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[av_heading heading=’ BENEATH & BEYOND | Work, a prayer or a curse?’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY SONIA D. DAQUILA
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Monday, May 1, 2017
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IN THE earliest time, man offered to his god the best fruits of his labor: the young of his domesticated animals and the best products of his land as solemn sacrifices and thanksgiving to his god. Man found joy in the contentment he derived from a simple life and his god was the center of his being. Work for man then was a kind of prayer.
In the modern time, money has become the source of supremacy over others. Thus, the center of man’s endeavor shifted from his god to acquisition of material possessions. Similarly, the prime consideration of the capitalists in running a business is profit while the end of a working man is economic freedom. In a materialistic world, man himself is his measure, homo a mensura, and there is no satiation of his greed.
With the advent of scientific discoveries and inventions, and the supremacy of capitalism, man has been gradually alienated from the fruits of his labor. There has been mass production, surplus, and exploitation of workers, affecting the capitalists and the proletariats’ relationship.
Despite this, the employers and the employees must survive. So, there has been a struggle to strike a balance between the two sectors, ushering in the emergence of unionism which is meant to protect the wage earners from the exploitation of their employers, and the latter from abuses of their employees.
In most cases, however, anathema sets in between these two sectors. Born out of mutual distrust, some institutions thwart the formation of labor union or cause the dissipation of the existing one. Suspicious of its counterpart, workers likewise employ means that prejudice the other.
Ideally, however, unionism aims to put these two sectors in equilibrium for the employees to be vigilant of their rights and efficient in carrying out their obligations, and the employers wary and just in dealing with their employees to achieve harmony for productivity, sustainability, and ultimately to uphold the general welfare.
Karl Marx, the father of socialism, however, believes that the relationship between the capitalists and the proletariat is irreconcilable: as the profit increases, the more the capitalist desires for more luxuries and baubles in life while the workers sink deeper in poverty and misery. With a lopsided situation, man can no longer call his own the fruits of his labor as he sells his time, efforts and talents for a fee. Detached from the fruits of his work, labor is no longer a homage to God. Work is no longer a prayer but a curse for the exploited.
Schools are also workplaces that operate in an employer-employee relationship, the sine qua non of any institution. In many instances, balance is tilted or perceived to be tilted. Thus, the inevitability of movements that hamper normal operations of an institution. Unfortunately, in some instances, any or both of the conflicting sectors may gradually erode the values they or the institution professes to uphold, and ultimately leads to the demise of the institution which has been painstakingly built by its progenitors many years back. For teaching, a noble profession of moulding the hearts and minds of the youth, when it is no longer a prayer but a burden, teachers may ask, “Do I live to teach or do I teach to live?”
May 1 is Labor Day, a reminder for the employers and the employees that an institution cannot operate without each other. A reminder too, that our work ought to be our homage to God.
Happy LaborDay! (delsocorrodaquila@gmail.com/PN)
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