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We Don't Need This Culture of Overwork
This year, we all need to become more like Utah,
under its Republican governor – and then go further. No, dear reader,
don't panic – I have not converted to Mormonism, nor have I tossed out
my sanity with my old Santa hat and Christmas decorations. The people
of one of the most conservative states in the US have stumbled across a
simple policy that slashes greenhouse gas emissions by 13 percent,
saves huge sums of money, improves public services, cuts traffic
congestion, and makes 82 per cent of workers happier. It can do the
same for us – and point to an even better future beyond it – without
the need for the Arch-Angel Moron (yes, Mormons really do believe in
him) to offer his blessing.
It all began two years ago, when the state was facing a budget crisis. One night, the new Republican Governor Jon Huntsman was staring at the red ink and rough sums when he had an idea. Keeping the state's buildings lit and heated and manned cost a fortune. Could it be cut without cutting the service given to the public? Then it hit him. What if, instead of working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, the state's employees only came in four days a week, but now from 8 to 6? The state would be getting the same forty hours a week out of its staff – but the costs of maintaining their offices would plummet. The employees would get a three-day weekend, and cut a whole day's worth of tiring, polluting commuting out of their week.
He took the step of requiring it by law for 80 per cent of the state's employees. (Obviously, some places - like the emergency services or prisons – had to be exempted.) At first, there was cautious support among the workforce but as the experiment has rolled on, it has gathered remarkable acclaim. Today, two years on, 82 per cent of employees applaud the new hours, and hardly anyone wants to go back. Professor Lori Wadsworth carried out a detailed study of workers' responses, and she says: "People love it."
A whole series of unexpected benefits started to emerge. The number of sick days claimed by workers fell by 9 per cent. Air pollution fell, since people were spending 20 per cent less time in their cars. Some 17,000 tonnes of warming gases were kept out of the atmosphere. They have a new slogan in Utah – Thank God It's Thursday.
But wouldn't people be irritated that they couldn't contact their state authorities on a Friday? Did the standard of service fall? It was a real worry when the programme started. But before, people had to take time off work to contact the authorities, since they were only open during work hours. Now they were open for an hour before work and an hour after it. It actually became easier to see them Monday to Thursday: waiting times for state services have fallen.
Think of it as the anti-Dolly Parton manifesto, puncturing her famous song: "Workin' 9 to 5/ What a way to make a livin'/ Barely gettin' by/ Its enough to drive you/ Crazy if you let it..." A queue of US cities and corporations like General Motors are following suit, and Britain's councils and companies should be sweeping in behind them. It's a win-win-win – good for employees, good for employers and good for the environment.
And once we started on this course, it could spur us to think in more radical ways about work. If this tiny little tinker with work routines leads to a big burst of human happiness and environmental sanity, what could bigger changes achieve?
Work is the activity that we spend most of our waking lives engaged in - yet it is too often trapped in an outdated routine. Today, very few of us work in factories, yet we have clung to the habits of the factory with almost religious devotion. Clock in, sit at your terminal, be seen to work, clock out. Is this the best way to make us as productive and creative and happy as we can be? Should we clamber into a steel box every morning to sit in a concrete box all day?
Some of the best artworks of recent years – Joshua Ferris' novel And Then We Came To The End, Ricky Gervais' TV series The Office, Mike Judge's film Office Space – have distilled the strange anomie of living like this, constantly monitored, constantly sedentary, constantly staring at a screen. When I started working from home, I suddenly found my productivity shot up: when I stopped being seen to work just by sitting at a desk, I actually knuckled down faster and with fewer distractions to work properly. In a wired lap-topped world, far more people could work more effectively from home, in hours of their own choosing, if only their bosses would have confidence in them. They would be better workers, better parents and better people – and we would take a huge number of cars off the road.
But the problem runs deeper than this. Britain now has the longest work hours in the developed world after the US – and in a recession, those of us with jobs scamper ever faster in our hamster-wheels. Yes, we now make the Japanese look chilled. This is not how 2010 was meant to turn out. If you look at the economists and thinkers of, say, the 1930s, they assumed that once we had achieved abundance – once humans had all the food and clothes and heat and toys we could use – we would relax and work less. They thought that by now work would barely cover three days as we headed en masse for the beach and the concert-hall.
Instead, the treadmill is whirling ever-faster. This isn't our choice: virtually every study of this issue finds that huge majorities of people say they want to work less and spend more time with their friends, their families and their thoughts. We know it's bad for us. Professor Cary Cooper, who has studied to effects of overwork on the human body, says: "If you work consistently long hours, more than 45 a week, every week, it will damage your health, physically and psychologically." You become 37 per cent more likely to suffer a stroke or heart-attack if you work 60 hours a week – yet one in six of all Brits are doing just that.
