Does anyone else find it depressing that humans are still used for these jobs?
There are plenty of reasons to replace workers with robots, but "making those workers happier" is not one of them...
"Hey Martha, we've noticed that you don't seem to find your job to be very enjoyable. Well good news, we've fired you!"
....
Segragation was just a reality and anyone who suggested that there could be a better way was "living in a fantasy world."
Much the same was said about those who advocated for the downfall of Apartheid in South Africa. Most foreign policy experts were blindsighted by the swift and mostly bloodless downfall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s.
I could go on giving example after example from history, where what was once the status quo (and was even seen as the natural order of things) was radically changed in a relatively brief period to a state hardly imagined as possible by people living just decades earlier. Not only are such events plentiful in history, the rate at which such events are happening seems to be only increasing.
The only thing certain about the future is that it's full of surprises. And the world is what we make it.
Or maybe the counter argument is, "Well, they look happy in the pictures."
Or is it, "They'd be even less happy without a job"?
Except that no one's disputing these latter two arguments. Yes, they might be even more miserable without a job, but that doesn't mean their present job isn't depressing. And the apparent happiness in pictures cherry-picked by some PR hack for the wine industry is proof of nothing.
I would not use the adjective "depressing" to qualify human labour that respects the environment it is set in, helps populations keep living in interior mediterranean areas, and to speak about the product; help make something that has a wide field of application. In fact these zones benefit from a lot of quality rural turism because of the loop feed that comes out of grape, cork, rural area setting with life quality parameters that are disappearing all around the world. These are strong people that shouldn't be paternalized for their strong value system that preserves habitat and social condition in a strong group pattern. But that is just my opinion based on the contact I have with this sort of cultural setting. All of these things make this specialized manual labour part of a culture that warrants preservation, not arbitrary value imposition.
I'm willing to go out on a limb to imagine they could have more interesting and more fulfilling jobs than that, and even that those jobs need not be environmentally destructive -- they might be environmentally beneficial, even. Is this such a stretch? Would that be so wrong?
Is it inconceivable that some of these people might not actually enjoy spending all their work hours sorting or boiling cork? Just because they and perhaps their ancestors have been doing this for a long time, does that mean that they enjoy it or would not rather be doing something else with their time?
Speaking of imposing values, perhaps these workers should actually be asked about what they want to do and whether they want their lives and their children's lives to be dedicated to sorting cork.
Prior to getting into university I worked fulltime at a green-bean processing plant. Green-beans come in on a truck, straight from a harvester, and leave on another truck cut and washed. Exposed to the elements (roof, but no walls) in deafening noise, standing in front of a conveyor belt for hours staring at green beans trying to grab all the dead field animals, sticks, and stems before they went into the cutting machine. The beans were soaking wet so my hands were constantly freezing. On good days they threw me a rake and told me to climb into the back of a tractor trailer. After a while that gave me RSI.
It was I suspect worse than cork sorting or soaking. Certainly comparable.
Did I enjoy this job? Hell no. Would I rather have been doing something else? No shit. Would I, even in retrospect, want myself forced out of that job at that time? Fuck no. Would I ever think of going back there and suggesting that all those other workers be replaced to improve their lives? You have got to be fucking kidding me.
I am not advocating firing anyone. If someone enjoys sorting cork, or if they are just too afraid to make a transition to more interesting and fulfilling work, I'd have no problem with them staying on.
What I do advocate is actually asking these people if they want to stay on or be trained to do more interesting and fulfilling work. For those who do choose to do something else, I think it would be a good thing to make this option available to them, especially when the same job could be done by machines.
That you think life is so simple really highlights your privilege.