One of the program planks of the Labor Party is shorter work time including a 32-hour work week; double time for all overtime; an hour off with pay for every 2 hours overtime; 20 mandatory paid vacation days; one year paid leave for every seven years of work.
Folks in one chapter did an on-the-street survey picking about six of our planks (universal healthcare, right to a job, etc.) and asking whether people supported them--the only one that DIDN'T get positive response (under 50% positive) was the shorter workweek.
I attribute this to: (a) people who work hourly think, shit, without overtime how the hell am I going to pay my bills, never mind less time. For example, one of my roomates literally can't make it without the beginning of the semester rush at the bookstore he works for. Overtime, we're addicted to it cause our real wages are so lousy--considerably lower than France and Germany. (b) non-hourly workers, such as teachers, think, shit, I'm going to have to do the same amount of work in even less time! All they've ever known is speed up.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> UAW leaders wanted to make an issue of overtime, but there was no
> interest in it among the rank and file. Quite the contrary, the
> workers liked putting in long weeks and pulling down $100k/yr.
Michael Perelman wrote:
>Some like overtime, but forced overtime was a big issue among workers.
In the textile industry, overtime's the difference between around $27,000 a year and $35,000 at which point you can almost kinda feel like a member of society. I don't know about the $100K UAW folks. Maybe some youngsters think that way, kinda depends on your job, and what drugs are available.
Benjamin Kline Hunnicut did a mongraph on "Kellogg's Six Hour Day" (Temple, 1996)--they instituted 6 hour shifts during the Depression and the workers in many departments held onto those hours until the '80s. But workers increasingly felt their free time had less value, over the years more--and more men than women--felt that they might as well work 8 hours, as the community became more fractured and isolated by radio & TV, going more and more from a participant and producer culture to a spectator and consumer culture, and as they were more surrounded by neighbors, family and friends working 8 + hours.
Justin Schwartz wrote:
>It's a real puzzle why the demand for a shorter work week has not caught on
>here in the US, particularly because ir has been successful in France and
>Germany, It;s worth noting that the European social democracies average
>about 6 weeks of paid vacation a year, mandated by law. Yet in the US work
>hours have been steadily rising, while wages have been falling since '73,
>except for a period in the 90s, when they ticked up on the bubble.
One culprit here is that our oh-so-American job-based benefits system--of which health insurance is the most expensive part--provides greater incentives to U.S. employers to keep from adding more 'social security numbers' hence all the overtime--forced or not. In Europe there's considerably less pressure as a result of universal health systems and stronger national pension systems.
Of course, workers can be more militant in Europe when losing your job doesn't mean your kids won't get healthcare or you'll get kicked out of your house or lose your pension. This is one reason the Labor Party's top priority here is universal health care. Here, it's a fucking downward spiral, we work longer hours as a result of our weakness as a class, which further contributes to our weakness as a class, by increasing unemployment which in turn undercuts our wages, and leaving us little time to participate.
When a tight labor market started to create upward wage pressure ('95-'96) they kicked people off welfare and into the labor market, the kind of government back-up European employers may crave but currently lack.
Jenny Brown