Coordinator's note: Millions of people work directly and indirectly in industries that create ill health and social problems, such as junk food, tobacco, alcohol and gambling. Others have jobs in the medical, pharmaceutical industries from the resulting health problems. Since there is no differentiation between beneficial or destructive jobs, using "jobs" as the method of income distribution has very high costs to health, community and environment.

MAIN POINTS
(from interviews)

1. Unemployed people are used to keep wages low

2. Advertising (to boost consumption)

3. Moms forced to leave babies and toddlers to take any job

4. People often must compromise ethics to get and keep jobs

5. Divide and conquer; overworked and exhausted workers
resent unemployed

6. No job equals no value as a human being; outcast by society

7. People have regret and pain from time not spent with children when they were young because of needing a job to survive

8. No time for politics, means giving our consent through inaction

9. Attempting to solve world poverty with economic growth
and jobs is insane and impossible

10. There is intense competition for the 'real' jobs  

11. Many people cannot fit into formal job structures

12. No reason to produce more when we have surplus goods

13. Many jobs involve unhealthy work or unhealthy products

14. Long work hours means neglecting kids
(can lead to crime and other problems)

15. Laziness is considered a cardinal sin; people will take any job
regardless of harm to self or others to avoid shame

16. Education system and jobs system takes away cultural diversity

17. Overwork creates grumpy, resentful people who isolate themselves  

18. People don't have kids because they fear for the future

COSTS of JOBS- Quotes

JOBS stands for Just Obliteration of the planet Because of Short-sighted stupidity. Or, Jeopardizing Our Bodies and Souls. Most of the stuff we produce in our jobs isn't healthy for us or our planet.   Most of the stuff we produce is pre-planned obsolete, not needed, not even wanted. We do not need more jobs - nor more babies, for that matter.   We have many babies that need parents, and people need meaningful activities, not jobs.   And we do not need more fast food. The sooner we take people out of overproduction and the production and consumption of harmful products - i.e., jobs for the sake of jobs, when it isn't a job that's needed; it's money - the better off we'll be. -Valerie

Many jobs make money for big business but don't really contribute anything of true value. -Samantha

The working job mindset-I may be racist in saying this, but I'm going to say it anyhow-it is a white mode of thinking: it is British. We are living in Victoria, the most British city in Canada. Jobs are not the solution. Not everybody wants to work full-time, and why should they have to? And what about the people who can't work? That's why we end up with the slave system. That whole work ethic puts more stress on people, which in turn affects their health which in turn affects their family relationships, which would also affect the quality of work they do, and that in turn is more stress on our health system. So it is more costly. They end up taking pharmaceuticals or seeing psychiatrists. Then there is the depression and problems in spousal relationship. They end up getting divorced more; then the lawyers are making more money. It is a ripple effect, it affects everybody around you. -Debie

When I think about the goal of jobs, I feel despair. All of this interview I've been speaking as a mother. As a mother, I have a job, and that job literally is 24 hours a day. My child doesn't sleep. And she is not happy that I am doing childcare; she wants to hang out and have fun. The work of children is play. That is the root of learning, all aspects of being, from self-fulfillment to how to engage with others. The fact that I need to work and do childcare is no fucking piece of cake. My job starts at 8 in the morning when children start to arrive. They are here until 5:30, and then I have all the cleaning and all the preparation, all the rest of the work that goes on when the kids aren't here. Once my child goes to bed at 10 p.m., I'm exhausted, she's grumpy, and she's awake during the night because she's not getting her needs met. She wants her time with me and she can't have it. I work 14 to 16 hours a day towards my paid work even though I am with my daughter. All women at home with their kids are working.   So pursuing the goal of jobs as a solution...   it's crushing on individuals, family and children. -Naomi

Costs? My health. I get headaches because I'm always going: food for my kids, living healthy, putting time into raising them properly. But they are in somebody else's home all day instead of mine. I come home, make them dinner, put them to bed, wake them up, take them to school, and I feel guilty. They demand attention from me, and then you are more stressed out and then you want to work harder to make more money so you can get some time. -Meshum

There is a lot of work that is not recognized, a lot of invisible work. Like childcare, eldercare, housework, home care, gardening, maintaining a home-all that kind of stuff is necessary work but isn't valued. If people said, "We will acknowledge child and elder care".... What we call a job, I think of as the tip of the iceberg. Structured jobs may not be able to exist without exploiting unpaid work and exploiting the environment. There are many people who would be threatened by this kind of movement in the beginning. But the whole idea of full-time jobs for people is insane, because many people are already working full-time doing things that are not acknowledged. What are you going to do, abandon your kids or Alzheimer's dad? -Claire

Women are a non-stop machine. Over 80% of our job is unpaid work, and it is unrecognized by the community. -Rose

Everybody knows the biggest pain for a corporation is to have low unemployment, because they might have to pay a decent wage. I don't care if you are making 30 bucks, 60 bucks or 6 bucks an hour, if any one of those positions could pay less, they would. So we're going to depend on capitalism to save us? Their whole main goal is profit, not to make sure you have a decent paying job with good benefits. There are even laws that the corporations have more rights in law than we do! And we're human beings! Somewhere along the line we've all agreed with that, or been brainwashed to believe in that. You see it today with workers who are making $10 per hour and are being brutalized by a supervisors who's making $50,000 a year. You try say to them: "You need to take back the power here. Quite frankly, when the supervisor goes away on holidays, nobody even notices; the place keeps running. But if you phone in sick one day, the whole bloody place is in chaos. And yet you are considered unskilled and useless!" -Brenda

