Whales shouldn't face cruel working conditions

And if he's doing their job by helping the whale, he should be compensated.

Yes he should be compensated, the work was so slow in the first place because they were slacking off and refused to help the whale's itchiness until he outright stopped working because of it each day.

Life is too hard for spiritual beings in the magic world. I get that after the failed elf revolution against industrialization anything too magical or special feeling was treated poorly, but experimenting on them and back to back shifts with no breaks is just awful.