| |
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the
employer and the other being the employee. An employee may
be defined as: "A person in the service of another under
any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written,
where the employer has the power or right to control and direct
the employee in the material details of how the work is to
be performed." Black's Law Dictionary page 471 (5th ed.
1979).
In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive
activity, generally with the intention of creating profits,
and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually
in return for payment of wages.
Employment also exists in the public, non-profit and household
sectors.
In the United States, the standard employment contract is
considered to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee
are both free to terminate the employment at any time and
for any cause, or for no cause at all. However, if a termination
of employment by the employer is deemed unjust by the employee,
there can be legal recourse to challenge such a termination.
In unionised work environments in particular, employees who
are receiving discipline, up to and including termination
of employment can ask for assistance by their shop steward
to advocate on behalf of the employee. If an informal negotiation
between the shop steward and the company does not resolve
the issue, the shop steward may file a grievance, which can
result in a resolution within the company, or mediation or
arbitration, which are typically funded equally both by the
union and the company. In non-union work environments, in
the United States, unjust termination complaints can be brought
to the United States Department of Labor. In the Canadian
province of Ontario, formal complaints can be brought to the
Ministry of Labour (Ontario). In the province of Quebec, grievances
can be filed with the Commission des normes du travail.
To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is
not universal, unemployment exists.
Employment is almost universal in capitalist societies. Opponents
of capitalism such as Marxists oppose the capitalist employment
system, considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute
the majority of work to an organization do not receive a proportionate
share of the profit. However, the surrealist and the situationist
movements were among the few groups to actually oppose work,
and during the partially surrealist-influenced events of May
1968 the walls of the Sorbonne were covered with anti-work
graffiti.
Labourers often talk of "getting a job", or "having
a job". This conceptual metaphor of a "job"
as a possession has led to its use in slogans such as "money
for jobs, not bombs". Similar conceptions are that of
"land" as a possession (real estate) or intellectual
rights as a possession (intellectual property). The Online
Etymology Dictionary explains that the origin of "job"
is from the obsolete phrase "jobbe of work" in the
sense of "piece of work", and most dictionaries
list the Middle English "gobbe" meaning "lump"
(gob) as the origin of "jobbe". Attempts to link
the word to the biblical character Job seem to be folk etymology.
Human resources, training, and labor relations managers and
specialists held about 820,000 jobs in 2004. The following
tabulation shows the distribution of jobs by occupational
specialty:
Human resources, training, and labor relations managers and
specialists were employed in virtually every industry. About
21,000 specialists were self-employed, working as consultants
to public and private employers.
The private sector accounted for more than 8 out of 10 salaried
jobs, including 11 percent in administrative and support services;
9 percent in professional, scientific, and technical services;
9 percent in manufacturing; 9 percent in health care and social
assistance; and 9 percent in finance and insurance firms.
Government employed 17 percent of human resources managers
and specialists. They handled the recruitment, interviewing,
job classification, training, salary administration, benefits,
employee relations, and other matters related to the Nation’s
public employees.
|
|