Fighting for rights of workers to sell walmart shit? In the long term we need to stop selling shit to the poor. Jobs are often destructive. We sell our own souls and we toss and turn. -Kym

The ones who are in the top of the pyramid get away with doing nothing and make us feel afraid, that we will go to hell if we don't do the right things. The people at the top of the pyramid are laughing in the end. And who suffers most with disasters? It is not the people at the top at the pyramid. It's the poor people who suffer, and they are not the ones to cause the damage. -Hilda

I just can't imagine not being forced to go to work. It is so ingrained in us now, as soon as our children are 3 years old. How many single moms do I know who don't have time to get involved with anything, don't even have time to say hi to their neighbors? On the whole the neighborhood and community suffers. -Sasha

When my son was 3 months old I got one cheque from welfare and thought, "I don't think so." I thought the welfare cheque was a mistake; it was $450. I phoned them and said to them, "$450 for all month?" And they said, "Yes." I went out the next day to find a job. And now I totally regret it. I should have struggled. I should have done that until he was six. Now that I'm working full-time, I have no time to volunteer at the school. How many times my son wants me to be there for him, or I want to help out at the school but I can't do it. -Sasha

If you have GLI, the humanity of the person could be nurtured. If you don't have GLI, it goes against humanity, is more stressful, and there is a lot of pressure to try to follow the full-time career track. People are so stressed out -people aren't designed for the 40-hour week that feels like a 60-hour week. I am happiest working part-time. We could redesign the workweek. I've seen people so tired- looking, like some instructors I've had.   I feel like telling them, "Go and retire, you are too tired to help me." Some people only 45 and 50, and they are so tired. Two weeks holiday is not enough to recuperate. In the government office setting, people in their late 30's are getting all kinds of ailments. Again, the full-time job and that stress goes against what is humanly reasonable. I notice people who are able to cope with long hours. They are living for the future, looking forward to their retirement day, because their lives aren't so great. I can see the pervasive effects it has on your personality. You've heard of poisonous workplaces. Those who can cope and thrive in long workweeks, their personalities seem to go down. They are so depleted. We need to do research to see if there is a link with higher smoking, drinking and gambling from full-time positions. People stay in them for the money. With a GLI, they could volunteer, help their neighbors, nurture their vitality, tune into the kids.    The freedom it gives you allows you to be healthier.-Elizabeth

People get so burnt out, but they are tied up financially, and end up hating their life. -Sharon

When I started a full time job, I stopped cooking meals and bought more junk food, packaged stuff, canned and frozen stuff. And that's got to affect health. -Brenda

I would go from job to job and have a nervous breakdown practically, and even suicidal sometimes, not knowing where I was going to work. I waitressed until my body burnt out and I couldn't do it anymore. And now I have no pension-nothing to fall back on. -Cecia

We are like these little robotrons trying to produce with the top echelon looking down: "You are our slaves, now produce!" -Olive

It would be good to have more jobs and give people a chance to work, but the free market economy will always leave people with no jobs. So the bigger picture is that there is still the need for stable incomes for every family. -Eva

All you have to do is look, look around Victoria and what you'll see is all the greenspace disappearing and concrete and buildings going up-lots of jobs, but are we going to be able actually breathe? If everybody had a job, if everybody had a car and a TV, or whatever it is you are supposed to want, you'd need more than one planet. There's never been full employment policy under any political party because it is not workable. And a) the jobs are trashing the planet, and b) there are fewer and fewer jobs all the time (moving into tech and robotics). Yet the answer is jobs, jobs, jobs! There are already statistics out that most people hate their jobs, and that has got to be taking a toll on health. Is that the kind of society we want? Just getting people to talk about what's important is hard to do when you are brainwashed into thinking the job is most important. I've gone through that myself. -Valerie

I had a job where I had nothing to do. There were five receptionists for one executive director. They were paying me $18 per hour, and I didn't do anything. I asked, "Why am I being paid 18 per hour?" and was told, "Just be happy that you are there." I quit, and people thought I was crazy, but there is only so much my soul can do, and I cannot sell out on that level. Jobs are not a solution; they are for capitalism maybe, but not for the individual. They will give you jobs, but not something that can feed your soul, or where you feel good about yourself at the end of the day. -Rachel

A lot people can only work part-time due to physical, mental or emotional illness. -Dawn

[Jobs] pretend that the measure of your worth is the money you bring in, whereas most money now is completely irrelevant to social benefit. Certainly the most valuable things that happens, taking care of children and ill people, are mostly done without pay. To the extent that people have to have jobs, it's going to actually distract from the real work that they need to be doing. I don't see why we now think somebody's goofing off if they choose to not work full time and are raising their kids. -Jennifer

Jobs for all as a solution? There is no such thing as jobs for all people on this planet. If anything, all the research has proven that there are less and less jobs, and it will continue to go that way. -Faith