Timesizing® Associates - Homepage

Timesizing News, September 1-15, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Sq, Cambridge MA 02238 USA 617-623-8080

9/07/2001  glimmers of timesizing -

  1. 35-hour week puts French hospitals at risk, by Jon Henley, 9/06/2001 [Manchester] Guardian via Timework's Tom Walker via Shorter Worktime e-list.
    [Henley is a reporter who really loves a good 60 or more working hours a week and hates the 35-hour workweek -]
    French hospitals risk collapse as the government tries to impose its flagship 35-hour working week law on already over-stretched doctors and nurses, health unions warned yesterday....
    [It would be interesting to know the unions' exact wording. If it bears any resemblance to this, we have another case of clueless organized labor with no inkling of where their power lever (control over their own supply) sets its fulcrum (worktime). And as news-sifter Tom Walker hints in his SWT e-list email, the same staffing problems are pandemic in US hospitals where there's no 35-hour workweek law to scapegoat.]
    The unions dismissed as wholly inadequate a promise by the social affairs minister, Elisabeth Guigou, to recruit 40,000 new nurses to plug the holes left by the shorter working week, and threatened strike action before the end of the year unless their concerns were addressed.
    [Hmm, you mean the unions don't want 40,000 new members?]
    ...Said Rachel Bocher, the psychiatrist president of a leading health workers' union, INPH, "Hospitals lack staff, funding and the capacity to reorganize."
    [Hey, same as here, except here interns and nurses have been pushed into working double 40-hour shifts instead of getting the kind of rest you get with a 35-hour workweek.]
    Threatened industrial action over the problems caused by the 35-hour week in the health service could well be mirrored by more widespread discontent throughout the public sector in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections due next spring..\..
    [Ah, "Peabrain" Henley again conceals the fact that these problems were already there before the 35-hour week was a glint in anyone's eye. But what about -]
    The hospitals are part of a health service that was last year rated by the World Health Organization as the best on the globe for quality of care....
    [Could be the "best of a bad lot" if the whole industry worldwide is sinking in a culture of self-martyring workoholism, like our US "health" system. People who go into health care often love the crisis mentality to prop up their illusion of indispensability (we should talk!) and the whole shtick about "I'm overworked, therefore I'm important!"]
    The Socialist-led government intended the 35-hour week primarily as...a means to create...jobs, and introduced it with considerable and unexpected success last February in companies of more than 20 people.
    [This is no Socialist private-preserve. US Republican president Herbert Hoover said in 1932 that shorter hours was the fastest way to create jobs. He himself cut the government workweek from 44-48 to 40 hrs/wk in the winter of 1932 to save 100,000s of jobs in the depths of the Depression. He just didn't realize how central the strategy was and how fast he had to move with it, and it alone, so he lost to popular but equally clueless FDR in the election. Then before that, there was the Republican Harding administration under which Hoover, as Sec. of Commerce, embarrassed Judge Gary and the other Big Steel magnates to cut their 72-hour workweek down to 48. And before that, there was the Republican Teddy Roosevelt administration under which arbitrators cut the mining industry's workday from 10 hours and more down to just nine hours a day. And before that, numerous Republican administrations cut and recut government employees' workweeks. And the whole Republican shorter-hours crusade started with Republican president Abraham Lincoln abolishing the unlimited workweek of slavery. And before that, there was that notorious Republican Conservative Capitalist, the Lord (YHWH) God of Moses, who shortened the workweek by ruling in the Fourth Commandment that "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh is the sabbath [rest period] of the Lord thy God - in it thou shalt not do any work...." Or maybe that was a nasty incentive-stifling act of a big Socialist?]
    The Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, now aims to apply the controversial legislation to the public sector by January 1 - but without shattering spending targets by putting too many more people on the state's payroll.
    [Then cut the unemployment and welfare programs and all the other hidden jobs programs in the French economy. It should be eminently possible, when the private and public sectors start doing it right and sharing the vanishing work and getting unemployment down to zero, to cut the now-unnecessary crutches that are more or less everywhere in today's obsoletely long-hours industrialized economies.]
    In most parts of the traditionally bloated French civil service, that objective, while it may lead to some grumbles, looks eminently attainable. In the country's hospitals, it will be rather harder to achieve.
