For most of us, work is the central, dominating fact of life. We spend more than half our
Inequality at work and in work is still one of the cruelest and most glaring forms of inequality in our society. We cannot hope to solve the more obvious problems of industrial life, many of which arise directly or indirectly from the frustrations created by inequality at work, unless we tackle it head-on. Still less can we hope to create a decent and humane society.
The most glaring inequality is that between managers and the rest. For most managers, work is an opportunity and a challenge. Their jobs engage their interest and allow them to develop their abilities. They are constantly learning, they are able to exercise responsibility, they have a considerable degree of control over their own—and others—working lives. Most important of all, they gave the opportunity to initiate. By contrast, for most manual workers, and for growing numbers of white-collar workers, work is a boring, monotonous, even painful exercise. They spend all their working lives in conditions which would be regarded as intolerable—for themselves—by those who take the decisions which let such conditions continue. The majority have little control over their work; it provides them with no opportunity for personal development. Often production is so designed that workers are simply part of the technology. In offices, many jobs are so routine that workers justifiably feel themselves to be mere cogs in the bureaucratic machine. As a direct consequence of their worker experience, many workers feel alienated from their work and their firm, whether it is in public or in private ownership.
Rising education standards feel rising expectations, yet the mount of control which the worker has over his own work situations does not rise accordingly. In many cases his control has been reduced. Symptoms of protest increase—rising sickness and absenteeism, high turnover of employees, restrictions on output, and strikes, both unofficial and official. There is not much escape out and upwards. As management becomes more professional—in itself a good thing—the opportunity for promotion from the shop floor become less. The only escape is to another equally frustrating manual job; the only compensation is found not in the job but outside it, if there is a rising standard of living.
In the writer's opinion, people judge others by ______.
A.the type of work they do
B.the place where they work
C.the time they spend at work
D.the mount of money they earn