The conditions that permit people to exercise their labor power don’t occur naturally; that is, the work force must eat, sleep, replenish lost calories, regenerate their muscles, and eventually replace the members of the workforce who die from sickness and old age. Nor do the conditions of the generalized exercise of labor power reproduce themselves without effort. Lastly, there are social conditions of the labor process that must be reproduced and maintained (for example, a laborer cannot go to work naked due to social convention arising from certain real needs not to be exposed to hot sparks on bare skin, and so forth). Reproductive labor, then, is all labor primarily involved in the historically determined aspects of the production of labor power, in the general labor power of society, and in the social preconditions of the labor-process.
THE PEOPLE NEED A PRESS!