    [Then roust the parasites out of the registry of motor vehicles etc etc and train them to nurse and doctor! Now moron Henley utters a statement that invalidates all his previous accusations against the 35-hour week -]
    Hospital doctors and nurses, although better off than their British counterparts (France spends 9.8% on its health system, compared to 6.9% in Britain), have long complained of deteriorating conditions.
    [Oh so Britain's hospitals are in worse shape than France's? And where's the 35-hour week in Britain that you can blame, Henbrain? And if they've "long" complained about this, then we were right when we guessed, above, that these conditions existed in France long before the 35-hour week was a glint in anyone's eye.]
    They last launched industrial action in 1999.
    "My staff routinely work five, six, seven extra hours a week, and never take time off in lieu," said Christine Picot, head of the maternity ward at Montreuil public hospital in the Paris suburbs. "We can't even operate a 39-hour week as we are supposed to. Talk of a 35-hour week in fantasy."
    [Then maybe you've got the wrong strategy, Florence Nightingale. The only "industrial action" you need is simply to observe the letter of the law and let the chips fall where they may. A few highly publicized deaths because of lack of resources to responsibly implement the law of the land should wake up the nation to the cost of reform in this area - and the need to use the savings of reform from other areas.]
    According to government figures, the French hospital service, which employs some 780,000 people, is already short of some 10,000-15,000 staff, mainly nurses.
    [Aha, the usual B.S. where sick macho "health" systems all over the world dump on nurses and women have finally become mad as hell and aren't going to take it any more. As Tom Walker says in his email, "This story reports on how the 35-hour week brings to a head an already existing problem with the organization [we'd say "culture"] and staffing of French hospitals" and indeed, hospitals almost everywhere. Tom suggest the real headline of this story should be "Over[work] permits administrators to sweep staffing crisis under the rug."]
    Health unions say that even without taking the 35-hour week into account, double or triple that number are needed to ensure the service runs as it should.
    [Then the dumb unions should be grateful for the 35-hour law and using it as a club to bash the nation into realization of the true costs of good healthcare. They've got 8.9% unemployed in France available for training into the health service. All this would have happened automatically if they had implemented overtime-to-training&hiring (Timesizing Progam Phase Two and Phase Three) before they jumped into workweek reduction (Timesizing Program Phase Four).]
    But with the nursing profession suffering recruitment problems around Europe, even the current vacancies have proved impossible to fill.
    [Time for the doctors to get off their damn high horse and share the income and decision-making. But, oops, France has found that handy quickfix that just adds to the problems in the longer run -]
    The government has been "forced" [our italics - ed.] to import 8,000 Spanish nurses...
    [That's 8,000 more little disaster credits in the bank. But here's the right approach -]
    ...and to launch a campaign aimed at enticing back some of teh 50,000 disillusioned French nurses who have left the profession in recent years.
    [Where's the money? Grabbed up by those expert grandstanding martyrs, the doctors.]
    "Where are the 40,000 supposed to come from who will make it possible for us all to work a shorter week?" asked Sandrine Orsucci, an anaesthetist's assistant at the Piti[é?]-Salpetriere hospital in Paris, who earns, with seven years' experience, ...313,000 [francs or euros] a year.
    [40,000 needed. 50,000 disillusioned. Sounds like more than a match. And then there's that 8.9% unemployed. By the way, we have no idea how much 313,000 francs or euros is anyway, Henley. How about taking the enormous trouble to convert it to the global currency of US$$?!]
    "Even if they increase the number of places at nursing schools, there's no guarantee there will be any candidates. This whole project is a mirage, it's utopia. They are going to have to do far, far more."
    [Ah, the further beauties of workweek reduction revealed. It cuts through to so much ingrained crap in an economy that is holding us all back as a race of supposedly intelligent beings on this planet and exposes it to embarrassment. The whole attitude of one of our oldest professions, that of "healer" (dba doctor, physician) is very very sick. And their working relationship with their closest colleagues, the nursing profession, is Exhibit A. Doctors are always right and nurses are always wrong. Doctors make all the decisions and nursies just say, "Oh yes, almighty Doctor, and I'll come into the closet and service you in a moment." One of Phil Hyde's most indelible memories of his days as token male at the B.U. School of Nursing (as admin. asst. of the graduate division) was when one of the nursing PhD students told him, "Nursing sucks."]
    The government is, however, unwilling to go much further. Ms. Guigou's promise of extra staff angered the finance minister, Laurent Fabius, who now has to find an extra 31B [francs or euros] in an already strained 2001 budget that foresaw the creation of just 11,500 new civil service jobs as a result of the 35-hour week.
