In the south and the west being laid off is more or less a permanent condition. In the unionized areas of this country most union employees have recall rights that are contractual. Most union contracts have 2 year or more recall rights from the date of layoff. And generally once the two years are up by custom you will be rehired if the company starts to hire again in the future. So consequently you have a pool of people who want to make up for money they have lost while laid-off. Wouldn't you?
Then there is the constant threat of more plant closings and downsizing---so a common attitude is make it now while you can!
Also, there is the fact that without overtime, the decline in real wages forces people into overtime.
Gotta go to the park to clean up after yesterday's Labor Day Festival,
Tom Lehman
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> Check out the comments of the economists re: the validity of relyingon
> workers' accounts of how many hours they're working....gotta love that ol'
> predilection for objectivity...
>
> Steve
>
> NY Times
> September 5, 1999
>
> Running on Empty: So Much Work, So Little Time
> ______________________________________________________________
>
>
> By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
>
> T he much-acclaimed economic expansion, now in its ninth year, has
> blessed Americans with a cornucopia of good things -- rising
> incomes, the lowest jobless rate in three decades and Wall Street
> prices going through the roof. Many Americans have used the good
> times to renovate their kitchens or take that trip to Tuscany, but
> others are still finding the boom a lot less satisfying than might
> be expected.
>
> [090599work-hours-review.1.GIF]
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> For many Americans this Labor Day, the sentiment seems to be, we're
> earning more, but enjoying it less.
>
> The reason is simple: too much work. With the economy going like
> gangbusters and with a labor shortage in much of the country, many
> Americans are reluctantly clocking 60-hour weeks to do the
> mountains of work that need to be done -- designing that Web page,
> getting out that legal brief, finishing those architectural
> renderings.
>
> For many Americans, the 40-hour week has become a fond memory.
>
> Juliet Schor, the Harvard professor who wrote the 1992 book "The
> Overworked American" (Basic Books), said in an interview that if
> she were to write a sequel it might be called "The Even More
> Overworked American." Indeed, a new study by the International
> Labor Organization found that the number of hours Americans work
> each year has climbed skyward while working hours in most other
> industrial countries are falling. This trend has given Americans
> the dubious distinction of moving into first place in the number of
> hours worked each year (1,966), surpassing even the Japanese by
> about 70 hours. On average, Americans work 350 hours more per year
> (that's almost nine full work weeks) than Europeans.
>
> "There are a lot of things going on," said Professor Schor.
> "Americans are working harder, which is common when the economy is
> doing well. And a lot of today's jobs require longer hours:
> management jobs, professionals working long hours at firms because
> that's what it takes to succeed in these firms. Some people are
> working harder because there's a lot of money to be made at the
> moment. But for a lot of people, excessive working time is a major
> problem."
>
> This explosion in hours worked has some little-understood pros and
> some well-known cons. On the positive side, it has helped keep the
> United States at the head of the pack in productivity.
>
> America's economy produces more value per worker per year than any
> other nation's, enabling the United States to enjoy living
> standards that make most of the world envious.
>
> In a subtle way, the boom in working hours has also helped keep
> inflation down. Millions of salaried Americans -- software
> designers, lawyers, factory managers -- are clocking 50- , 60- and
> 70-hour work weeks even though on paper they officially work just
> 40 hours. These workers often do not put in for overtime pay, and
> the result is that they are making a quiet, below-the-radar
> contribution to the economy. If a Web site designer puts in a
> 70-hour week, but is officially working only 40 hours, that helps
> raise the important gauge of productivity per hour. This,
> economists say, has contributed to the recent rise in the nation's
> productivity rate, up 2 percent last year from a sluggish 1 percent
> per year over the previous two decades. This boost, also fueled by
> heavy corporate investment in computers, has enabled American
> industry to keep profits high without having to resort to raising
> prices.
>
> But talk to a few workers who just punched out after a 12-hour day,
> and they'll tell you that 60-hour weeks have their downside as
> well. Auto workers, telephone workers and others are howling about
> too much overtime, with many workers being forced to put in 15 or
> 20 extra hours a week. In recent months, many labor negotiations
> have grown heated over union demands to eliminate mandatory
> overtime -- something many corporations are loath to do when the
> 4.2 percent jobless rate makes it hard to find new workers.
>
> Little wonder that recent surveys show many Americans complaining
> that they do not have enough time to spend with their families.
> Professor Schor expressed surprise that in a recent poll more than
> 20 percent of Americans said they would happily accept lower
> incomes in exchange for working fewer hours. Even as many
> stressed-out workers are deliberately reducing their hours, the
> Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that 19 percent of Americans
> report working more than 49 hours a week, up from 16 percent in
> 1985.
>
> "A very significant group, roughly a third of the labor force, is
> working more hours than they want," said Professor Schor. "They are
> feeling high levels of time pressure and stress. They feel their
> job interferes with their family life." She said stress is being
> experienced in particular by baby boom workers.
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> A misty longing for the 40-hour week.
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Probably the biggest reason for workers feeling overextended,
> economists say, is that in many families the parents, taken
> together, are working longer hours. The Economic Policy Institute,
> a liberal research group, has found that together, parents in
> middle-class families work 3,335 hours per year on average, up from
> 3,200 a decade ago and just over 3,000 hours two decades ago.
> That's an increase of eight weeks of work per year since 1979. The
> main reason for the surge, economists say, is not so much that men
> are working longer hours, but that women are -- in large part to
> keep family incomes climbing while hourly wages, after accounting
> for inflation, have largely stagnated for the past 25 years.
>
> Millions of women who used to work part time have moved into
> full-time jobs.
>
> "Much of the economic gains in the current economic recovery comes
> from people working more hours, rather than higher hourly wages,"
> said Lawrence Mishel, vice president of the Economic Policy
> Institute.
>
> The overtime boom has created another source of tensions. Many
> corporate executives are unhappy about dishing out millions of
> dollars each week in time-and-a-half pay for overtime. As a result
> many companies are doing an end run around overtime laws by, for
> example, hiring thousands of workers as independent contractors who
> do not have to be paid time-and-a-half for every hour they work
> over 40.
>
> Sociologists and economists see several factors behind the longer
> work week. The economy is shifting from manufacturing to services,
> and service workers do not watch the clock the way manufacturing
> workers do. Many companies, notably software makers, now emphasize
> "project" work. Corporate culture demands completing projects by a
> deadline, often requiring workers to put in 90-hour weeks to
> finish, say, the latest CD-ROM.
>
> Some economists question whether Americans are working more hours
> per week, saying the statistics rely too much on workers' own
> accounts. Many economists also say it has grown harder to measure
> how many hours people work because of the explosion of beepers and
> cell phones as well as computers and faxes at home.
>
> "Nowadays you go to a social gathering and you see a lot of people
> wearing beepers, and at a baseball game you see all these people
> with their cell phones, in many cases still connected to work,"
> said Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton University labor economist.
>
> "It's gotten far more difficult to measure where work ends and
> leisure begins."
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Home | Site Index | Site Search | Forums | Archives | Marketplace
>
> Quick News | Page One Plus | International | National/N.Y. | Business
> | Technology | Science | Sports | Weather | Editorial | Op-Ed | Arts |
> Automobiles | Books | Diversions | Job Market | Real Estate | Travel
>
> Help/Feedback | Classifieds | Services | New York Today
>
> Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
>
> [pixel.gif] [pixel.gif]