The Hindu Business Line : We have lost our labour, they are gone a contrary way

LABOUR is one thing that managements labour hard to come to terms with, especially when the riding is rough as in Honda. Add to it administrative goof-up by nincompoops in uniform, such as in Gurgaon, and what you get is something that spills all over.

For instance, `Police beatings a setback to labour reforms in India,' opines Taipei Times, while RedNova.com reports on the rising rage over `barbaric' action, and siliconindia.com surmises that the Honda incident may not dampen the Indian investment climate, even as a Japanese economic daily reports that the company had already lost about three billion yen ($27 million) from reduced output during the labour dispute.

You can also catch up with the news in Khaleej Times, `Tension in northern Indian town after police attack protesters'; in Pravda, `Protesting workers at Honda factory in India clash with police'; in Ireland Online, `New fighting erupts after Indian protestors attacked'; and scores of other foreign media Web sites.

Laying aside the lament that this is all bad publicity for a country that claims to be the back-office of the world and a good investment destination, and also staying clear of the hot debate on the right to strike, I turn the pages of Concise Oxford English Dictionary to find the word `labour'.

Labour or labor is "work, especially hard physical work", and it also refers to manual workers collectively. "Exertion of muscular strength, or bodily exertion which occasions weariness; particularly, the exertion of the limbs in occupations by which subsistence is obtained, as in agriculture and manufactures, in distinction from exertions of strength in play or amusements, which are denominated exercise, rather than labour," defines Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Don't waste labour, exhorts Confucius, as in learning without thought; the opposite, `thought without learning' is perilous, please note.

The word `labour' is circa 1300, timelines Online Etymology Dictionary and explains it as `exertion of the body,' from Old French labour (French labeur), from Latin laborem (nom. labor) `toil, pain, exertion, fatigue, work,' perhaps originally `tottering under a burden,' related to labere `to totter,' and the verb in modern French, Spanish and Portuguese means `to plow'.

Strangely, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary finds a connection between labour and `sleep' — "akin to Old High German slAf sleep and perhaps to Latin labi to slip, slide".

The meaning `body of labourers considered as a class' (usually contrasted to capitalists) is from 1839, one learns; it is, therefore, not surprising that the word is defined as `unionised workers' by MoneyGlossary.com.

"In classical economics and all micro-economics labour is one of four factors of production, the others being land, capital and enterprise," states Wikipedia, recounting a starter lesson in economics.

Labour is a measure of the work done by human beings and there are macro-economic system theories that have created a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not necessarily their actual work), although there are also counter-posing macro-economic system theories that think human capital is a contradiction in terms, according to http://en.wikipedia.org. A useful reminder is from Sophocles that without labour nothing prospers.

Labour `the British Labour Party' is from 1906. "Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime," is a Tony Blair quote coming under test these days.

Labour to mean `physical exertions of childbirth' is 1595, from French en travail `in (childbirth) suffering' (see travail)", adds the etymology reference.

On the last, Medical Dictionary on www.medterms.com describes the two stages of labour, and adds: "Parturition is another term for `labour'. It comes from the Latin parturire, `to be ready to bear young' and is related to partus, `to produce.' To labour in this sense is to produce." In King Henry VIII, Shakespeare writes, "The queen's in labour, they say, in great extremity; and fear'd she'll with the labour end." And Horace says, "Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born."

Resuming on the travail link, if you travel on www.etymonline.com, you'd find ghastly stuff: "c. 1250, from O.Fr. travail `suffering or painful effort, trouble' (12c.), from travailler `to toil, labor,' originally `to trouble, torture,' from V.L. *tripaliare `to torture,' from *tripalium (in L.L. trepalium) `instrument of torture,' probably from L. tripalis `having three stakes' (from tria, tres `three' + palus `stake'), which sounds ominous, but the exact notion is obscure. The verb is recorded from c.1300."

Perhaps, the word's origin explains the pain labour's going through these days.

To James Beattie, however, "From labour health, from health contentment spring; contentment opes the source of every joy."

After laari, the monetary unit of the Maldives, `labor union' finds a place in Oxford Dictionary of Business, which also explains `labour costs' as expenditure on wages; `labour-intensive' as where the "the remuneration paid to employees represents a higher proportion of the costs of production than the cost of raw materials or capital equipment"; `labour turnover rate' as the ratio of "the number of employees leaving an organisation"; before it moves on to laches, Lady Macbeth strategy, laesio enormis and so on.

Labor is "a traditional unit of area in Latin American countries," informs `How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement' on www.unc.edu. "The labor is equal to the area of a square 1,000 varas on a side, or 0.04 legua".

Love can be as torturous as labour, but `labour of love' is "a project or task undertaking for the interest or pleasure in doing it rather than the reward, financial or otherwise," as www.usingenglish.com puts it. The phrase is from the Bible, notes www.phrases.org.uk tracing the source to `Your worke of faith and labour of love'. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, is a line from Matthew, New Testament.

Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour, assures Corinthians, and there're scores of `labour' references from the holy book that you can read on www.rhymezone.com.

To labour under a misapprehension is "to mistakenly carry on doing or thinking something without being fully aware of all the pertinent facts," according to www.allwords.com.

Another idiom that the site explains is `labour a point'; it means "to spend an excessive length of time on one particular subject or issue" or "to keep returning to one particular subject or issue, especially in a tedious or patronising manner and when it has already been adequately covered."

Division of labour is "the breakdown of labour into its components and their distribution among different persons, groups, or machines to increase productive efficiency," explains www.m-w.com.

Hard labour is "compulsory labour of imprisoned criminals as a part of the prison discipline"; and labour camp is a penal colony where forced labour is performed, such as the Bagne in Henri Charriere's Papillon.

May 1 is usually Labour Day, designated International Workers Day; labour-saving is not about rescuing workers from lathi-charge but of gadgets that reduce or eliminate work; labour market is the interaction of workers and employers; labour relations refer to the relationships between employees and employers; and labour exchange is a.k.a. jobcentre.

Labour economics is primarily concerned with the behaviour of employers and employees in response to the general incentives of wages, prices, profits, and non-pecuniary aspects of the employment relationship, such as working conditions, explains www.econterms.com.

However, critics point out that economists don't factor in `unpaid labour' such as what homemakers do, so essential for the society though tough to measure.

I'm sure that netas should be doing over time to cash in on the latest labour problem, and that their brains should be more busy than the labouring spider that weaves tedious snares to trap its enemies, as York says in King Henry VI.

"We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way: hark! You may know by their trumpets," is a line from All's Well That Ends Well, though it isn't what one would like to hear from disenchanted workers when all's not that well in the end.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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