In connection with the actualization of the processes of globalization in modern science, the question of literary texts in the process of intercultural communication is acute, as well as how the values and experience of one culture are transmitted and perceived by another culture. In this article, there is attempt, using the example of fable texts by Aesop, La Fontaine and I. A. Krylov as precedent texts not only of their own, but also of world culture, to analyze the place occupied by the concept of "labor" in Greek, French and Russian linguocultures, respectively. Also, the purpose of the article is to demonstrate what are the similarities and differences of this concept in the linguistic cultures of different countries.