    [Quit whining and get it from the people who have it in unspendable profusion, the rich. The whole point of workweek reduction is to cut the fat and make a whole economy young and vibrant again.]
    Union leaders, who have called an initial nationwide day of action on Sept. 20 for all but emergency staff, point out that extra personnel are only one part of their demands. "What is really needed is a complete overhaul of hospital structures and organisation," said Ms. Bocher of the INPH.
    [If the French do that, they will lead the world.]
    "Otherwise, no matter what extra resources are flung at us, the whole thing will be a waste of time and effort and our hospital system will crumble beyond repair. It is only the staff's dedication that is holding it together at the moment."
    [Time to quit relying on "dedication" and charity and volunteerism and upgrade our core economic institutions. Timesizing's automatic overtime-to-skills&jobs conversion and flexible adjustment of the workweek vs. underemployment are the highway to this kind of upgrading process.]

  2. Artemis solves top 10 project management problems; Artemis brings power and strength to project managers; Software ensures quality and effective completion of projects, Business Wire BW2143 SEP 06,2001 8:06 EASTERN via AOLNews.
    BOULDER, Colo.... To project managers, the words 'project management' conjure up visions of data entry, Gantt charts and long hours spent trying to guess how much money they will need to beg from management to accomplish the job. Add to this mix the notorious reputation...projects have for running behind schedule and over budget, and it is enough to overwhelm any project manager.
    "More than 70% of all projects go south...," said Caper Jones, 30-year project management veteran...of *Artemis International Solutions Corp. (OTCBB:OPUS), a leading provider of enterprise-wide project...solutions. "Problems will crop up with the project, no matter how much time and attention project managers give....
    With over 25 years in project management software and consulting, Artemis experts view the following top ten list as the most difficult...project management obstacles....
    ...Problem No. 3: Project managers can't stay within project parameters. The project grows in scope as team members work and as more tasks are assigned.
    Solution: If project managers believe in some balance between work and life, putting in longer work hours isn't the answer. ...Project managers should learn to question each new element of the project....
    [Compare wiseman George Dyer's "When in doubt, revert to original plan."]
    If project managers must add another step to the project, then they should also consider procuring additional resources to help accomplish the new tasks. Finally, project managers should establish a new deadline, adjust project plans, reschedule work and continue to monitor progress toward desired goals....
    CONTACT: Artemis International['s] Sabine Kortals, 303/305-4107, sabine.kortals@us.artemisintl.com

9/06/2001  glimmers of timesizing - 9/05/2001  glimmers of timesizing - 9/04/2001  glimmers of timesizing -
  1. For Brockton [Hospital, Mass.] nurses, no happy return - Strike's end in sight, but hard feelings live, by Marcella Bombardieri, Boston Globe, B1.
    ...Nurses talk about the fierce camaraderie [of the strike]. They talk about having one of the most intense experiences of their lives.
    [Sounds like what men report about their experience in World War II.]
    And about their pride for making what they believe to be a principled stand for the quality of patient care - demanding that the hospital not use mandatory overtime to compensate for staff shortages. (In addition to some concessions on mandatory overtime, they also received a 13% pay raise over three years.)
    [How symptomatic of our time blindness that this key issue gets two sentences in the whole 26 column-inch article. How symptomatic of media mediocrity that the concessions aren't even outlined in the relevant regional newspaper. We will provide all the names given in the article so that researchers can phone for more information. But what's the core of the hard feelings mentioned in the subtitle? -]
    ..\..Much of the nurses' [feeling] centers on returning to work with...the approximately 30 nurses who crossed the picket line, and those who were flown in as temporary replacements. "As far as we're concerned, they're the ones that made this strike last 92 days," said Deanne Filteau...an intensive care unit nurse.... "Now they're getting everything we fought for...."
    [And worse, though some of them are approachable, others are self-righteous -]
    Some of those who crossed the picket line \during\ a 49-day nurses' strike...at St. Vincent's Hospital in Worcester MA last year...came teary-eyed to..\..Sandy Ellis, one of the [strikers after the strike,] confessing they wished they had her courage. Others proudly maintained that a nurse who goes on strike is abandoning his or her patients..\..
    [Such pride sacrifices long-term quality for short-term expedience. So what can they do to feel better?]