We don't stop primarily because we are locked in an arms race with out colleagues. If we relax and become more human, we fall behind the person in the next booth down, who is chasing faster. Work can be one of the richest and most rewarding experiences, but not like this. In a recession, this insecurity only swells. Under Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the 1990s, the French discovered the most elegant way out of this, taking the Utah experiment deeper and further. They insisted that everyone work a maximum of 35 paid hours a week. It was a way of saying: in a rich country, life is about more than serving corporations and slogging. Wealth generation and consumerism should be our slaves, not our masters: where they make us happy, we should embrace them; where they make us miserable, we should cast them aside. Enjoy yourself. True wealth lies not only in having enough, but in having the time to enjoy everything and everyone around you.
It was the equivalent to an arms treaty: we all stop, together, now, at the 35 hour mark. The French population became fitter, their relationships were less likely to break down, their children became considerably happier, and voluntary organisations came back to life. According to the national statistics agency Insee, the policy created 350,000 jobs, because so many people moved to job-shares to ensure their post was filled five days a week. But under pressure from corporations enraged that their staff couldn't be made to slog all the time, Nicholas Sarkozy has abolished this extraordinary national experiment. The French people were dismayed: the polls show a majority still support the cap.
From the unlikely pairing of Salt Lake City and Paris, a voice is calling. It is telling us that if we leave our offices empty a little more, we can find a happier, healthier alternative lying in the great free spaces beyond.
- Posted in
74 Comments so far
Show AllWork the way the capitalist system works could be defined as voluntary slavery. Hell, you don't even have to own them or feed them. Just convince them they need stuff they really don't need and wallah people, scrambling to get into the rat race. Immediate gratification. Control the banks and you will have them begging for a loan which of course they will have to work harder to pay back the loan. Call it free market. Perfect.
Gov. Huntsman's idea solution is wonderful!
If other governors, mayors, etc. would implement plans like these, there would be an enormous savings in energy usage, stress levels, etc.
"It is telling us that if we leave our offices empty a little more, we can find a happier, healthier alternative lying in the great free spaces beyond."
Yep ...
As per his suggestion is correct .Each and every time will think for work your mind will get upset
Alta Utah Vacation
http://www.Aitaski.net
There is strong indication that an overworked people -- and, by extension, one kept at the edge of financial trouble -- is so tired at the end of the day that it has no time or enough freedom to foment the kind of revolution that would change the rotten system that enslaves them.
Every understanding of human nature, whether spiritual, psychological or philosophic has as a centerpiece the need for solitude -- time to be alone to reflect. It's something basic being denied an overworked society.
- Instead, the treadmill is whirling ever-faster. -
Future Shock (Toffler 1970) is a must read. I insist.
Cheap easy credit is the electronic bullwhip..What those slick ads for Visa and MasterCard promise is more freedom (Read: ability to consume a bunch of stuff you dont really need.)The reality is a new serf class, bound to our ever-increasing debt.
A shorter work week is the best way to put people to work. That and allowing people to enroll in Medicare at age 55 (allowing people that need to retire because of physical problems to retire early). Of course, a single-payer healthcare system (with government subsidies for the near-poor) would enable part-timers to secure full-time health benefits and that would increase employment also.
BTW, isn't the archangel known as Moroni, and not Moron? Or are we displaying a bit of humor at the expense of Mormons?
We should go even further than this. Why is everything open 24/7? If we reduced the work week, there would be little need for stores to be open all hours of the day and night and Sunday.
There would be far fewer people working odd shifts and living like the mole people trying to sleep during the day.
Our whole working philosophy today is based on an irrational need to work ALL THE TIME; and, if not working, shopping.
Studies are finding that people worked far fewer actual hours before the 20th Century. They may have worked a lot bringing in harvests and planting, but found quiet time in between. The Industrial revolution has set up this mind-set that people must trudge to jobs 6-7 days a week.
Americans are getting fatter because they work at dead-end boring jobs and then come home and collapse on the sofa, too tired to get out of the house, too tired for relationships. There is no good reason to live like this, except it serves our corporate masters and leaves us too exhausted to understand how badly we are being manipulated.
I find it interesting that nearly 30 years ago Buckminster Fuller proposed something like this as part of his "critical path" solution we humans need to follow in order to avoid oblivion.
He went further of course. He noted that the typical working class 'career' can be reduced to about 14 1/2 years of concentrated, productive work - if this were adopted, we could all retire in our late 30s (including 7 years of FREE higher education).
