Our labour rights or "Maybe Orwell wasn't so wrong"

Postmodernism. Since the first Industrial Revolution, a lot of things have changed. The Game’s Rules are quickly changing day by day. This is so, that the circumstances our parents had to deal with when they first started working aren’t the same as the one we have to deal with today.

My purpose with this article is not ripped out the system, pointing out every single negative detail. Neither is to idealise it as the best of all possible worlds. We already have other people to do that job. My purpose with this post is to focus on a different analysis about new problems we have to face, which maybe are the problems of a lifetime but that are seem in a different way, because the circumstances that we live in are new.

Let’s clear up.  Thinking about our Human Rights, who are we? We are young students or freshly graduates looking forward to enter in the job market. Even though it’s changing every day, and we are trying to figure out the new rules, there are some of them that are established since day one and none of us have questioned them, and never have seen them as what they are, a bunch of rules that might become more malignant than what it seems.

We can start with something simple, like security cameras, have we ever wondered what are they for? Or, which is its effect? For example, in any store, you could say that is the Right of the owner to watch his or her goods. Everyone has the Right to protect the place and things that use to earn their income, right? It’s also helpful for sexual abuse cases, in the workplace, especially on those that are hard to prove[1]. And we have the Right to defend ourselves. This particular example is an extreme situation, but taking it to the general day-to-day case, it’s okay to keep an eye on the goods with we trade for a living, so, why in some stores the camera is in front of the employee, like, a cashier? From whom are we “defending” our goods? Which is the possible danger? Is it that goods get damages or is it just the fact that they can be stolen? Because of this extreme need of watching over our private property, we pass over the Right of each individual to his or her intimacy.

The main problem is the confrontation of Rights. Where is the limit between the right of a person to watch over his/her job and the right of another for his/her integrity to be respected? The worst is that this is not measurable. We let all this violations to our integrity to be perpetuated. What’s  more depressing than that? It’s not just in the job place, but in our personal lives. We have more options of different kindsof social networks, in order to make our private life more public. We let this happen, because we don’t question it. Maybe this point of view is wrong and the overexposure is good or at least legitimate. Maybe the excessive and extensive exposure of details that are not the interest of the world to know  is not a problem, not even your boss; being locked out under the watchful eye of the camera, reminding that “you could be the criminal”. Maybe these are not the problems of our society and it’s just that The System failed. So, we should invite him someday and ask who is he and what’s wrong with us.  Warning, the answer might not be a pleasant one.

Surveillance cameras are not all: checking the mails of the employees, some “psychological” test that have very little to do with working aptitudes, and so on.

I think about Orwell’s novel, 1984, and a chill runs all over my skin.

But we are the ones that let things go like this; because we don’t know, so, we don’t ask. As we don’t question our Rights, anyone can impose their vision of how to do stuffs. Apparently it’s everything clear when it comes to specific labor rights, such as, working hours, extra hours, salary, etc. But what about other rights?  Known as unspecific, the right of Dignity, Honor, Self-image, intimacy, etc.   This is not usually taken into account in any job contract, but shouldn’t we ask for them in a job interview?

Some will say that this are superficial matters, but if we look at the big picture, we should comprehend that there are little things that we pass over and no one discuss them. Abusive bosses (and I’m not talking here about sexual abuse), discriminations in the office, of all kind, political, religious, social, extensive tests that prove nothing about the person, the must of  wearing ridiculous attire, without a real purpose, and so many others. As everything else, the Rights are changing along the changes of the world.