    After [the] strike ended at St. Vincent's...the hospital organized a staff barbecue, made counselors available, and held a nondenominational "healing service," said hospital spokeswoman Paula Green....
    [So let's see. We've mentioned Deanne Filteau, Sandy Ellis and Paula Green. There's also

  2. [at the risk of reverie-re-overwork overkill, here's a fourth one -]
    US workers suffer labour pains, by Michael Ellison, 9/03/2001 Manchester *Guardian via Tom Walker of the Shorter Work Time e-list and Kit Walsh of the greater Timesizing extended family.
    ...Average Americans now spend so much time at work that they are putting in another week a year compared with 10 years ago, says a new study published to coincide with the Labour Day holiday weekend.
    ...Now..\..Mr and Ms America...toil for 1,978 hours;..\..in 1990 [they] worked 1,942 hours each...says the report by the International Labour Organization [ILO].
    "The increase in the number of hours worked within the US runs counter to the trend in other industrialized nations where we are seeing declining hours worked," said Lawrence Jeff Johnson, the economist who headed the team that drew up Key Indicators of the Labour Market 2001-2002.
    Of countries categorized as developing or in transition, only South Koreans (500 more hours) and Czechs (an extra 100 hours) put in more time than Americans.
    [Did they include the other sweatshop countries besides South Korea? (such as Malaysia and Singapore?) Maybe they need a special category for the US - an "in transition to sweatshop" economy or an "undeveloping country."]
    ...Said Mr. Johnson..."The line between time at work and time not at work is blurred. Years ago we used to clock on and clock off but we don't do that any more....
    [Clearly that was a mistake. How do we know? Because slavery is characterized by a total blur between worktime and non worktime. And here's another fatal error -]
    ...Said Mr. Johnson, "We want to progress, to move on to the next level. To do that they're putting in more hours."
    [Mistake. You don't put in more hours to progress. Progress is fewer hours and more pay. More hours and more pay is just marking time or sliding backwards -]
    ...Long working weeks do not equate with wealth. "A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Holly Sklar, author of Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work for All of Us. "But as we celebrate Labour Day, hardworking Americans paid the minimum wage have to choose between eating or heating, healthcare or childcare. At $5.15 an hour [the minimum wage], they earn just $10,712 a year. That's a third less than in 1968, when the minimum wage was about $8 adjusting for inflation. "A couple with two kids would have to work a combined 3.3 full-time minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet."
    Mr. Johnson suggested that the US could learn much from Ireland, where the productivity of people with jobs had increased even though each employee now spent 1,520 hours a year working, down from 1,728 hours in 1990....
    [And the US could learn even more from France, which by lowering the workweek, sharing the vanishing work, activating 4% of 1997 consumers who were unemployed but are now employed as unemployment dropped from nearly 13% to under 9%, has become the most recession-resistant economy in Europe. And tops the world in productivity per manhour.]

  3. [negative headline, wonderful article - and not a bit "time blind" -]
    Wretched times for the worker, by Jon Boroshok, pres. of Tech-Marcom Inc. of Westford MA, Boston Globe, D2.
    [Sit back for the best of Labor Day weekend's "reveries" on America's sweep to sweatshop - an unexpurgated version straight from the author, including his own much punchier title -]
    Throwing Employees Out With The Trash?   By Jon Boroshok
    The deluge of recent layoffs along with the media frenzy about downsizings proves that in today's business world, employees are commodities, treated like disposable equipment to achieve ratios for Wall Street. The emphasis on immediate shareholder value leaves no long-term strategy and no concern for workers and their families.
    Twenty-first century cubicle farms don't compare to sweatshops of the early twentieth century, but the disrespect for employees' own time, erosion of the 40-hour/5-day workweek that our parents and grandparents fought so hard for, and the strain on families mimic conditions that led to the proliferation of labor unions. This time it's white-collar workers and lower/middle management feeling the pain in the name of shareholder value.
    At the risk of being dismissed as a "liberal," here's a simple mathematical perspective that's unexpected from someone in management: If you regularly work a 60-hour week, you "give away" 50% extra time. Annually, it's like working for 6 months for free! Perhaps U.S. worker productivity increases were due to all the "free" hours! Traditionally, a salary buys 40 weekly hours of an employee's time. Non-exempt employees often work longer, but if they miss work, that 40-hour figure is used to prorate pay.
