Richard Dawson reflects on the virtue of work, paid or otherwise.
In the Bible, work is important. Our work provides a mirror of our life and even the lowliest work provides a person with a sense of self-worth and dignity.
In the Bible, work is essentially service. By work, we serve one another, and through it we become co-workers with God, who has given His own Son, Jesus, in service to the world.
We should, therefore, aim to be workers.
Two things dignify the work we do. One is recognition by those whom we serve. In their being thankful for our work, it becomes, in some sense, worthy.
This dignifies work because such worthiness is transferred to us. We become "worthy" members of the community because we have sacrificed to serve others.
The second thing that dignifies work is our approach to it. We dignify our own work by the value we put on completing it well. A careless or reluctant approach to work will very quickly affect the reputation of the worker and may even devalue what they do and who they do it for.
In my lifetime, I've worked in some of the dirtiest and most labour-intensive jobs one could ever hope to do. I was, at one stage, a forest contractor engaged in scrub-cutting and clearing for four years. Even in this job, the worker can make a huge difference by giving attention to detail. Whole mature forests in New Zealand have been destroyed because of a wrong approach to planting.
This wasn't the workers' fault, but it demonstrates the difference a small operation can make to a large industry, often prompted by the decision of an individual.
Current economic "wisdom" tends to undermine both of these important sources of personal dignity by placing so much emphasis on money. I understand the need for some system of valuing work by attaching an hourly rate to it. To a certain extent, it is necessary and perhaps even helpful, but this way of valuing work breaks down badly on at least three counts.
Firstly, it does not work for the unemployed. "How ridiculous!", I hear you say. Of course it's not working for them - they're unemployed ... which is precisely my point. Work is important far beyond its hourly value. To stay unemployed for any extended period is to remove from people a vast area of personal dignity that will only produce greater problems.
If we really believed this, we would create more "work opportunities" for the unemployed, thus allowing them to preserve the dignity of the work ethic that is too easily removed from them while unemployed. This is a difficult issue, but I am sure we could be working much more effectively if we put our hearts and minds to it.
Secondly, it doesn't apply to some of the most important and highly valued roles in our society. This is true of parents who choose to stay at home, of families who chose to care for older family members themselves and of those who volunteer. Their service, and the economic value of it, is incalculable and rarely ever recognised officially, or in any other way. Again, I hear you say, "What are we to do? Pay all the volunteers in society?"
No, of course not! But perhaps we could provide other ways of recognising it: tax incentives, awards, free training courses, cheaper public transport. Find some way to say to these people, "We see what you're doing and we value it and respect you for it." Finally, it clearly doesn't work in the case of the enormous salaries paid to chief executives in the Western world. If I believed the value these people add to a company was truly linked to their salary, I might not have so many scruples, but even to my untrained eye it isn't.
In calculating their pay, it is too easy to make vague comparisons between the net worth of a company and what a CEO should be paid, and to assume this is a fair way of valuing the work.
There is, on the other hand, usually no expectation that if things go pear-shaped, the CEO is going to have to "pay" for the mistake which, after all, may have consigned many of the workers to the ranks of the unemployed. CBS News reported in May this year that one CEO in a property investment company earned the equivalent to 3489 years worth of the mean salary for a worker in the United States.
What's more, he was by no means the highest-paid CEO. ABC News reported in the same month that a typical CEO's pay had increased by 6% over the preceding year, which was twice the rate of inflation; and this while most households struggled even to keep up with inflation. Paywatch.org is showing the mean income of CEOs to be 342 times the average income in 2010.
My concern is not directly with the numbers, however. It is that such highly paid positions stand in stark contrast to a deeply important community value: that of keeping as many as possible in work. Such a goal becomes compromised because usually the cheapest and quickest way to save money is by making workers redundant. If paywatch.org is to be believed, then surely halving the average CEO's income would save about 150 full-time jobs. I dare to suggest that this approach to improving company performance will never become popular.
Work is important to us here in Otago. By our work we learn to serve others and we become valued members of society. For that reason, we need to find better ways to foster employment opportunities for all able-bodied people who will work. As we learn to truly serve, we also learn to truly live.
• Richard Dawson is the minister of St Stephen's Church, Leith Valley.
