Factory Work, Burdens, and Compensation

In contemporary Western societies there are a select number of occupations that are considered to be so costly that those performing them deserve special distributive treatment. Such forms of work are said to be distributive burdens.¹ Distributive burdens are ‘public bads’ that arise as a consequence of communal living. Distributively burdensome forms of work include in their number various dirty, dangerous and arduous activities, such as military service and rescue work, for which someone in the community must take responsibility. Such work has a negative impact upon the well-being of those who undertake it in distributively significant ways, and hence it is morally appropriate that such workers should receive some form of compensation, over and above that of a fair wage (of course, with due alteration of relevant details) for comparable occupations. It is the object of this article to show why semiskilled repetitive factory work (RFW) should be added to this list of distributive burdens.² I claim that inasmuch as RFW is socially necessary, then it should be thought of as a distributive burden and, accordingly, justice would demand that those who perform such work should be compensated.³ The arguments discussed herein have important political implications; taking them seriously would require a significant reappraisal of our treatment of those who perform RFW.