Only gainful employment is work? - Don't just accept everyday media speech

Initiated by Ina Praetorius, I, Eric Manneschmidt from Frankfurt am Main, an activist in both the Rhine-Main Care Revolution regional group and the Unconditional Basic Income Rhine-Main initiative group, have been writing programme complaints to the public service media for some time now when their reporting supposedly talks about "work", but in fact only refers to paid work and thus makes unpaid work invisible. I do this both as a personally affected person who works unpaid in various areas (political engagement, art and culture, care work in the narrower sense), but who is potentially always suspected of being a social parasite due to recognised incapacity to work, and as a member of a community that I see under threat. Anyone who is reasonably informed cannot escape the realisation that unpaid work forms the very basis of our society and the so-called "economy", as we are all dependent on it - not least in order to become or be gainfully employed in the first place. It is equally important to recognise that not all paid work is meaningful or even necessary[1]. The still prevalent view of "work" and the resulting debate about "lazy Germans" who should be forced to do more paid work is therefore doubly wrong and poses a real threat to the continued existence of our society and democracy. Because if less and less unpaid (care) work can be done and at the same time the natural foundations of life are increasingly destroyed, we are destroying their basis.

I would be pleased to hear from imitators or people who also submit complaints about this reality-distorting reporting, as well as information about programmes in which this is the case.

A continuously updated overview of the complaints as well as a contact option can be found here: https://bge-rheinmain.org/medienbeschwerden

The text was submitted by Eric Manneschmidt - Thank you very much!

[1] See also "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber and "Schadarbeit" by Günther Moewes