“Working is too hard,” sings Zachary Richard, and many have had this thought about their jobs. In his documentary After Workwhich will be presented at the Knowlton Film Festival in Estrie, Erik Gandini explores the notions of guaranteed minimum income, meritocracy and robotization of the workforce.
Traveling around the world, the filmmaker interviews people who work nonstop, including in South Korea and the United States. But he also meets Kuwaitis who work bogus jobs under government-established guaranteed income schemes. He interviews a wealthy Italian heiress, exempt from work, who spends her time gardening, fishing and traveling, while her hard-working husband opposes the guaranteed minimum income.
While it raises interesting questions about the work ethic that dominates the Western world, After Work brings more questions than answers.
In the United States, he notes, Americans voluntarily gave up 578 million vacation days last year. This extreme valorization of work is a legacy of the Calvinist tradition, explains American philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, who accompanies us throughout the film. This ethic was invented by Puritan ministers of the 17th centurye century, who spread the belief that hard work leads to heaven.
South Korea, for its part, ranks among the top countries in the world for the number of hours worked, its citizens often sleeping only three or four hours a night.
In a telephone interview, before his arrival in Quebec, Erik Gandini recounts having grown up in northern Italy, where people worked hard, and then migrating to Sweden, where the overvaluation of work is also de rigueur.
“My father worked until he was 84,” he says. “And where I live, in Sweden, the Calvinist work ethic is very strong. I have a nightmare about coming to the end of my life and realizing that I’ve worked too much. I’m fascinated by these ideas, which are as normal as breathing. Of course, we need to work to live, but our relationship to work is also determined by ideology.”
Some of the examples cited in the film are chilling. One of the most striking is that of a young woman who drives a delivery truck for Amazon. At first, she says she enjoys her job because receiving a package makes people happy. Then she bravely explains to the camera that Amazon has reduced her lunch hours and installed a surveillance camera in the back of her vehicle. “I thought, when I have to pee in a bottle instead of a toilet, I’m going to quit my job,” she says. She did indeed find a portable urinal in the company’s truck.
This notion of surveillance is also at work when the filmmaker goes to Kuwait. Since the discovery of oil in the country, its inhabitants have enjoyed sudden wealth. They now have the right to employment, so many of them go to work every day to do nothing. This condition often leads them to depression. “They are victims of a lack of creativity and a lack of confidence. They are idle, but under surveillance,” Gandini says in an interview. At the same time, it is the “expatriates,” foreign workers, who take on jobs that the country’s citizens do not want. “They are treated like slaves or machines. People ask: ‘How much is this Filipino?’ or ‘How much is this Sri Lankan?’” says a woman interviewed in the documentary.
If robotization or artificial intelligence, as we know them today, do not yet deliver man from the tasks that repel him, Erik Gandini believes that this reflection on the meaning and role of work is in the air of time. “When I was young, being very busy was the most cool ” he said.
“But this idea is incompatible with the present and perhaps even more so with the future. I feel like we’re stuck with this work ethic and that we have to collectively imagine something better. Without that, we’re going to miss an opportunity.”
In his film, Gandini also explores the phenomenon of NEET (no education, no employment, no training), these unemployed young people who reject the values of employment and overconsumption. This phenomenon is particularly present in Italy, where many young people can count on real estate assets.
Erik Gandini will be in Knowlton for the screening of his film, Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 9 a.m. He will meet the public there, before leading a master class (Sunday at 11 a.m.). The festival continues until August 17.