|
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the
other being the employee. 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, nonprofit 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.
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).
|
