European Continental Assembly of June 2001 
Organised at the initiative of 
The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World

•	Framework text of the topic “Work and social organisation”
Initial document launching the debate on the Europe electronic forum

•	Authors of the text and topic co-ordinators: Hans Harms and Hugues Puel

•	Date of writing: September 2000

Foreword 

Changes in Europe's production systems have had impacts on society. The opening up of markets has transformed the way work is organised. This has had deep repercussions on work itself, labour relations, types of employment, the use of skills, labour laws and, in a general way, relations between companies and their employees. It has also led to a large number of crises and social problems manifested by high unemployment combined with growing poverty. 

Confronted by these changes, European governments have not stood still and they have launched a series of training, integration and adaptation programmes in addition to modifying legislation and regulations. Companies have relied on their considerable powers of adaptation to make changes in their investments, organisations, and relations with the market and their physical and social environment. Compromises have been found though these have not solved the problem of unemployment, neither have they made a substantial impact on social exclusion and marginalisation, nor alleviated the anxiety felt by a large proportion of the European population. 

1. The current situation

The fact that work is so important to our society makes dealing with work-related issues difficult. Work is above all a means of production, an activity that transforms our physical environment and our collective organisations. As employment, the form it takes in our salaried societies, work is also the main source of income. In European countries, from two thirds to three-quarters of national income is generated by distribution linked to work (salaried and self-employed). Lastly, work is the essential means of integration in our societies, so much so that they were rightly considered as working societies, since unemployment entailed not only the loss of income but even worse, exclusion from participation in society leading to loss of self-respect among the jobless and a blow to their personal identities.

The debate has been made difficult due to a lack of clarity regarding concepts, diagnoses and perspectives. 

Concepts

Concepts are influenced by the erroneous assimilation between activity, work and employment.

•	Activity

"Actio sequitur esse", as the ancients said. Man is a living being and thus he acts. This action is inherent to his spiritual and rational being; it is his activity of thinking, consideration and contemplation. This action can also be transitive. Thus it is expressed by a transformation of the environment external to man. We speak of work as a human activity of transforming nature defined as man's physical and biological environment or the transformation of society. A distinction must first be made, within the activity in its philosophical meaning, between inherent activity, which is the act specific to man and the praxis and the instrumental act which is the technique, the activity of transformation including the use of physical techniques such as know-how or/and instrumental techniques such as machines. 

Thus, defined as the general activity of life, the term is equivocal in relation to the meaning given to it in the economic world. From this viewpoint, an active person is he or she who participates in exchangeable social production. The employee remunerated for his work is considered as active, in the same way as a self-employed person who sells his services on the market. Here the criterion is that of national accounting. Only those who belong to the population called active and whose activities take place in the circuit of monetary exchange are considered as active. The others are termed inactive. Not that they are inactive in the philosophical meaning of the term, since their activity of housework, educating children, schoolwork, artistic creation and maintaining various relations are often of major social importance, but since their activity does not belong to the circuit of commercial exchange it is not covered by the economic meaning of the term. This is obviously a considerable bias that makes it difficult to estimate the values of usage produced and the understanding of work and employment problems. 

•	Work

As for the word 'work', very different things are said about it, some of which are of a communicational nature while others are purely instrumental. We can speak of work to designate either the dreariest, most arduous and servile activity (the work of a slave), or the most creative, agreeable and enriching activity, for example, that of an artist, politician or head of a company.

The confusion surrounding debates on the issue of work clears somewhat on observing that the activity of transformation, the activity of thinking, technical activity and that of social organisation are closely linked. This confusion can be untangled by using a few philosophical references.

Hannah Arendt emphasised a very salient phenomenon: "The fact that all ancient and modern European languages have two separate etymologies to designate what we now consider to be one and the same activity". Thus we have: ponein and ergazestai, laborare and facere, to labour and to work, arbeiten and wirken. This opposes work and the work. The first signifies work as an activity of pain, fatigue and privation of freedom, whereas the second as the self-realisation, the expression of one's creativity and as the fruit of activity carried out freely. The following is a quote from Arendt: "Work is an activity that corresponds to the biological process of the human body, whose growth is spontaneous; the metabolism and possibly corruption are linked to elementary productions whose work fuels this vital process. The human condition of work is life itself". This expresses the philosophical meaning of the activity. "The work is the activity that corresponds to the non-naturalness of human existence, which is not encrusted in space and whose mortality is not compensated by the eternal cyclic return of the species. The work provides an artificial world of objects, clearly distinct from any natural environment. Its frontiers house each individual life, whereas the world itself is destined to survive them and transcend them all. The human condition of the work is that of belonging to the world". This work is the creative work of transforming nature. "Action, the only activity that brings human beings into direct relation with each other, without the intermediary of objects and matter, corresponds to the human condition of plurality, since it is human beings and not humanity that live on earth and inhabit the world". Here, Arendt writes not only of the relational act of humankind but also its activity of thinking and speaking.

Underlying these distinctions is Aristotle's own distinction between praxis and know-how, emphasised by Jürgen Habermas though the latter sees a whole series of oppositions that raise difficulties: "action as opposed to work, speech as opposed to the tool, practice to technique, freedom to necessity, the public to private, politics to economics, working together to manipulation, power to violence, authority to repression ". There is no doubt that the debate on the electronic forum will show that several of these' oppositions are too black and white. 

•	Employment

As for employment, this refers to the form taken by economies in which salaries are the norm. When speaking of the end of work, what is most often spoken of is the end of this specific form of work, i.e. salaried employment in an industrial society. Obviously, other forms of social organisation may come to mind. 

