public health officials say staying home is the best thing to limit the pandemic. But economists say that staying home could be a serious drag on the economy.

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Outsourcing Journalists (Nov 10/09)

The Toronto Star has contracted out some of its editorial positions in a bid to cut costs. Several American newspapers have outsourced editorial positions as well. The newspapers say it's necessary in order to cut costs but many people think the practice is hurting journalism.

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Job Quality Erosion (Nov 05/09)

Canada's job numbers are rebounding but the quality of those jobs is still lagging and more Canadians are being forced to move sectors, having to settle for part-time work, self-employment or jobs that don't pay as much.

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Factory Farming (Nov 04/09)

The war in the country is a polemic on the destruction of the traditional family farm in rural Canada. The few remaining family farms now struggle to survive in the face of corporate backed factory farms, mining interests and tourist developments. At stake is the quality and sustainability of our food. We met up with Thomas Pawlick, author of War in the Country on his farm in Marlbank, Ontario We also meet a new breed of family farmer and get a response from the organization that represents all Canadian farmers.

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Nortel - LTD Benefits (Nov 02/09)

Nortel employees on long-term disability may lose their benefits because the plan was "self-insured" by the company ... a company that is now going through bankruptcy proceedings. Hear from one person whose benefits are at risk and from a financial advisor who says plenty of other Canadians could find themselves in the same position because other companies have set up their plans in similar ways.

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Hacking Work: Saving Business from
Itself, One Bad Act at a Time (Oct 28/09)

According to the authors of a new book, Hacking Work, our tools, procedures and structures at work are more bossy then our bosses. Frustrated employees are finding workarounds to make their jobs easier. Find out how to get the system work for you.

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Workers Compensation Board Frustrations (Oct 23/09)

After ten long hours, the hostage taking at the Workers Compensation Board building in Edmonton ended safely. While the hostage taking shocked and appalled everyone, it got the country talking about The Workers Compensation Board. Turns out there is an enormous amount of frustration among claimants who say they are not being treated fairly.

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Retirement (Oct 16/09)

So much for Freedom 55. According to a new study, working after you retire, even just a little bit, can make you healthier and happier than people who don't.

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Marine Biologist Couple (Oct 14/09)

A dual feature interview: Boris and Heike, two world-leading marine biologists, share their thoughts on the state of global fish stocks and how their respective research builds on and complement's the other's. Find out how this high-powered research couple manages to balance an intensely intellectual, research-oriented and collaborative professional life with a more conventional domestic life.

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Burlesque West (Oct 14/09)

Exotic dancing has been a part of the Vancouver entertainment scene for decades and it is a story of sex, burlesque, and earning a living. Author, Becki Ross looks at the history of a by-gone era in her new book, Burlesque West: Showgirls, Sex and Sin in Post War Vancouver and gives us a glimpse into the working life of a dancer in a business many would rather ignore.

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Intern Culture (Oct 08/09)

In the wake of a global recession internships have become a lot more competitive. In fact, a whole new industry is cropping up, in which students pay - sometimes thousands of dollars - just for the chance to land the right internship. We're asking if internships are tipping over into exploitation and whether they're still a good deal for the people who get them.

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Obsessive Work (Sept 28/09)

It began as a perfectly respectable academic career for Glen Chilton - a behavioural ecologist specializing in a particular species of songbird. But it has become an all-consuming quest that has taken him around the world, cost him thousands of dollars of his own money, and put him on the trail of an elusive flock of very dead and very stuffed ducks.

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When the Work Goes - Welland Pt 3 (Sept 23/09)

As factory after factory and business after business folded and left Welland Ontario the community wondered... could the town ever rise again and if it did, what kind of businesses would provide the economic growth? Well, the town is starting to rebound and the new jobs being created bring a new meaning to the word recycle.

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When the Work Goes - Welland Pt 2 (Sept 22/09)

As the manufacturing jobs disappear in Welland people are realizing that in order to work, and to work in Welland they have to change their expectation that a job is for life. The Current goes to the United Steel workers adjustment centre to find out how laid off workers are adjusting their view of work.

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When the Work Goes - Welland Pt 1 (Sept 21/09)

Over the past ten years, the town of Welland has been hit hard by job losses and plant closures. Once the kind of place where jobs were so plentiful you could quit one in the morning and find another in the afternoon, today families are struggling to find any work at all. The Current goes to Welland Ontario to find out what happens to the very fabric of a town and its people when the work goes away.

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The Hunter - September 15/09

Darren Atkinson is a husband, a father, a musician... and a dumpster diver. If he's not playing drums for a living, he's diving into industrial waste bins, looking for treasure. This is work. This is his "job". He sells what he can, or trades thrown-away goods for services and favours. But can a self-confessed - and possibly obsessed - "dumpsterologist" make a living from the cast-offs of our consumer society?

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Fearless: Beatrice Mtweta - September 14/09

Beatrice Mtetwa has been harrassed, arrested, jailed and beaten ... but she says it's her job. She's a human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe, a profession that almost guarantees personal suffering and loss. Her colleagues call her fearless. She's taken on a deeply corrupt system, winning aquittals for both Zimbabwean and foreign journalists who face charges under her country's restrictive media laws.

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New Jobs/Old Jobs - September 10/09

Working hard, showing up on time, going above and beyond expectations ... our work ethic in Western society has a long hardworking history. In this documentary, a look at that history and at the intriguing parallels with social insects such as ants and bees.

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Work: In Progress - September 8/09

(Due to music rights, we can not make this item downloadable)

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