This would create (besides a more well-informed public) more job openings through quicker turnover, less traffic on the roads, and a hell of a lot more leisure time to devote to the idea of 'livingry' --- nurturing your children, tending your garden, organizing in your community/world, or just 'time to think.'
"They (future humans) will be free to initiate their own mind-informed commitments to the improvement of human functioning in support of the eternally regenerative integrity of Universe." - Fuller
More time to keep the wives happy too.
As long as you support birth control!
Having more American children is the single most greenhouse gas intensive thing you can ever do!
In Europe (except the UK) stores are closed on Sundays and holidays, and in many countries only open half day on Saturdays. The average PAID vacation in the EU is 5 weeks, while the minimum is 4 weeks (guaranteed by law, even in the UK).
In the USA, you are lucky to have 2 weeks, and even that is not required by law. We are the only country in the 'developed' world not to have minimum vacation time and paid sick leave. We in the US, have the worst worker protections and job security in the developed world.
The US has the highest rate of mental illness and consumption of psychotropic drugs in the world. We also live in the most violent society in the 'developed' world.
However the status quo is good for business: people who are lucky enough to have a job, don't have time to think about other matters. They take lots of prescription drugs, they have high stress and fear levels, and are more likely to do as they are told. It is a win-win situation for the Corporate Mafia
YOu know, the world needs so much more of this!
Climate change is NOT a partisan issue! How can we beat this through people's heads!
It would be like trying to decide whether the theory of Gravity is "liberal" or "conservative". The terms are inappropriate and just do not apply.
This is a natural phenomenon that our scientists are telling us is real, exists, is getting worse, and that we are causing it.
I can assure everyone that Nature is neither 'conservative' nor 'liberal' and will actually do precisely what she does obeying physical laws in a perfectly non-partisan manner.
BOTH 'conservative' and 'liberal' scientists are working on climate change and saying the same things.
And guess what, solutions to the problem can come from ANYONE, even 'liberals' or 'conservatives'.
The reason I still get pissed at the right-wing-nuts though is because they form the 'denier' camp...as far as I can tell it is mainly because they hate Al Gore and because a well-funded oil and gas industry has hired the same PR firms as big tobacco hired when they too needed to deny clear scientific evidence.
It took 30 years to shift the tobacco industry and lessen their power and we STILL aren't done.
Of course, smoking primarily harms only the person who smokes and those unlucky enough to be their children.
I'm not sure we have 30 years to combat the oil industry's PR with the truth. And the effects are going to be way more wide-ranging....involving ALL the world's children.
Oh my - more naivete from a scientist. Let this hard-nosed engineer explain it:
What we call the "right" or "conservatism" is a group of philosophies that argue for the primacy of individual and responsibility to no one except self, and the manipulation of others toward selfish ends. What is best for the long-term survival of humanity as a whole is of no concern to them. This is not an exaggeration; just read their manifestos like "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged".
What we call the "left" is a philosophy that argue that working for the harmonious continuation of humanity IS the our primary task on earth, and this will be achieved through the values of community and solidarity, as embodied in Christ's sermon on the Mount, or Eugene Deb's famous speech upon his sentencing to prison.
Which philosophy is compatible with working for environmental protection, and which philosophy isn't?
"This is not an exaggeration; just read their manifestos like 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'.
Or the Satanic Bible.
Great summation btw.
I'd love to work at home too, doing something I love.
I am not naive at all.
Merely point out that nature will do what she does. Regardless of the political stripe of the scientist or the politician.
That's the truth I think. Which is not naive.
Your summary of the extremes is fine, but why the obsession with extremes? Why must every solution require a hammer with either a fully right-bending claw or a fully left-bending claw?
The evidence which destroys your position is, of course, Communist China. It is one of the most polluted states, and the old East bloc too suffered from this. Back off from the extreme and you find that the marriage of total individualism and a socialist network as exists in Western Europe actually creates a better society. But it's a messy marriage that doesn't lend itself well to sound-bites and linear engineering analysis.
Here in the US, Western Europe would be regarded as extreme leftist. And the right-extreme I painted is a completely mainstream - not at all hyperbole.
"Communist" China is not leftist, it is an odd, state-directed capitalism but without any effective state regulation.
However, to it's credit, (and to your topic) China is leading in the development of low carbon energy production.
Great idea for dual-income-no-kids or mommy-stays-at-home families. For many of us, an extra day off does not offset less and less time during the work days. Typical American hypocrisy, spend less and less time at home during the week yet be sure to raise decent kids and if you don't it's our "failing school's" fault!
Unhealthy? Instead of getting one hour of exercise per day, just get 7 hours in one day. Same thing, right?
