betterment of the society. Dignity of labour means that the person takes pride in whatever she/he does. Abraham Lincoln was the son of a farmer and rose from a penniless boy to become the President of the United States of America. Mahatma Gandhi was a shining example of the dignity of labour.
He did sweeping, scavenging and cleaning in his ‘Ashram’ in Wardha. He never felt degraded or insulted in doing the jobs that some people consider inferior or menial. He used to clean his own toilet, to demonstrate the dignity of labour. In this context, it is necessary to remember that whatever a person does should be driven by values and ethics.
Values and ethics provide behavioural rules. Values are beliefs, preferences, or assumptions about what is desirable or good for humans. Values affect how we practise. There are six important values: service, social justice, dignity and worth of all persons, importance of human relationships and integrity.
Ethics are a formal system or set of rules which are explicitly adopted by a group of people, e.g., professional ethics, medical ethics. Ethics can be defined as ‘the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession’. Being ethical at all times, earns respect of one’s colleagues or peers and encourages them also to be ethical. At the workplace, values and ethics help to reduce waste of time and money and simultaneously increase employee morale, confidence and productivity.
In all work settings, generic norms of ethics and dignity are applicable. However, young workers/children and senior citizens as well as the female workforce are special groups and their presence in the workplace has many implications and ramifications in terms of their own quality of life as well as the society at large.