Work and working hours

SOYMB recently read that the working week should be cut to 21 hours to boost employment and the economy.The New Economics Foundation said the reduction in hours would help to ease unemployment and overwork, while helping staff to become more productive.New Economics Foundation, says that researh shows that since 1981 two-adult households have added six hours - nearly a whole working day - to their combined weekly workload. Meanwhile, nearly 2.5 million people are unemployed.
The report says the nine-to-five, five-day working week was "just a relic of the industrial revolution".
Anna Coote, co-author of the report, said: "So many of us live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume, and our consumption habits are squandering the earth's natural resources. Spending less time in paid work could help us to break this pattern. We could even become better employees - less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive."

Some commentators can blame "consumerism" . No doubt there are those who overwork, often in two full-time jobs, for the sake of conspicuous consumption – "to keep up with the Joneses". But the usual pattern is probably for people to work more in an effort to preserve their accustomed standard of living despite another trend of the last quarter century: the decline in real wages. Many overwork to save for their children's education or for retirement, although the overwork makes it much less likely that they'll survive to enjoy their "nest egg". And many have to overwork just to make ends meet or under pressure from their employers (e.g., compulsory overtime). Workers are now especially vulnerable to such pressure: thanks to the mobile phone and the lap-top , they can be called upon at any time and are thereby deprived of any guaranteed non-working time.

SOYMB also noted that a record 2.8million workers are trapped in unsatisfying or lowly paid part-time jobs. One in ten of the workforce - including thousands of graduates with good degrees - settle for work which either does not match their skills or financial need, according to the Office of National Statistics. The number in so-called 'underemployment' has soared by 600,000 in just a year as the recession forces more people to accept fewer hours and take home less pay.

SOYMB also read that people who can choose their own working hours enjoy better physical and mental health, a report has suggested .Researchers for the Cochrane Library found employees who had control of their hours could have better blood pressure and heart rates. Its review of 10 studies of more than 16,000 people also said it might have a positive impact on mental health.The key was workers, rather than employers, having control over their hours.

Today's young wage and salary workers work longer hours than their parents and grandparents did at the same age. There is less time not only for relaxation, hobbies, self-education, and political activity, but even for parenting, family life, sleep, socializing, and sex – much to the detriment of our quality of life and physical and emotional health. It isn't just a matter of the number of hours per day, week, or year. Working time has been "rationalized" as well as increased. That means greater intensity of effort and reduced opportunity for rest, social interaction, and even going to the toilet during the workday . It means "variable" or "flexible" schedules – flexible for the boss, not the worker – with more night and weekend work to keep costly machinery in non-stop operation. Many couples now meet only to hand over the kids as they change shifts. And while some are mercilessly overworked, others are thrown out of work altogether, all in the name of profitability.

So could reforms change the incentive structure for both employers and employees in favour of shorter hours? Suggestions include improving the status of part-time work, abolishing higher rates for overtime, and banning compulsory overtime. Tax incentives could be devised for spreading available work more thinly. In principle such changes might have a certain effect. But if capitalists were to come under strong pressure from a reformist government in one country to shorten hours, they would surely move their assets elsewhere, as they already do to escape unwelcome regulation of other kinds.

Historical evidence does point to a clear relationship between working time and the willingness of workers and their organisations to fight for its reduction. Reduced hours have never flowed automatically from increased productivity. They have been won though long and intense struggle. And in today's world the struggle has to be waged on a global scale – not for the "right to work" but for the right to live, which includes the right to leisure. Or, to borrow the title of a classic pamphlet by Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue, the right to be lazy.