Recently, the British labor federation, the TUC, announced that February 23 would be Work Your Proper Hours Day. It is “the day when the average person who does unpaid overtime finishes the unpaid days they do every year, and starts earning for themselves.”
The TUC discovered that despite wage and hour laws, despite union contracts, and despite pressing personal needs, vast numbers of workers were simply giving away vast amounts of unpaid time. Said the TUC, “Over five million people at work in the U.K. regularly do unpaid overtime, giving their employers £23 billion ($45 billion) of free work every year.”
Since the United States has about five times the population of the U.K., it’s reasonable to assume that Americans are donating $225 billion a year in unpaid work to people who already earn far more than they do. Actually, it’s probably more than $225 billion, since Americans work even more than the British do. Although it’s probably true that most jobs today are not as physically debilitating as many in the past, there has been no increase in the number of hours in the day. Every extra hour worked is one deducted from something else.
It’s hard to believe, but at one time people gave their lives for the eight-hour day. Although there had been scattered and sometimes successfully actions to reduce working hours, the movement didn’t get started in the U.S. until 1886. Then, Albert Parsons, recording secretary of the Chicago Eight-Hour League, led America’s first May Day parade of 80,000 workers down Michigan Avenue, which in turn led to a strike involving some 350,000 workers nationwide. Two days later, police opened fire on strikers at the McCormack factory, killing four and injuring dozens.
Beginning in 1898, with the United Mine Workers, workers won eight-hour day contracts. But laws and practices were extremely uneven until 1938 when the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted by Congress and signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. Although the FLSA is still in effect, fewer and fewer work an eight-hour day.
How did that happen?
For one thing, salaried, as opposed to hourly, positions were never subject to the same degree of enforcement. Bosses were expected to work longer when the occasion arose, and as time went on, it veered from occasional to permanent. And then, more and more people find themselves as managers, a move encouraged by owners. Today, more people considered themselves to be managers than consider themselves to be skilled workers.
Not many of them are managers, though. They range from supervisors to clerks and few of them have the power to hire and fire, to set policy or even to talk back to real managers. And within the last six months, the courts have ruled that anyone who ever tells another worker what to do is a supervisor and therefore ineligible for union membership.
Over the past decades, though, long hours have become a path to advancement, and a matter of pride. It’s as if the college all-nighter was the standard to which junior lawyers, bankers and various would-be tycoons would aspire. Of course, the higher up the ladder they climbed, the more responsibility claimed their remaining hours. Working more increases our belief that we’re important—maybe even irreplaceable.
It turns out, though, that many people didn’t mind the 14-hour day. They didn’t have any home life or diversions other than business meals and maybe a gym workout. So, why not stay at work?
Even hourly workers have a great fondness for overtime. It’s been observed that European workers have bargained for longer vacations and solid weekends, and Americans wanted more money—in the form of time-and-a-half. This has enabled employers to keep wages stagnant and just give workers the opportunity to work for more of them.
There are plenty of reasons why people should go home after a day’s work, but many people are prohibited from leaving, either through forced overtime or because workers want to demonstrate their commitment to the job. At the moment, though, a campaign—like the British one above—would sound to many Americans like a campaign urging people to eat their vegetables and wash their hands after using the toilet. Sure, it’s a good idea, and I’ll get around to it soon. But as far as work hours, more money seems like a better idea than health and hygiene.
Certainly, there are people who want more time—for families, relationships, hobbies, traveling—but don’t dare ask for it because it’s not part of the culture any more. And that goes for the non-profit world as well—maybe even especially in the non-profit world. It's the syndrome I noted in the labor movement years ago: people working 16 hours a day for the eight-hour day.
So, the warning holds for all of us. Or, as the Brits wrote, if you're one of the people working too many hours, “why not take some time to reflect on how well (or badly) you're balancing your life?”
--Alec Dubro |
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 4:58 PM
