Manual labour

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Manual labour

Manual labour is physical work done with the hands, especially in an unskilled job

Employment

Employment is a contract between two party , 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 contract or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and Management the employee i...
such as fruit and vegetable picking, road building, or any other field where the work may be considered physically arduous, and which has as a profitable objective, usually the production of goods.

In ancient times the status of manual labourers was low, as most physical tasks were done by slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a form of forced labor where a person is compelled to Labor for another . Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive Remuneration in return for their labor....
. Legal scholar L.

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Encyclopedia

Manual labour is physical work done with the hands, especially in an unskilled job

Employment

Slavery

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England who speak English language in England. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
, and the Americans

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
created sophisticated social structures to outsource manual labour to distinct classes, castes, and races. This continued into the feudal period. This modest position is still reflected in such professional designations as ranch hand or stage hand, where 'hand' (a pars pro toto

Pars pro toto

Pars pro toto is Latin for " a part for the whole" where a portion of an object or concept represents the entire object or context. See also synecdoche....
for pair of hands, or rather for their owner) means an employee working in the named context. However, certain skilled labourers were seen as artisan

Artisan

An artisan is a skilled manual labor worker who crafts items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools....
s, well-paid and could aspire to become influential citizen

Citizenship

Citizenship refers to a person's membership in a political community such as a country or city. It has different legal definitions in different countries....
s, especially via professional corporations. It was sometimes referred to as "pick and shovel work."

The phrase hard labour has even become a legal euphemism for penal labour

Penal labour

Penal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to several related situations: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, labour as a form of occupation of convicts, and labour camps used as a form of political intimidation....
, i.e. a custodial sentence during which the convict is not only confined but also put to manual work; such work may be productive, as on a prison farm

Prison farm

A prison farm is a large correctional facility where hard labor convicts are put to economical use in a 'farm' , usually for manual labour, largely in open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying, etc....
, or intrinsically senseless, as with a Treadwheel

Treadwheel

The word treadmill, originally a type of mill operated by a person treading steps of a wheel to grind grain, now designates a piece of indoor sporting equipment for running without moving any distance....
, the only purpose being the effect of the punishment on the convict.

Beginning with the Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
, though, the introduction of reliable machinery further lowered the status of labourers. The reduction in status led to the worldwide labour movement

Labour movement

The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working class, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments, in particular through the implementation of labour and employment law....
s of the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to the formation of trade union

Trade union

A trade union or labor union is an organization run by and for workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages, hours, and working conditions....
s. Further technological progress leads to an increasing segment of manual labour (generally using machinery) requiring more training or even theoretical insight.

External links

- Link to Fair Labor Practices