    As the economy tumbles, family-friendly and progressive policies such as flex time, job sharing, and extended part time work are being replaced by mandatory overtime and squeezing as much as possible from fewer people. Telecommuting? Sure, call in to the office on the cell phone on the way to/from work, or during the kids' weekend soccer games. Flex time? Absolutely -- work any 50-60 hours from Monday through Friday, as long as 9-5 is included. Casual attire? Feel free to wear sweats to the office on Saturday. Where's the balance and quality of life?
    New technology has made work more intrusive after hours. The office is everyplace - we're even expected to check voice mail and e-mail while on vacation! Isn't that just working off site? How many people would accept less pay in exchange for more time for life outside of work, or are all our waking hours and family time for sale if the price is right?
    Were long hours a "choice" in the New Economy? People worked 50, 60, even 70-hour weeks under the guise of "being competitive." Competitive with what - everyone else that thought they had to be competitive? The alternative was really to do the same, quit or get fired/downsized. Many workers that sacrificed nights and weekends wound up with worthless options, broken marriages, and still lost jobs when their companies decided to "right size" (while top executives received bonuses for putting people out of work).
    I worked for one company where it was not unusual for the CEO to make an announcement at 2 PM that a (trivial) meeting would start 6 PM on the Friday of a holiday weekend. Managers were also called back from vacations for minor matters. We were required to travel on our own (weekend) time to get cheaper airfares for the company, with no concern for the impact on anyone's family.
    In what some consider a "free agent economy," one way out is self-employment. When my first child was born, I decided that I wanted to be home for dinner on more than just weekends. I wanted to be a Dad, not a wallet. I wanted my family to know who I am, not just what I was able to provide for them. I wanted to be able to hold a conversation about something other than work when I went to a social event. Yes, I like what I do for a living and I'm very good at it, but it's not how I define myself, and there are plenty of other things for me to enjoy in my life.
    By branching out on my own, I was able to decide how much is enough, and be able to say no to too much work. I don't have to "maximize" everything or answer to investors. I don't have to worry about the twenty-something workaholic urban dweller in the next cubicle thinking I'm a slacker because I start my one-hour drive home at 5 PM, not 7 PM and resent phone calls during family time.
    Like everyone else these days, my revenues have slowed - and being old enough to remember the 80s and 90s, I think things will get a lot worse before they get better. Luckily I didn't over-extend myself waiting for my lottery tickets (options) to be worth something and making me even more dependent on a corporate culture that couldn't care less. Nobody's putting me through the paper shredder and handing me a month's pay as severance for fifteen years of work.
    Will we ever return to some sort of balance in our lives? Will we fight harder to keep that balance once we land our next jobs, or are we going to just be thankful that we're employed? Will companies continue to live and die on a quarterly basis because some analyst has certain expectations? Will we continue to elect officials who clearly value profits over people?
    As you sit in your cubicle nervously reading this, fearing that you'll be caught and fired for "not being a team player," answer this: Am I a ranting liberal or simply a voice of reason? Speak up!

9/02/2001  weekend glimmers of timesizing - 9/01/2001  glimmers of timesizing -
  1. [The *Common Dreams Newscenter aptly introduces this title with the phrase, "Going backwards."]
    Report shows Americans have more 'labor days' - Lead over Japan in hours on the job grows - For Americans, shorter vacations and more overtime, by Steven Greenhouse, NYT flagged by Tom Walker and RadioTony, A6.
    A United Nations agency provided some discouraging news yesterday to Americans who believe they are overworked, finding that American workers have increased their substantial lead over Japan and all other industrial nations in the number of hours worked each year....
     [Jumping down to the blockbuster buried down in the 3rd-last paragraph -]
    But partly because of the comparative high number of hours that Americans work, the report found that France and Belgium edged out the United States in productivity per hour. In France, which ranked first, workers produced $33.71 of value added per hour on average, compared with $32.98 in Belgium and $32.84 in the United States..\..
     [Now hold on a minute, pardner. Ain't this the same France that adopted that "radical," "impractical," "uncompetitive," "disaster-brewing" 35-hour workweek as a national statutory standard and maximum for all companies over 20 employees (except gov't) last year? Now the "work hard to get ahead" troglodites from the pre-automation era - and never mind "work smart, not hard" - don't have a leg to stand on. Thus, the economy with shortest workweek beats economy with longest annual working hours in productivity per manhour, even by current spotty accounting methods -]
    The report, issued by the International Labor Organization [ILO], found that Americans added nearly a full week to their work year during the 1990's, climbing to 1,979 hours on average last year, up 36 hours from 1990. That means Americans who are employed [at 40 hours a week] are putting in nearly 49½ weeks a year on the job.
