History Main / UndeadLaborers

The VoodooZombie traditionally overlaps with this trope. Compare NightOfTheLivingMooks, where disposable undead are instead used for battle. TheNecrocracy is the opposite, where the ruling class are undead because [[LivingForeverIsAwesome it confers them advantages over the living]], while the lower classes are mortals subjugated by fear or the promise of immortality (though simple-minded undead thralls may also exist in such societies, and becoming one would be a FateWorseThanDeath; in fact, this is how the Haitians, who were frequently enslaved and forced into labor, viewed the concept of zombies -- ''becoming'' one was far more horrific than being attacked by one).

The VoodooZombie traditionally overlaps with this trope, and given Haitian history with forced labor, it was all too easy to imagine being subjected to this fate by some slave-driving scum who didn't care about your objections to how they treated you. Compare NightOfTheLivingMooks, where disposable undead are instead used for battle. TheNecrocracy is the opposite, where the ruling class are undead because [[LivingForeverIsAwesome it confers them advantages over the living]], while the lower classes are mortals subjugated by fear or the promise of immortality (though simple-minded undead thralls may also exist in such societies, and becoming one would be a FateWorseThanDeath).

The VoodooZombie traditionally overlaps with this trope. Compare NightOfTheLivingMooks, where disposable undead are instead used for battle. TheNecrocracy is the opposite, where the ruling class are undead because [[LivingForeverIsAwesome it confers them advantages over the living]], while the lower classes are mortals subjugated by fear or the promise of immortality (though simple-minded undead thralls may also exist in such societies, and becoming one would be a FateWorseThanDeath).

A VoodooZombie is traditionally employed as a worker, almost to the point of being a specific subtrope of this. Compare NightOfTheLivingMooks, where disposable undead are instead used for battle. TheNecrocracy is the opposite, where the ruling class are undead because [[LivingForeverIsAwesome it confers them advantages over the living]], while the lower classes are mortals subjugated by fear or the promise of immortality (though simple-minded undead thralls may also exist in such societies, and becoming one would be a FateWorseThanDeath).

* In ''Discworld/WitchesAbroad'', Mrs. Gogol refutes the misconception that voodoo priestesses like herself use {{Voodoo Zombie}}s, which is as untrue a rumor as dancin' naked and sticking pins in people is for the Lancrastrian witches. But, she admits, sometimes... just one zombie. When the house needs repainting.

When someone uses TheUndead, such as zombies and reanimated corpses, as a cheap labor force for simple but time-consuming tasks, such as mining. The "employer" of this undead workforce may be a living individual (most likely a {{Necromancer}} of some sort) or a likewise undead creature--but of a much more powerful and intelligent variety. From a business perspective, using undead workers is a very cost-efficient strategy: [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]] and [[DemBones skeletons]] don't need to sleep or eat, never get sick, and are unlikely to spontaneously form [[WeirdTradeUnion undead trade unions]] due to lacking free will. As such, it is one of the least morally objectionable ways to use HumanResources, although it always depends on where exactly the dead are coming from.

* In the ''Literature/CraftSequence'', zombies are mentioned as being used for lower class labor, like street sweeping. It's probably a mix of actual undead as well as some who are more like a TechnicallyLivingZombie: Basically, people pay for things using a bit of their "soulstuff", and so if you run into debts, you risk losing all of your soul and then being put to work as a zombie.

* Mr. Dark in ''Comicbook/{{Fables}}'' has a magical variation on this. If he can steal a live or dead person's teeth and eat them he can control them. And as the AnthropomorphicPersonification of "Fear of the Dark" and human evil he's powerful enough to do that quite easily to any mere mortal. The person's body dies (if not already a corpse) and slowly withers, but keeps doing Mr. Dark's will until he finishes digesting all their teeth. At that point, their long dead body finishes decaying and crumbles up. Hence his name for these servants, "Witherlings". He uses these witherlings to build himself a home in Manhattan, Castle Dark, with enough magical anti-detection spells to make it InvisibleToNormals.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', Characters/{{SCP Foundation SCPs 1000 And Beyond}}, [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1700 SCP-1700 ("Debtshop").]] The zombies created by SCP-1700 are forced to act as slave labor, creating more of the SCP-1700-A (magical yellow scarves) that animated them.

