In his Thought for the Day* today Archbishop Welby spoke about the true value of low-paid key workers:
A few weeks back I was in a nearby hospital as a Chaplain meeting some of the lowest paid, the most invisible workers. Invisible, yet indispensable. Their worth and necessity not measured in pounds – although it should be – but in love.
When we heard this, our thoughts for the day turned to the famous words** of the late civil rights campaigner, the Reverend Martin Luther King: “All labor has dignity”:
So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive, for the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn’t do his job, diseases are rampant. Al labor has dignity.
See our campaign for a fair settlement for essential workers post Covid-19 Key Workers: True Value
* Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4, 26/06/20 (Transcript)
** All Labor Has Dignity, Martin Luther King Jr, Memphis, 18/03/68