Imagine being woken up, taken to work, restricted to a small area, and coerced into doing your daily tasks. Although a very simplistic and maybe extreme scenario, this scenario is reality for many animals used as work animals worldwide. Inspired by the work of Brigitte Wijnen, this blog will cover an extremely controversial idea. Should animals be classified as working professionals and what are the consequences of this classification?
For an overview of Brigitte Wijnen's work please refer to:
Essentially there are two ways to classify workers:
- volunteers
- (paid) professional-worker
As a volunteer, there are minimal commitments, and if you do not like the work you are doing, you can leave at any time without any legal consequences. However, when working under a signed contract, a formal agreement is made, and duties need to be completed whether you enjoy doing them or not. The upside though is that you are paid as a worker but not as a volunteer.
Applying this same concept to animals should we consider them as volunteers or as working professionals? Furthermore, if they are to be considered workers how will they get paid? There are many philosophical, ethical, and practical concerns surrounding this idea, and we will now take a deeper look into the main ones.
Philosophical concerns:
Do animals have enough conscious awareness to understand the difference between being a volunteer or a worker?
Will animals complete their tasks even though they do not feel like it because they are driven to complete their duties as per their contract?
Do animals have culture? can they think in the same way that humans do?
Do animals have the mental capacity to experience social emotions such as shame or guilt when not performing at a good enough level on the job
Ethical concerns:
Should animals be able to refuse a client, resign from their duties, or simply stop with work if they are a volunteer?
Can an animal be forced to work even though it does not want to?
Should animals receive the same or similar rights that people receive?
How do you know that an animal wants to do a specific job as they lack complex facial expressions, cannot speak and their body language is not always a clear indication of what they are thinking or feeling (also a philosophical issue)
Practical concerns:
How should animals be paid - as they have no use for money - also how much should they be paid?
What about all the other employee benefits that come with a job such as sick leave, holiday pay, overtime, bonuses and even pension. Should this even be an option?
Are there enough resources to pay animals and who will look after the retired animals when they are on pension?
when is an animal's performance good enough to consider it a working professional.
How should the job description be drafted for an animal?
In conclusion, after taking all the philosophical, ethical and practical concerns into consideration, animals as working professionals is not a possibility that will happen anytime soon. I would love to hear what you think about this topic and if you think working animals such as police dogs, farm animals, horses etc. deserve to be titled as working professionals and receive compensation for their services.
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