Worker (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what a worker is, its characteristics and what its origin is. Also, what is the history of the labor movement like.

What is a worker?

In essence, a worker He is an industrial worker. That is, a person who performs physical, manual work, or driving machines and tools, in exchange for a salary generally calculated by hours of work.

Although they are not exactly synonyms, the term worker is often used in the same sense as “worker,” especially when referring to the modern working class. “Proletarian” and “proletariat” are also used to refer to the worker and the working class from a political and ideological perspective, especially from the philosophical school originated by Karl Marx (that is, Marxism).

The word worker comes from Latin operatoriuswhich meant “laborer” or “day laborer”, but also what is typical of work. In fact, this Latin word derives from opus“work” or “work”, and is related to the current term “operator” (of machinery, for example).

Although this word existed in Roman antiquity, what we understand today as a worker is typical of the industrial society that was born with the modern world, from the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The existence of workers It is essential for the industrial work model of capitalism contemporary, since these provide the “work” element of the productive equation.

Since the 20th century, it has been common for this type of workers to be organized and represented socially and politically in unions and/or unions, that is, to have self-managed organizations that allow them to renegotiate their employment conditions with their employers and the State.

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Workers work as labor in factories and in the construction sector, either autonomously or semi-autonomously, or as salaried workers on the payroll of a company. Over there carry out work considered unspecialized that is, it does not require prior studies or exhaustive academic preparation, and that is why it is often among the lowest paid.

When reference is made to all the workers of a nation, we often speak of the working class, and when this class is organized in active defense of its rights, they are usually mentioned as the labor movement.

Origin of the working class

The working class is the most modern of the transformations of the working class, since Europe entered the Modern Age and the beginning of industrialization. This happened in the mid or late 18th century, when the first factories emerged and a significant demand for urban workers was created.

Thus, a good part of the peasant population of the West (and later the world) left the countryside and migrated to the cities, seeking to be part of a new expanding field of work, which was also better paid. This was known as the rural exodus.

So, a new social class was formed throughout the 19th century: the class of industrial workers, that is, the workers, a term with which distinguished themselves from rural workers or peasants. Therefore, the emergence of the working class is the historical symptom of a great social change, as the bourgeoisie assumed the role of dominant social class, replacing the old aristocracy.

Furthermore, the emergence of the working class marks the beginning of mostly urban life given that the peasant exodus enormously increased the population of the cities and concentrated the great majorities in them, leaving the rural areas in the hands of a minority population in comparison.

The labor movement

worker labor movement — The labor movement achieved many rights that we still retain.

The workers of the 18th century were helpless before their employers and worked in conditions of frank exploitation labor.

They had to tolerate work days of more than 12 hours, without any distinction between minors and adults. The sanitary and industrial safety conditions were deplorable, they threatened their health and did not provide them with any type of defense in case of incidents, accidents or lawsuits with the owners of the factories.

Consequently, workers began to associate in small brotherhoods or brotherhoods that copied the medieval guild model, and in which they could help each other.

Many of these first brotherhoods even acted against the incipient automation in factories, destroying looms and other machinery that displaced artisans and workers, since where before several employees were needed, with the machine many fewer could be hired and more produced. . This movement against machines became known as Luddism.

Thus, the first worker societies had a dual purpose: to provide mutual aid to disadvantaged workers and to resist inhumane conditions of early capitalism, demanding wage improvements and reductions in the daily work day.

The initial response of the governments was the prohibition of all types of labor associations, which threw the labor unions into radical positions such as anarchism and, later, communism.

However, the triumph of the workers' societies was unstoppable. Throughout the 19th century, new legal figures allowed the working class to fight for their well-being and participate to a certain extent in national politics. Thus, in 1834, the Great Trae Union (“Union of Trade Unions”) that served as a nucleus for the different labor groups that gave a voice to workers in the same area.