How about just dropping the work week to 4 days at 32 hours? If you think this sounds absurd, read "Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure", by Judith Schor. The book also has relevant insights about how corporate supplied health insurance keeps us chained to our desks.
Wake up Wage Slaves.
There's a disconnect here.
These people are those rare group who actually have a 40 hour a week job. State employees in particular.
They got paid the same.
They worked 40 hours.
The fact that the USA's employment laws are so broken that most people have to work 70 hour weeks...and therefore cannot physically plough a 70 hour week into 4 days...does not detract from this idea.
And your "4 days at 32 hours"??? Did you even read the article?
Considering how much of what we produce is destructive or, at best, unnecessary I'm inclined to favor a 20-hour work week.
Just think how nice it would be if the politicians didn't feel obliged to "preserve jobs" making weapons or automobiles. What if the people who are employed making these destructive technologies -- people who are talented enough to produce high-precision machinery -- could be retrained to do the work that the rest of us do? It's not at all unreasonable to expect that we could all work half as much as we do now.
Drosera is correct about the angel Moroni, a central figure of Mormonism whether RLDS or Utah.
From the article:
"It can do the same for us – and point to an even better future beyond it – without the need for the Arch-Angel Moron (yes, Mormons really do believe in him) to offer his blessing."
A really cheap and ignorant shot, and utterly unnecessary to the storyline.
Meanwhile, never forget: "Arbeit Macht Frei"!
-30-
Before getting too upset with the writer you need to get upset with the editor.
Any spell checker would take 'Moroni' and the suggest 'moron' as a substitute. The editor would probably have let that change pass without even contacting the writer of the article...reporters are notorious for their spelling and grammar errors.
ONe classic case was a headline back in the 90's in one paper where the editor, being a young girl of limited knowledge of history let the following head-line pass:
"Commemoration of the flight of the Enola Homosexual"
because the software determined that, at the time, 'Gay' was not the correct editorial term for a gay person....and the poor editor had no idea what the "Enola Gay" was!
I can't let this pass without adding: "World’s fastest man: Tyson Homosexual".
Stories about sprinter Tyson Gay published on a fundamentalist Christian web site contained headlines like "Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials".
http://thenewgay.net/2008/07/homosexual-eases-into-100-final-at.html
· Yr Obd't Servant
LOL! That was great!
I wonder if they knew about the Enola Homosexual too...what do you think?
Two of my girl friend's children are professional dancers in Salt Lake City - one with Ballet West and the other with RDT. Both companies receive subsidies from the state government. Despite the utterly bizarre and reactionary nature of Mormonism, the public schools in SLC are quite good and the arts are generally supported. The SLC public library is one of the best I've been in. The first time I went to SLC I expected a rather unpleasant experience because I'd heard Utah described many times as the Mississippi of the west. But it turned out to be a really nice place whose atmosphere is more like Hawaii than Jackson, Mississippi. So the four day work week for Utah's state workers comes as no surprise. Oh, yes, it's now easier to get a drink in Utah than it used to be. Just avoid Provo.
Oh my GAWD!!!!
Ain't all that .... SOCIALISM!!!!
It's what I say all the time. What the US right-wing nuts claim is 'socialist' is actually a great way for the average person to lead a much higher quality of life.
Why so many Americans are blind to this is beyond me.
This would seem to lend credence to those who point out that the more ethnically homogeneous a population is the more they support spending for the common good.
I got the same impression about Salt-Lake City when I was there on a work assignment at the nearby Kenecott Copper Pit last year.
Salt Lake City has an excellent, well funded, expanding public transit system, with light rail lines in 3 directions, abundant bus routes, and cheap fares that put a lot of eastern cities to shame. They even announced a fare cut (due to lower fuel prices) when I was there. that would be unheard of where I live, where the politician from Punxatawney who hold the purse strings consider the very idea of public transit to be "socialism". My only complaint was that even the downtown areas were a bit too sprawling to be very walking-friendly - compared to Pittsburgh anyway.
And, while it was mostly the 3.2% stuff, at least you could get beer, unlike eastern Kentucky.
The copper mine was a unionized operation with even recycling and conservation measures in the office. This may not seem like much, but you don't dare ask about putting your pop can in their recycling bin at a West Virginia mine office!
Must be nice to work period. Do people that write this shit have any idea that a Depression is happening in this country?
If you are out of work right now my heart goes out to you.
I was in a major flood once and a great deal of our things were destroyed in it.
At the time, nothing upset me more than watching the bubble-headed bleach-blonde weather girl with a smile and a lilt in her voice describe the horrible situation that I was in. It grated to no end. And until this happens to you, you do not appreciate the pain behind the suffering that the carefully manicured talking head is calmly trivializing.
