January 18, 2000
Kamloops Daily News

Canadians are working harder and enjoying life less.
Slavish devotion to consumerism has put many on a treadmill
while millions are unemployed or underemployed.

While some of Canada's working poor must work long hours
just to make ends meet, others are working long and hard to
buy things they don't really need.  Advertising has sold us
on the idea that we need to purchase and consume goods to
fulfill our lives.  Canadians work long hours to buy the
stuff of the good life, often at the price of their own
health.  Ironically, the price of the good life is the
collapse of personal relationships, unhappiness, shortened
lives due to stress, and lack of time to do the things they
want.

Anders Hayden has come up with the modest solution to this
problem in his book, Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet.
He suggests a reduction in work time so that jobs may be
created.  Employees would take a cut in hours instead of an
increase in pay, or, they would voluntarily take unpaid days
off.

Its not a novel solution.  In the 1930s the Kellogg Factory
in Battle Creek, Michigan (the people who make breakfast
cereal)  implemented work time reduction.  The result of
reduction in the work day to 6 hours was that more people
were employed.  This was an innovation at a time when the 60
hour work-week was not unusual.

The shorter work week was not only a response to the
depression, but an alternative vision of progress.  Less
time on the job meant time for reading, gardening, amateur
sports, canning, going to parks, thinking, making love,
talking to neighbours, taking care of children and the
elderly, and getting involved  in political and community
life.  Shorter work days allowed employees time to keep up
with skills such as music, art, writing and history. 
Leisure was an active pursuit.

But workers became restless. A shift in attitude took place
after World War Two with growing consumerism.  One worker
said that he "learned that 6 hours was not enough".  They
learned that the simple life is not fulfilling and that
longer work hours brought the things that advertising said
they needed.  What were once luxuries became necessities. 

Many employees would like to work less but its not easy.  A
reduction in work time often results in a loss of benefits. 
Its not easy for Employers, either.   Payroll costs are
fixed for each employee and an increase in the number of
employees to do the same amount of work means increased
costs.  That's why employers prefer to lay workers off and
pay overtime to remaining employees.  And many employees are
happy to oblige.

Governments have tried to implement work reduction programs
by  reducing payroll costs.  In 1996, the NDP Government of
British Columbia introduced measures to promote shorter work
hours in the forestry sector.  The government  provided up
to $3,500 annually to offset employee costs with the goal of
creating 3,000 jobs.    

Unions have bargained for shorter hours.  During the strike
at the Fletcher Challenge Canada mill in 1997, the union
wanted to use banked overtime as time off.  According to
union researcher Julie White, the employer wanted to promote
overtime with the attendant job loss.

Unions have their problems as well.  Many union workers
prefer to work overtime, even if it means that others don't
work.  The NDP Government of Ontario met fierce union
resistance when they tried to introduce unpaid days off
(called Rae Days) for public employees with incomes over
$30,000.  In retrospect, some employees who were forced to
take days off came to enjoy them.  With the current Ontario
government attempting to increase the length of work week,
many are now reflecting back on the "good old days".

Conspicuous consumption has become part of our culture. 
Workaholism is now a respectable addiction.  You can binge
on work all you want and actually feel virtuous. When Oscar
Wilde said  "work is the refuge of people who have nothing
better to do", he was reflecting on an era long past.  Now,
productive leisure time is a luxury of the idle rich, or, a
necessity of the destitute poor, but beyond the grasp of
most.

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