2. Diagnoses

The diagnoses of this situation depend on our information. The situation of the labour market is often assessed on the basis of a few global indicators, such as the unemployment rate that gives a very approximate and very abstract view of reality. Criticism can be made of the numerous indicators to be found in statistical works. They give a view at a moment T, even when comparisons through time are provided. They remain static nonetheless and are mere synchronisations. Besides their effect of stigmatisation, indicators such as the poverty rate and the number of persons living below the poverty line can also bias perceptions. A longitudinal approach is required if we wish to see progressions through time. It is essential to take into account hopes and perspectives of improvements. Statistics on insecure jobs are liable to give a disastrous image of the situation of youth on the labour market, which is probably true, though not in the way wanted. A fine analysis of careers and itineraries certainly show the difficulties and suffering endured by the young in trying to obtain salaried employment, but it also brings to light social networks, participation in small scale urban production, the meaning obtained through these activities by acquiring skills that can be used later on, the feeling of creating something and the progressive building of character. 

Everyone has something to say about work and feels justly capable of saying it. What is said is not wrong but what is required is strong awareness of approaches that generalise fragmented and very subjective perceptions about the situation of a country or a continent. It is an area in which the sophism of composition is practised with enthusiasm. 

Between easy generalisations and the static nature of indicators, we should be aware that what we do know is based on fragile and very partial foundations.

3. Perspectives

There is no reason why a group discussing the future of work cannot achieve consensus on the subject. Utopias are plural and irreducible, since they are linked to different perceptions of freedom. However, the perception of freedom that can be obtained beyond the realm of constraints is different: this amounts to claiming the right to be lazy in the utopia of the end of work. Different, too, is the perception of human freedom won in the thick of the constraints and contingencies of human existence. This amounts to a utopia achieved through the humanisation of work. Formulating oppositions would be sterile without an explanation of the above. 

How to start the debate?

Our societies are based on work. Not only does it permit obtaining the income required for a decent life, with a dwelling, food, etc., but it also guarantees access to social security (health, unemployment benefit and pensions) and, lastly, it determines social status and individual identity.

This situation leads to the unilateral dependence of society on a single mechanism for solving basic problems that is linked to the place given to work and income. The result is social problems such as unemployment and reliance on social services, which in principle were supposedly solved by our economic system, based on money and remunerated labour. 
However, at a certain point, the expansion of remunerated labour and the integration of all workers in the economy via the labour market become counterproductive, because they lead to the total elimination of needs independent of the market. This in turn leads to an increase in the number of people needing to work to live. 
This expansion of remunerated labour will not lead to a reduction in the need for services but, on the contrary, to an increase in this need, since it undermines social life and systems of security external to the market. In other words, the expansion of remunerated labour and greater quantities of money do not solve our problems; quite the contrary. The unilateral use of money as a means of satisfying requirements and needs is one of the main causes of our current social problems, such as unemployment and dependency on social services.

It is not a question of speaking of the end of work (Rifkin) or a society without work. Work will remain an important reference in people's lives. The real question, however, is to know whether we are overestimating the importance of work by linking our entire social organisation to it. If the answer is yes, it will be necessary to seek alternatives or at least additional mechanisms. Organising the presentation and evaluation of these options will be an important part of the debate.

•	An initial approach can be made by categories of population.

Elderly persons (25% of the population of the former German länder are over 65) have spent their lives in a society in which work is considered as stable employment and the backbone of existence: the value of each person is measured according to their profession. For many people, the fact of ceasing remunerated employment means a crisis, since they feel useless. They lack daily contact with their colleagues and, what is more, they do not know what to do with their spare time. In brief, for them retirement means social decadence bordering insignificance. Another perception of age and content of life should be promoted, by diversifying activities and calling into question accepted perceptions and social stereotypes.

Women demand equality in marriage, work and civil life, contesting male domination in these different areas. Concepts of family relationships, on the one hand, and the world of work, on the other, need reviewing. Work and family life should be brought closer together, with links formed between them. Careers should take into account the conjugal and parental hopes of couples rather than suppressing them, which is all too often the case today. Much imagination is required in the modifications to be made to legislation, institutions and practices.

Young persons are often excluded and it is increasingly difficult for them to make a start in life and society. The same analysis has been made many times, but it aims at changing the education system, a relatively rigid structure in our societies that raises many questions. What should be done with young persons who find it difficult to adapt to traditional schooling methods? Companies do not want them, specialised institutions tend to marginalise them and prison fails to fulfil its role of re-educating them. How can the mismatch between the hopes of part of youth and the professional world be solved? How can the contradiction between the relative permissiveness of many families and the discipline required by training institutions and the workplace be dealt with? Capitalist society influences young people who are very sensitive to the attractions of consumption, whereas the world of production and services continues to demand control and ascesis.

•	A second approach could be by reforming the enterprise.

For the last twenty years, the context of the enterprise has been affected by mass unemployment, the globalisation of trade and financial markets and the development of new information technologies. Companies have set up new production methods and new work organisations. This has had an impact on work and jobs with the individualisation of careers and insecurity of employment, leading to changes in law and the content of labour negotiations.

The search for competitiveness has made companies become open, flexible and changeable organisations. This has led to risks of social exclusion for some, but also to opportunities for others, in particular young persons whose experience of insecurity has made them capable of adapting, unlike the previous generation. Redefining powers and responsibilities in this context of radical change in organisations constitutes a major task for the future.

The framework of June 2001, when the European continental assembly is to be held, will probably be characterised by economic growth, falling unemployment in Europe, and an increase in the number of jobs available. But the content of these jobs will differ, as will their localisation and remuneration, from that of the last twenty years. Therefore questions must be raised about a system of employment capable of opening out to embrace different forms of work (production-distribution-integration) as well as the creativity characteristic of a human activity worthy of the name. Knowing what is being sought and what is being done in different European countries will be an interesting contribution and a source of inspiration in order to formulate proposals for change.