I completely accept the substance of what you say is true.
but are you arguing that the perfect is the enemy of the good?
Because this 'solution' is not a perfect one it should be discounted?
I rail all the time against conservatives who made the same arguments about health insurance where they pointed out that Britain's health system (where I live) isn't perfect and therefore it's not something America wants.
That this solution isn't perfect is beyond question.
But that's no reason to belittle the things that is DOES accomplish.
I just lament for a time when we could have a serious debate between conservatives and liberals where evidence formed the basis of discussion. Here is a Republican who has come up with a good (not perfect) solution to finances which also had significant impact on the people it effected in a positive way.
It's not necessarily a point of view I agree with, but it got good results!
Fifteen years ago, a led a series of large equipment tests in Southern France, for my American company. I worked 10hours a day for 10 days, then took one day off, then repeated the cycle. One day, my boss called at 2am, waking me from a deep sleep (it was 2pm for him, so why not). He learned that I was taking the next day off. He told me to stay within pager-range, in case something bad happened in the test. I told him I couldn't, as the pager went out of range when I went hiking in the hills, which had become my favorite thing to do in Southern France, on my day off. He insisted. So did I (I'd already designated someone to stay 'on-call' on my day off, but my boss didn't care). Long story short: I destroyed my career that night, by insisting on hiking out of pager range on my one day off. After I returned to America, and realized I was on the sh*t-list, never to be promoted, I eventually had to quit.
I wondered to myself why I'd been so stubborn that night. The epiphany I had was this: we don't just work for money, we work for time. Our evenings, our weekends, these are things we should OWN. We should be the boss of them. Hence, I could no more listen to my boss tell me what to do on my day off, then I could listen to him tell me what to do with my paycheck.
After that epiphany, I felt better. But, my career was still hosed.
One of the best things about Southern France, was to observe the effect of 'down time' on the families that lived there. They had time to reconnect, enjoy the music and sunshine, the food, and love life. That just isn't happening in America. We're all miserable over here.
ubrew12 and johocoma: Your posts are very interesting -- thanks for sharing your personal experiences!
For years, beginning in the middle 1970s, I worked in middle and upper-middle management jobs, and I'm sure you are aware of how many hours go into a management jobs. People simply burn out! I had another issue to deal with and that was the fact that I made anywhere from 25% to 40% less than a man did who worked in jobs at the same level. The information was leaked to me, but I had no way of actually proving that fact. In contracts, the rules expressly forbid talking about actual salaries, etc. And, when it came to bonuses, there always seemed to be a reason that I didn't receive one. "We'd like to, and you certainly work hard, but, this year, we just can't afford it." I seldom took vacation days -- "we need you here." Or, something to that effect. Whether the men who worked in positions at the same level as I received bonuses, I have no idea. At the same time, I don't fault the men who are working, but I do fault the corporate policies that allow businesses to pay women less than men. This is a systemic problem and has never really been effectively corrected.
One of my final experiences, working as a manager -- upper-middle -- was when Dwight Yoakam came to town. The 4-star hotel brought in garbanzo beans especially for him, after the concert. And, that night, I was staying at the hotel -- the "powers that be" gave me a room. One of the waiters stayed overtime, and we waited for Mr. Yoacham. Finally, he arrived, and then, finally, he ordered, including the garbanzo beans. At about 3 AM, the kitchen called my room because Mr. Yoacham was requesting MORE garbanzo beans. The hotel had no more to serve him. I refused to make a trip to the all-night grocery to buy garbanzos.
Years ago, I read Studs Terkel's book, Working, and it was a revelation to me. Countless people in this country do not like the work they do, the pay they receive for the work, nor do they like to work as many hours as they are required. The myth of the U.S. worker fell by the wayside for me.
A few years ago, I heard Elaine Brown speak -- the only female leader of the Black Panthers. She was convinced that the education system in the U.S. wasn't meant to educate children, but was put into practice to integrate children into the U.S. working system, so to speak. I found her ideas to be quite provocative, and I sat through the entire Q&A.
"It's the same idiocy as the award they give away at many high schools, for "perfect attendance". Is it always your fault if you get sick or hurt? Should you be rewarded for dragging yourself ill into school? Those are the twisted values instilled into us at an early age - loyalty to the institution, even to our own detriment, and always working harder and harder and hurting ourselves more and more." -- yohocoma
I, too, always felt that these policies were NOT healthy for anyone, students, teachers, etc. Worse, yet, single parents are usually in jeopardy of losing their jobs if they stay home with sick children. The rat-race never seems to stop.
Empathy and compassion, and even sympathy, are lacking in so many people who live in this country. The disconnect is so obvious to me. I can, however, actually feel the humanity dispensed from most people who take their own time to write responses on CD.
