Le vendredi 4 avril 2025, de 15h40 à 16h45, Frédéric Côté-Boudreau (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières) présentera « Should Animals Have Labour Rights? » dans le cadre des activités des séminaires des boursier.ère.s pour la justice sociale de l’Université Concordia.

L’événement se déroulera dans la salle 14.250 (14e étage) du bâtiment John Molson de l’Université Concordia, situé au 1600 boulevard De Maisonneuve Ouest. Il est également possible de participer par Zoom.

Des plats végétaliens et des rafraîchissements seront servis. L’inscription est gratuite et tout le monde est le bienvenu.

Pour plus de détails, c’est ici.

Résumé

Domesticated animals contribute to the wealth and functioning of our societies: it is the very reason why they are exploited in the first place. Their time, efforts, skills, and bodies are used to produce goods and services but almost always through coercion and at the cost of their own lives. While scientific and legal institutions increasingly recognize that most exploited animals are sentient–and not mere things–, they are still treated, in economic terms, as resources and merchandise, as machines and tools.

This situation is untenable. Some philosophers, legal scholars, and sociologists argue that domesticated animals deserve labour rights—they indeed provide genuine labour, but one that goes unrecognized and virtually unprotected. Beyond simply improving their working conditions, this “labour rights” approach to animal rights seeks to guarantee breaks, holidays and leisure time, a right to retirement, fair monetary compensation, and a right to be represented in the workplace. It promises to go beyond the welfarist paradigm, which keeps animals under human dominion, and posits that human-animal relationships can truly be mutually beneficial if properly regulated.

Despite its best intentions, I will argue that this strategy might fail animals and offers only limited parallels with human labour rights. First, I will map out the various ways in which domesticated animals work (or are worked upon). Second, I will outline the case for labour rights for animals. Third, I will present four key issues with this approach—some pragmatic, others more normative. Finally, I will argue that animals’ flourishing is better secured through unconditional socio-economic rights, which can recognize the value of their care work and social reproduction work without making them vulnerable to productivist systems.