Work is not only a principal means ;-of income, it also organises our time, gives us status and a sense of worth. Our attitude to work has been formed largely by the Protestant religion of the reformation: the moral basis of capitalism; also the impetus behind socialism and the development of Trades Unions. Today, in our secular society, it is a hangover from Protestantism that causes us to equate work with worth, and that condemns the unemployed to feelings of guilt and shame. Against a background of rising and possibly permanent unemployment, this film asks whether it is time to scrap the old work ethic. Are there different ways of valuing people other than through work and income? Can work, income and leisure be fairly distributed? Or are we doomed to develop an unstable two-tier society of the working and the workless?