* The classic Film/HammerHorror ''Film/ThePlagueOfTheZombies'' features zombies being set to work in an abandoned [[AliensInCardiff Cornish]] tin mine (it was made in 1966, so they were of the VoodooZombie type, despite having the appearance of rotting corpses that later fiction preferred).

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', Characters/{{SCP Foundation SCPs 1000 And Beyond}}, [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1700 SCP-1700 ("Debtshop")]]. The zombies created by SCP-1700 are forced to act as slave labor, creating more of the SCP-1700-A (magical yellow scarves) that animated them.
* The [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Millennial_King Millennial King]], a [[BadPowersGoodPeople benevolent]] [[TheNecrocracy necrocrat]] imagined by [[Website/FourChan /tg/]], uses this as the foundation of the labour force. Mindless undead act as menial labour and reserve troops, leaving the living to enjoy skilled trades and the arts.

* The eponymous secret division of British Intelligence in ''Literature/TheLaundrySeries'' often uses a contract clause to relegate employees that suffer fatal on-the-job accidents (of which there is no dearth) to [[HumanResources "Residual Human Resources"]] status and reanimates them as zombies for the purpose of both manual and white-collar labor. [[TakeThat Apparently some zombies make better paper-shufflers or security guards than actual living people]].

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the plane of Amonkhet is a place where ''everything'' becomes undead after death. This has been exploited to create a reliable workforce for the only place inhabited by the living on the plane. These Anointed are [[spoiler:those who died without fulfilling the Trials]] made into obedient workers via enchanted cartouches. While the mortals spend their lives training to fulfill the Trials, the Anointed tirelessly handle everything needed to maintain the city. Most of the Gatewatch find the whole thing unnerving, though the necromancer Liliana is rather impressed. There's an amusing bit where they are startled when one of the Anointed immediately enters their room at an inn carrying a tray laden with bread and ale when Chandra mentions "breakfast".

* Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith's short story "Necromancy in Naat" has a trio of wizards oversee an island estate with the reanimated bodies of shipwreck victims. Unusually for the trope, when the necromancers die, the partially self-aware undead are [[DiedHappilyEverAfter happy]] to keep running the place for themselves, and the hero and his lover get to be TogetherInDeath with "a shadowy love and a dim contentment."

** Jakandor setting. The Charonti use necromantic magic to raise the dead and have them perform manual labor.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the plane of Amonkhet is a place where ''everything'' becomes undead after death. This has been exploited to create a reliable workforce for the only place inhabited by the living on the plane. These Anointed are [[spoiler:those who died without fulfilling the Trials]] made into obedient workers via enchanted cartouches. While the mortals spend their lives training to fulfill the Trials, the Anointed tirelessly handle everything needed to maintain the city. Most of the Gatewatch find the whole thing unnerving, though the necromancer Liliana is rather impressed. There's an amusing bit where they are startled when one of the Anointed immediately enters their room at an inn carrying a tray of bread of ale when Chandra mentions "breakfast".

When someone uses TheUndead, such as zombies and reanimated corpses, as a cheap labor force for simple but time-consuming tasks, such as mining. The "employer" of this undead workforce may be a living individual (most likely a {{Necromancer}} of some sort) or a likewise undead creature--but of a much more powerful and intelligent variety. From a business perspective, using undead workers is a very cost-efficient strategy: [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]] and [[DemBones skeletons]] don't need to sleep or eat, never get sick, and are unlikely to spontaneously form [[WeirdTradeUnion undead trade unions]] due to lacking free will. As such, it is one of the least morally objectionable ways to use HumanResources, although it's always depending on where exactly the dead are coming from.

* ''Literature/TheWanderingInn'': Erin, the Innkeeper, was given a skeleton by one of her regular customers, Pisces, who is a passionate necromancers, in order to pay his tab. He hoped she would his it, as a means of protection, though much to his regret she decided to use the undead as a...barmaid.

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'': This is pretty much the reason Obscurus started the zombie outbreak in the first place in the hopes of training zombies for cheap labor and stabilize the economy. Frank pretty much thinks they're idiots after learning this.