WORK LESS Institute of Technology

PSYCHOPHYSICS IN CYBERIA UPDATE

Evan Robinson takes on the wastefulness of overwork in the gaming industry in Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work: 6 Lessons. It's part of the response generated by the ea_spouse essay.

HEALTH AND WORK-LIFE CONFLICT

From the Public Health Agency of Canada: Exploring the Link Between Work-Life Conflict and Demands on Canada's Health Care System

Excerpt:

"Many of the health care challenges that face Canada have workplace connections (CCIH, 2002). Recent research indicates that unhealthy work environments and heavy workloads are associated with a myriad of health problems (Duxbury and Higgins, 2001, 2003; CCIH, 2002; Higgins and Duxbury, 2002). CCIH (2002, p. 22) notes that:

"'Paradoxically, the workplace has become an environment that both contributes to employee ill health while simultaneously offering the most potential for improving overall employee health and well-being.

"CCIH (2002), in its review of academic research on workplace health, found that in the 21st century definitions of health have broadened to include psychosocial well-being as well as physical health. As such, workplace health is critical to "good" health (CCIH, 2002). Research in this area indicates, however, that initiatives to improve workplace health which focus purely on health promotion are not sufficient to improve a multifaceted definition of health (CCIH, 2002). This contention has been supported by some recent ground-breaking studies which have focused on the link between work environment and employee well-being (Lowe, 2000; Shain, 2000; Duxbury and Higgins, 2001, 2003; Lowe and Schellenberg, 2001; Higgins and Duxbury, 2002)."

Duxbury and Higgins estimated that work/life conflict cost $14 billion in health care costs in 2000. Or about 14.5% of the total of $96.7 billion in health care spending in Canada. Assuming that BC costs are similar to those of Canada as a whole, work life conflict would cost the BC goverment $1.7 billion this year or about 5.6% of the entire BC budget. It should be noted that Duxbury and Higgins' estimate doesn't appear to include the health care costs associated with stress from unemployment, which undoubtedly would be proportionately higher.

MASQUERADE PARTY

THRONE SPEECH AN ALL-DEAFENING BLAST OF PUFFERY

Quoting myself:

Who could be against education, healthy living, support for those in need, a cleaner environment and more jobs? On closer examination, though, each of of the Liberal government's "five great goals" refers to relative performance rather than to an absolute standard. The “best educated”... “lead the way”... “the best system”... “lead the world”... “more… than anywhere else”...

The five great goals in the throne speech are not about making better hats, they're about promenading a seven-foot high model of a hat through the streets.

See the Work Less Party's reply to the Speech from the Throne.

WHOOPS!

I put an entry up last Wednesday evening for people to post their suggestions and follow up regarding next week's WLIT session. But in the interim the site has moved to a new server and I guess the entry was lost. So here is another.

Some of the things we should find materials on are "dying with dignity," tax shifting, carbon taxes and possibly other issues that were raised that I can't remember right now. Also I posted links to some stuff I wrote about 8 years ago dealing with payroll taxes and employer paid benefits. Below are the links again (NB: I didn't write the headlines for the op-eds):

"The jobless rate will stay high until government eases payroll taxes," Op-ed published in the Vancouver Sun October 25, 1996

"Labour costs should depend on hours worked instead of the number of workers employed," Op-ed published in Business in Vancouver, February 25, 1997

"Hours of Work: Moving Beyond Gridlock," paper presented at the Labour Research Forum in 1997