Actually, we don't need this culture of work. Period.
The vast majority of what we do, what the moneyed class considers to be so VERY important, falls mainly into three categories: 1) controlling what other people do, 2) extracting or manipulating resources from the Earth, and 3) providing services that the moneyed class wants.
All of this is a supreme waste of time, energy, and resources. People of course are aware of the meaninglessness of their work, hence the high levels of job dissatisfaction, mental problems, drug addiction (legal and otherwise), etc. Industrial psychologists have spent a lot of time and trouble on the "problem of happiness" or "How to make them enjoy their servitude." They have been wildly successful. Of course, the stunting of psychological maturity that is part and parcel of this society helps this cause immesely.
Despite all of our so-called "progress" and superior capabilties, it always strikes me as amazing that hunter-gatherers generally used to spend a few hours a day to meet all their needs. And these are the people that moderns call "primitive." I know one thing: they had a much much better grasp of the meaning and purpose of life than Western people can even contemplate.
Sioux Rose
WILDCARD: As per the stunting of maturity, I often marvel at the degree to which men act like little boys in their absolute adoration of sports, particularly playing with balls. To me this is the most vivid depiction of "The Great Stunting." When we moan in this forum about the lack of political activism and contrast that absence with the amount of passion directed at something as insignificant as who gets the ball in a football game, well, I'll tell you, it makes the Gods uneasy.
Most work consists of making more work, unnecessary change and mess.
If all worked only half of before, the huge entropy bill would be less.
Just having the machines out and running is an enormous cost.
If nearly everything shutdown for longer, no time would be lost.
Gains in efficiency would be more than double.
And slow our destruction of Gaia, to much reduce her trouble.
The rate of bleeding and losing all may be slowed directly.
Give the earth a chance to breath and recover correctly.
The pace of progress towards doom should slow down
The face of prophesied gloom might relax to a frown.
The only problem is to keep up our dimming sky haze,
that shields us from global warming from the full suns rays.
Rain will still fall, the sun will again still shine.
Crops will still grow, plants and animals will be fine.
And human beings might be able enjoy their stay for a longer time.
An excellent example of the wage-slave mentality, certified nurses' aides are often paid little more than minimum wage and have one of society's most important responsibilities. While we watch our highly paid celebrities punt and pose, CNAs are one group, of the many, that are invisible.
The long-term care industry is particularly awash in inhumane corporotist attitudes. Employees are allowed to take a sick leave day only after they have been out three days at their own expense. Of course, that also requires a doctor's visit/excuse with little chance of decent health insurance. And if the long hours & low pay are endured for a full year, one might be allowed a whole week off!!
I'm just reading a novel, by British author, where characters are starting owner-operated enterprises, taking time off from educational pursuits, working at part-time assignments. Sadly, I wonder if Europeans, with their healthcare-for-all systems, can possibly envision how fast Americans are caught in the spider's web. And many of us are too physically exhausted & mentally numbed to the reality that a corpo/govt monster is ever tightening the strands.
Work and leisure for most people in the US is so un-naturally verticalized - and therefore personally deadening-that it creates for millions of us a mind-body disunity; a daily experience of existential dis-ease, desperate enough in its instinctually unwanted wrongness to make us easily williing to accept pre-programmed escapism as substitute for genuine leisure.
Weekends and especially official holidays are so thoroughly soaked in media-hyped sports events and consumer shopping cues that, if we fail to participate in these pre-programmed activities, the sense of dis-ease only deepens and even the pseudo liberation of faux leisure is lost to a worse emptiness.
Genuine leisure, i.e., human free time that allows for both personal solitidue and, alernately, for naturally flowing, non-preprogrammed social interations between people, is, of course, a cardinal threat to a system like ours.
Too much unstructured leisure among the real wealth-generating classes would naturally begin to bring its members together in deeper human exchanges, unsupervened by the distractions of ballgames, shopping demands, and concocted wars; likely, thence, to begin a social re-building of human relations from the bottom-up, wherefrom the exploited and manipulated begin to identify their misbegotten rulers and rules, and figure out how to overthrow them.
Without some additional, consciousness-raising prods, though, more leisure, alone, will only mean more mass spectator sports, more holidays for shopping -- in Marcuse's words, more repressive desublimation.
In 1967 we were working 37.5hrs per week, getting paid for the lunch hour, and health care benefits, and 2 weeks vacation in the first year for money that used to be for 40 hours - AND they were talking about dropping the week to 35 hours AT the same money as part of a policy of Full Employment. In the year of our Lord; One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty Seven. What happened folks?
