Define ‘work’

If you're unemployed it's not because there isn't any work

Just look around: A housing shortage, crime, pollution, we need better schools and parks. Whatever our needs, they all require work. As long as we have unsatisfied needs, there is work to be done.

So ask yourself, what kind of a world has work but no jobs? It's a world where work is not related to satisfying our needs. A world where work is only related to satisfying the profit needs of business.

This society was not built by the huge corporations or government bureaucracies, it was built by people who work, and, it is working people who should control the work to be done. Yet, as long as employment is tied to somebody else's profits, the work won't get done.

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The graphic above is copyright free so please use and share as you see fit:)

Over the years, as At the Grassroots here in Keynsham and in our previous guise as Alternative Estuary when we were living back in Essex, we've put in many hours on neighbourhood clean ups and other community projects. When we were back in Essex, we worked on projects such as Hardie Park, a community run park in Stanford-le-Hope, and alongside groups such as Billericay Community Garden and the Vange Hill Community Group. Here in Keynsham, we're involved with the Keynsham Community Veg Plot in the Park and the litter picking group, the Keynsham Wombles.

We've never been paid a penny for any of this work. What we have done and continue to do has tangible social and environmental benefits that make a real difference at the grassroots. When we put in a physical shift on any grassroots project, we know we’ve worked hard because our limbs ache, we’re tired and frequently dirty as well! Yet because none of what we do makes a profit for a boss, it’s not deemed to be ‘work’, even though our aching limbs are screaming otherwise.

It’s not just the physical work though. One of the aims of both At the grassroots and this Stirrings from below blog is to do what we can to rekindle a sense of community solidarity in our neighbourhoods. Luckily, we’re far from alone in this endeavour. There are many groups working at neighbourhood level who, each in their own way through what they do, put in hours and hours of work aimed at strengthening the bonds between people.

As a bit of an aside and at the risk of being accused of repeating myself, this is what I mean by community:

When we talk about building a strong sense of community and belonging, we're not talking about a homogenous one where nothing ever changes. We're talking about a sense of community that recognises the variety of people that make it up. Regardless of where someone may have originally come from, if they live in a neighbourhood for any length of time, they're a part of that community, with the benefits and attendant responsibilities and obligations that go along with it. What we have to be alert to are the efforts of the divide and rule merchants on all sides who are sowing the seeds of division for their own nefarious purposes.

The graphic above poses questions about what work is and what it should be. We need to start having that debate so what we and many others do is at the grassroots is recognised for the real value it provides. Namely, making our neighbourhoods and communities better places to live. The problem is that with the twisted logic of what passes for economic analysis in this society, because this work doesn’t boost the bottom line of a corporation, or provide a public service that facilitates that, the bean counters don’t class what grassroots projects do as work. That twisted, inhuman logic has to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

On the subject of unpaid work that makes where we live a better place to be, and provides some pointers as to what a better world could look like, we’ve made a start in listing the grassroots projects in Bristol, Bath and the wider Avon region: The Directory. It’s a work in progress. Work that we don’t get paid for but, we hope will eventually start to make a real difference. If you’re involved with a grassroots project in the region we cover, please feel free to contact us with the details of what you do, and we’ll put in an entry for you.

If there’s any way anyone in the Avon region can help out with researching and collating suitable projects, it really would help to grow The Directory. Any workable suggestions on how it could be improved will also be more than welcome. What we want for The Directory is for it to eventually be a collaborative project. That’s what we’re aiming to move towards by the end of this year. Funding and support permitting, we’d love to be able to bring out a printed edition of it as well. That will only happen once At the grassroots has become a fully collaborative project.