WORK LESS Institute of Technology

WORK LESS PARTY USA

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Many more SinceSlicedBread entries dealing with shorter working time:

CAMPAIGN PICTURE

Sandwichman strolling in Point Grey. Photo by Michael Rose.

BRING BACK COMMON SENSE: SHARE THE WORK

Below is the Sandwichman's entry in the SEIU's "Since Sliced Bread" Contest:

Bring back the authentic workers’ ethic: “share and share alike.” Samuel Gompers declared, “So long as there is one man who seeks employment and cannot obtain it, the hours of work are too long.” Less well known is the endorsement of an industrial commission of the US Congress: “Lessening of hours leaves more opportunity and more vigor for the betterment of character, the improvement of the home and for studying the problems of citizenship.… A reduction of hours is the most substantial and permanent gain which labor can secure.”

The common sense workers’ ethic of sharing the work is quite distinct from the make-believe self-made man’s competitive, individualistic drive for success. Spellbound by that latter creed, many economists have disparaged the workers’ own ethic as a “lump-of-labor fallacy” and claimed, falsely, that sharing the work amounts to sharing the poverty. Baloney. Reducing the hours of work increases productivity and raises wages. In common sense terms, “whether you work by the piece or work by the day, reducing the hours increases the pay.”

John Maynard Keynes:

"It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society. To judge from the behaviour and the achievements of the wealthy classes to-day in any quarter of the world, the outlook is very depressing! For these are, so to speak, our advance guard -- those who are spying out the promised land for the rest of us and pitching their camp there. For they have most of them failed disastrously, so it seems to me -- those who have an independent income but no associations or duties or ties -- to solve the problem which has been set them.

"I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite differently from the way in which the rich use it to-day, and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs.

"For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter -- to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!"

From testimony by Andrew Sharpe, CSLS Executive Director given to the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce hearings on productivity, May 11, 2005, Ottawa, Ontario Six Policies to Improve Productivity Growth in Canada:

Finally, the sixth policy I would like to put forward to improve productivity is the reduction of working time. The United States is the leading country in the world in terms of technologies. But it does not enjoy the highest level of productivity defined on an output per hour basis. A number of European countries, including France, have higher levels of labour productivity. Why is this the case in France? There are two reasons. First, France has adopted a number of policies (e.g. high minimum wages) that keep less productive persons out of employment, raising productivity levels through a composition effect. Second, the French work many fewer hours per year than North Americans. While this has a negative effect on output per worker, it has a positive effect on output per hour worked, the true measure of productivity A person who works 35 hours a week rather than 40 tends to be more productive on an hourly basis. The worker will be less tired, and more focused as the more limited time available for work will be used more effectively. For example, less time will be wasted on meetings. One of the effects of the 35 hour work week legislation in France (which has recently been modified) has been to increase productivity, even though the purpose of the initiative was to increase employment.

I am not advocating the heavy-handed bureaucratic French approach to working time reduction. However, actions that reduce working time through longer vacations and more public holidays, whether initiated by government or through collective or individual workplace bargaining, can have two positive effects. First, such policies contribute to economic well-being by increasing leisure. Second, while there is some output and income loss, this is offset somewhat by workers becoming more productive on an hourly basis, the true measure of productivity.