When you figure that one out in a meaningful way that doesn't include most of the familiar scapegoats you may get a handle on finding your way back. As long as we continue to insist on a society based on Exclusion, who "does" and who "doesn't" 'deserve' a decent life - until we make this a country where everyone gets an equal starting place at the table, where we reject war and the rights of conquest, and where we let our Oligarchy die, namely a society based on Inclusion - unless we are willing to do that, we are merely heading for more horrific Hell on Earth. Sorry for the bad news.
OR, we could roll back progressive taxation levels to where they were in 1967. Before the poorest 90% of American's lost 20% of their fraction of GDP (while the wealthiest 1% doubled theirs). Before 90% of Americans lost the equivalent of $38,000 a year in income (normalized for inflation, of course), requiring both spouses to work, regardless of children, requiring longer hours, requiring cutbacks in healthcare, etc.
Get rid of the 'oligarch' by defunding them. Many of the 'oligarch' (Bill Gates Sr, Warren Buffett) are themselves ARGUING FOR THIS. Those among them with a lick of ethics ALREADY KNOW they aren't being asked to participate in our society as they should, so the rest of us have to make up the difference. Those of them lacking in ethics 'invested' in Swiss bank accounts years ago, and no longer really live here.
T Boone Pickens wrote a book titled, 'The First Billion is the Hardest'. Not intending to, his title tells the truth: money is most easily made from money, not labor. Since this applies everywhere, throughout the last 35 years, it leads inexorably to the already wealthy owning the entire country. There's just NO WAY you can mount a successful democracy on such economic injustice, unless...
"T Boone Pickens wrote a book titled, 'The First Billion is the Hardest'. Not intending to, his title tells the truth: money is most easily made from money, not labor. Since this applies everywhere, throughout the last 35 years, it leads inexorably to the already wealthy owning the entire country. There's just NO WAY you can mount a successful democracy on such economic injustice, unless..." -- ubrew12
I completely agree with you on this theory! However, I'd like to hear what you have in mind beyond the "unless..."
Last night, I watched Bill Moyers who interviewed David Corn and Kevin Drum, and no matter who is doing the talking, I don't, and haven't had any faith, so to speak (not meant in a religious sense), in Barack Obama, and our elected officials, the oligarchy, who continue to hand over more and more of our money to the very wealthy -- the banksters and the insurance industries. Time after time, I return to Sheldon Wolin's book, Democracy, Inc., and the idea of "inverted totalitarianism." Within this structure, it matters NOT who leads us, that individual is interchangeable. The machine rolls on eating us alive, not even bothering to spit us back out. I keep thinking about how fascism arrives, and with each manifestation, it mutates.
Over the years, I have worked against the forces that have a knee jammed into our necks, and I no longer know what to do. Protests -- the tea-baggers receive plenty of attention for their protests, etc., but none of the left protests are even acknowledged, even when the protests were in the millions, prior to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March of 2003. I write letters, make phone calls, etc., and I almost never receive a reply from any of my elected officials -- and if I do receive a reply, the reply has absolutely nothing to do with my concerns.
Last night, Bill Moyers displayed a list of senators, and the amounts of money they have taken in from the banking industries -- at the top of the list were Democrats -- John Kerry ($19 million), Chuck Schumer ($15 million, one of my senators), etc. With the benefits that our elected officials receive, from "we the people" -- pensions, health insurance, salaries, etc. -- and the enormous amounts of money that they receive from lobbyists/corporations, how do "we the people" effect change? Our very own senators and representatives would have to vote to decrease their power. Are any of them, beyond a handful, capable of making that decision?
I would really appreciate any ideas you might have -- or, anyone else who might have serious ideas! This is a great site for connecting to like-minded people, but we are not face-to-face, having discussions and determining what action we might take as a group. Any ideas?
"...the tea-baggers receive plenty..."
that's because it's the corporations... in hidden organizational structures... that are funding them...
heard told on thom hartmann this week... ford is paying some teabaggers to protest the auto show... the intent being since ford didn't take bailouts... and the teabaggerss are opposed to bailouts... this would raise ford co. sales...
as for work week rules... i don't know the "legislative intent"... or if it's a workplace issue... but florida repealed ALL 4 day work weeks effective 1/1/2010... except for genuine FMLA and family related health caregiver issues... same as utah... florida allowed those employees that didn't have strict coverage requirements... to take 4 day workweeks (40HR)... now no more...
squidd: I do realize that Freedom Works, etc., are funding the "tea-baggers," but what I want to know is how do we, those of us who are progressives, organize and gain some traction toward effecting some change in government policies.
