Can using zombies for labor be more cost effective for an employer than a living worker?

Question

In the future, Big Business owns the government. Corporations such as Target, Walmart, General Motors, etc... now have a major hand in deciding policies in the country. This has a major impact on how workers are viewed by their companies. A law called SEDWA (Shameless Exploitation of Dead Workers Act) has passed, which most big companies have taken advantage of.

An employer has the right to resurrect a person after death for continued service to that company. This is part of the contract that this soon-to-be corpse, better known as an "employee", signs when hired. When a worker dies after a lifetime of being nickled and dimed, their body is resurrected for further servitude to the company and put back to work. This ensures that the corporation gets the full mileage out of their workers. The process has been active for several decades, and the Zombie work force is a common sight in many kinds of jobs.

This resurrection process is not cheap, so only big corporations can justify the expense. These zombies cannot follow complex commands and are relegated to performing unskilled labor. However, they are the perfect example of what a good employee should be. They don't eat co-workers, are obedient, are able to work 24/7, don't bitch and moan about work safety or ask for pay, and are cheap to maintain due to not being affected by decomposition. Even better, they don't violate the fair labor standards act set in place by those annoying and ridiculous labor unions, which demand a minimum wage and 40 hr working weeks on account of the person already being dead. It's a win-win from the employers perspective!

The problem I have here is that I don't know if the process of resurrecting these workers and binding them to eternal servitude would be worth it to the employer in terms of cost effectiveness. What estimates do I need to take into account to make this plan marketable to corporations? Is it economically viable?

Answer 1

The big question will be how long it'll take governments to extend human rights to the dead.

Everyone's comparing these creatures to robots, and it's a fair comparison, but it'll be way easy to humanize (or perhaps re-humanize) them in the eyes of the public. Get pictures of a few, let people know their names, or what their names were), trot out their families, what have you.

In no time you'll see a groundswell of public opinion against the idea. Politicians will demand the process stop, and since the corporations will have certainly gotten the dead bodies declared property, or something, hastily (and almost certainly poorly) crafted legislation will get them declared human, and as such, getting coverage to what little worker protections are left in this horrific future era.

Answer 2

Zombies as you describe them are a form of artificial worker. We already employ a great number of artificial workers in some industries, except they aren't undead.

They're robots.

Robots are a good analogue for what you're trying to describe; high initial investment, low level of specific skill which makes them ideal for specific repetitive tasks, and far lower maintenance costs overall. Additionally, they don't get paid, join unions, etc.

So where does it make sense to use robots? Largely on assembly lines at present, but even that's changing. Like your zombies, they don't have high cognitive abilities and while you can say that they are great at 'unskilled' roles, there are less and less of those available in the workplace because of robots' poor cousins - machines. Where 50 men used to go into a cane field and cut down sugar cane with machetes, now 1 person drives a harvester through the field and harvests the cane far more consistently, and faster.

Ultimately, the workforce is shifting to a smaller number of highly skilled workers because of mechanization, and zombies would fill a niche that is quickly disappearing from our economy. Autonomous robots are also getting smarter (like drones) and are taking over even some semi-skilled roles. The advent of self-driving cars (for example) is going to replace even semi-skilled labour like taxi drivers, so eventually even the cognitive limits of zombies would be replaceable, and when that happens the cost for what is, in essence, a biological robot with limited programming capability will be in direct competition with that of robot manufacture.

This means that your value proposition for zombies is tied thusly;

1) Can Zombies do the work?
2) Can Robots do the work?
3) If Yes to Both, which is Cheaper?

Cheaper needs to be explained more completely; cheaper in a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) context means factoring in initial purchase cost, maintenance costs over the 'lifetime' of the asset and then the assets' mean time to failure (to figure out when you need to begin the cycle again and purchase replacement assets).

Ultimately, robots are likely to beat zombies every time in this space, and the cost of manufacture is constantly going down, as the capabilities are constantly going up. I can't see the same capability curve being achieved through zombieism.

Answer 3

If you changed the word undead to robot and then looked at the modern world, you'd have your answer.

There is functionally no real difference between a robot and a zombie. You have a large upfront cost which is offset by increased production and no wages and other employment expenses.

You still need skilled employees for complex thinking tasks but dull repetitive tasks, you no longer need to employ humans.

Your answer is obviously yes if the cost of reanimation was less than the cost of employment.

The only real question is how MacDonalds can get zombies food safe accredited.....

Answer 4

Assuming that a given industry can use zombie labour, I'd expect that the childcare industry, for example, would be more than a little hesitant, to say the least, to employ the undead, they'd have to run the following equation:

Average life-span of an undead servitor x minimum wages for a living employee - cost of resurrection.

If the result is a positive number then you're making a profit on your zombies compared to your living workers and they're worth having.