Newsletter No. 27
APRIL / MAY 2005
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Corporate slavery and overwork The labour market excludes many from work (‘Keen to work, a million lost in the system’ Sydney Morning Herald 12.3.05) but also drives the employed to over-work: the stressed out ‘salaryman’, the woman juggling career & family. Increasing stress in the workplace is largely blamed on ‘technology’: that it creates ‘hypertaskers’ on whom it forces ‘change in unnatural ways’, to produce ‘weird technology diseases’ like sleep deprivation, stress related illness, early senility & attention deficit disorder (‘Over-loaded hypertaskers..’ The Australian 1.3.05). But it is not just technology — the workplace and its culture is the frontline of an economic system driven to maximize ‘productivity’ that is, output from each unit of paid labour, to increase profit and returns to shareholders. Supervisors can increasingly use technology to ‘micro-manage’ workers who are ‘basically attached to electronic umbilical cords (so) control over them is getting to the level of bullying’ (‘Remember who’s the boss’ Sydney Morning Herald 19.2.05). ‘Empowerment’ and ‘autonomy’ is old hat. It may make workers happier, but it’s cheaper if they just follow orders. Managers are reasserting control of procedures ‘because that’s where productivity occurs’ (SMH 19.2.05). A law firm manager recently stated his staff had no right to any free time & were expected to treat clients “as if they were God." This is a typical attitude, ‘repeated across professions such as investment banking and accounting, where work-life balance is threatened in pursuit of a firm’s bottom line’ (‘Perils of young guns dying to be lawyers’ Australian Financial Review 1.4.05) People are averaging 6-7 hours sleep a night to fit in work and other demands, accruing huge sleep debts, so by 35-40 years old they ‘suffer ‘irritability, emotional volatility, depression and a compromised immune system that could predispose them to a number of different cancers’ (‘The Big Sleep’ Australian Financial Review 28.1.05, quoting Dr Peter Birrell, UNSW). ‘Hurried woman syndrome’ is increasingly common as women try to manage busy work and home life schedules, risking poor physical & mental health and ‘high stress and anxiety levels, mild depression, physical exhaustion, digestive disorders and low self esteem’ (‘Physios warn “hurried women" to slow down’ 8.3.05). In Australia at least, government resists paid maternity leave, or affordable childcare, yet ‘worries’ about a declining birthrate as women juggle work and gender roles (‘In work, out of love: finding Ms Typical’ Sydney Mydney Herald 8.3.05). A recent report, Overwork in America, claims new technology, multi-tasking and globalization, together, “may be undermining workers’ physical and emotional well-being". Forty per cent of intensively overworked employees are angry at their employers for expecting so much of them, compared with 1 per cent of those with low levels of overwork. USA’s ‘hire and fire’ economy is pivotal in driving overwork (and hatred) — those who have experienced down sizing and job insecurity are most likely to be highly overworked. In a ‘free’ labour market workers get trapped in jobs with ‘doubled-up workloads, miniscule raises and ungrateful bosses’ until the economy grows sufficiently to create over-demand for various skills. This ‘gives overworked and unappreciated employees a way out’ by seeking a better employer (‘Stressed workers get set to jump ship’ Australian Financial Review 17.11.03). Most of the world’s future jobs will be in the tertiary (services) sector. Workers in these sectors need to organize, so they can start to bargain collectively and ameliorate work hours & conditions throughout the economic cycle. Unions are now reaching out to those workers who would not normally consider, or come in contact with unions (see IT Workers Alliance site). |