Very interesting information about Ford and also about Florida. Do you know how the repeal came about, or why? It's unclear to me from your post. I could be missing something, and might not be connecting the dots in the way that you meant for me to connect them.
sorry... obtuse is my middle name... :) i should work on a different writing style... but i LOVE samuel clemens... the misanthrope's misanthrope...
no i don't know why the state of florida rolled back the 4 day workweek... i may have had inaccurate info too... it may have just been the dept of ed....
i'll see what i can find...
"...how do we, those of us who are progressives, organize and gain some traction toward effecting some change in government policies...
one of ralph nader's new books... only the billionaires can save us...
and...
robert parry at consortiumnews.com has written extensively about the left's unwillingness to invest in a counter-media infrastructure to the right's think-tanks... foundations... radio networks... go there and search the archives... he penned a good insight a month or two back...
I actually have no ideas other than that progressive taxation (i.e. wealth redistribution) is the single issue that undergirds all others (and, I would submit, always has). Throughout history, money FINDS a way to influence politics. It doesn't matter whether the politics is being enacted via a monarchy, a communist high-command, or a democracy. MONEY FINDS A WAY. The advantage of a democracy, is that as long as the MONEY is also owned by the PEOPLE, policy is still, more or less, reflective of what the people actually want, i.e. they retain a voice (more or less).
This country was founded by gentlemen farmers, for gosh sakes. They were ALL well-to-do and those that weren't had heard of a handy concept for economic redemption called 'the frontier'. Everyone either HAD economic wealth to back their political position or could be FEARED to gain such wealth in a short while in an economy expanding rapidly over virgin lands. OK, slaves had no economic wealth, but they also had no political voice either: the lie of modern 'democracy' is that it offers us a political voice without the economic clout to back it (and, in a society where the wealthiest 1% of Americans owns more of the country than the poorest 90% of Americans, I mean NO ECONOMIC CLOUT EVEN EN MASS!). Everyone in America pretends this is of no consequence. The poor because they're embarrassed about being poor, and the rich because they don't want their 'ace in the hole' being discussed. IT MATTERS.
The French Revolution was about wealth distribution, even though the French were an aristocracy supported by incipient trade markets. The Russian Revolution was about wealth distribution, even though the Russian's were an aristocracy with many of the landed poor being essentially slaves. It's ALWAYS been about wealth distribution. Let the wealthy take wealth ownership where it naturally can go, and they will OWN YOUR *SS. It's an organic process requiring eternal vigilance to nip in the bud. Every issue we face today: the debt, healthcare, climate change, Afghanistan, WallStreet, unemployment, etc, hinges critically on this one issue. As long as idle wealth, in the hands of the few, can fund massive disinformation campaigns (like Faux News), and whip masses of 'Tea Partiers' like a loaded gun into demonstrations of total, almost suicidal stupidity against their own self-interest, no issue of any kind will yield to thoughtful, progressive progress. EVERY ISSUE has a corporation (and a few ridiculously wealthy dudes owning it) poised to reap massive profits off taking the LOW ROAD, while society in general tries to take the HIGH ROAD (which is longer and hence not immediately profitable).
All I can offer is this: by identifying this ONE ISSUE, I hope to narrow the scope of what Progressives, h*ll Americans, must stand behind to make progress in America. God knows, if you identify ONE OTHER ISSUE of importance to a proper America (like healthcare), you just DOUBLED the number of targets wealth-backed disinformation can use against you.
The battle is over: money won. If there is ANY political ability left in 'people-power' in America, it must be carefully husbanded, fertilized, watered, and directed EXACTLY where it needs to go (the forces of money-induced chaos and panic are THAT powerful at this point in history). I believe that issue is progressive taxation: increase taxes on the wealthy, on trade transactions, on wealth and high income. It's crude, embarrassing, unclean, and people will abandon the issue as soon as it is won cuz its not sexy. But, if you want to direct the people's limited power to change ONE THING that would be most effective for future generations: this is that one thing.
I seriously doubt Utahns are working less. They may have less paid hours but their productivity would have most likely gone up.
AND, that leaves them more time to do all that "volunteer" work mormons have to do, for free, for the lds.org. Which, if it was a listed company would be one of the biggest in the USA.
just call me cynical
Unfortunately, the US/UK culture of top/down class hierarchy is still alive and well. The author reinforces it by appealing to our unauthorized classist indoctrination, with this story about a Utah governor hatching this "brilliant" idea to change the workweek. I prefer to read about the millions of regular folks who have thought up this very same idea millions of times over. I want to read more about how brilliant the people are. I want some reinforcement of the truth I understand: That the people don't need the elites and their arbitrary destructivity. The author's point is well-taken, but the source of the good ideas can very well be the people, the victims of classist oppression.