     [It might seem that Christmas, New Years, Independence, Labor, and Thanksgiving Days would then cut the remaining 2½ weeks down to 1½. But what is really happening is that many Americans are working much more than 40 hours a week and pulling up the average. And true, some don't even take their measly two weeks' vacation.]
    Americans work 137 hours, or about 3½ weeks [at 40 hours/week], more a year than Japanese workers, 260 hours (about 6½ weeks) more a year than British workers, and 499 hours (about 12½ weeks) more a year than German workers, the report said. The Japanese had long been at the top for the number of hours worked, but in the mid-1990's the United States surpassed Japan, and since then it has pulled farther ahead.
     [So Americans are the stupidest grunts in the developed world, working more hours every year instead of less, and getting less and less pay. Sounds like a formula for incremental enslavement, a skid into the Third World. Of course, they try to say that more hours meant more income for all those workers, but it really meant hugely more pay for top executives and more income for the already super-rich -]
    Patrick Cleary, senior VP for HR policy at the National Assoc. of Manufacturers, said, "Clearly, for most of these years the increase in hours tracks outstanding economic performance in the United States, which translates into more income for all those workers...."
     [What's so outstanding in being third in productivity, and even to get the U.S. that high the ILO probably had to undercount the megahours that so many Americans are putting in, gratis, "because they choose to" (i.e., they're pressured to by economic anxiety).]
    Among the reasons for the large differences between the U.S. and other countries are that Europeans typically take 4-6 weeks of vacation each year while Americans take 2-3 weeks. And while American employers kept adding overtime during the 1990's, in France the government reduced the official workweek to 35 hours, with the aim of pressuring companies to hire more workers.
     [They don't mention that it worked, and reduced France's out-of-control unemployment rate from 12.6% to 8.7% in four years (1997-Feb,Mar,Apr,May/2001).]
    Juliet Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College and the author of "The Overworked American," said one reason for the nation's longer average work year was that American workers seemed to be increasingly squeezed during both booms and busts.
     [Heads, top executives win - tails, ordinary employees lose. Exactly what you'd expect as automation in the context of a frozen 1940-level workweek (after 100-150 years of workweek reduction) made American employees a surplus commodity and market forces lowered their price (wage) and decreased their leverage at the bargaining table (then removed the bargaining table).]
    "All the direction seems to be for longer hours," Ms. Schor said. "In expansions, companies keep giving more work to their workers, and in recessions, there will be downsizing and fewer people working, but the workers who remain have to work longer hours to retain their jobs."
     [There you have it. The power gradient widened after 1940 as worksaving technology poured in and no offsetting reduction was made to worktime, although it had been made for over the previous 100 years.]
    Many economists say the number of hours that Americans work each year may begin to level off now that many automakers and other manufacturers have reduced the amount of overtime assigned due to the economic slowdown.
     [Dream on. As automation and robotization proceed, manufacturing is now a shrinking area of employment, just as agriculture was before it. And the last resort of jobs is the service sector, which itself is now becoming increasingly automated and robotized. And here's America's prescription for hell -]
    [America, which started with far-sighted men like Alexander Hamilton (floated the bonds to pay off the Revolutionary War debt), the New York City commissioners (laid out the street grid for the new metropolis in 1811) and DeWitt Clinton (built the Erie Canal to open the heartland to the port of New York) has become besotted with shortsighted leaders and nearsighted businessmen like Chainsaw Dunlap and Marc Rich who can't see beyond the next quarterly report or presidential term. What a hell they are preparing for our children and grandchildren. And what pathetic comfort does this article offer to make us feel better?]
    In the best news for the United States, the report ranked the country No. 1 in the world in productivity per worker....
     ["Productivity per worker" isn't even real productivity. It went out with the horse and buggy. Future economists might want to use it as an "exploitation index." What a shabby blue ribbon - disregarding how many hours the poor sucker had to work and how much the poor drudge had to neglect children, church, and community. Some comfort! America has discovered, and is experimenting with, a formula for national deterioration and decline.]

  2. [And speaking of France -]
    French jobless rate hits 8.9%, by Pamela Sampson, AP-NY-08-31-01 1125EDT via AOLNews.
    PARIS - With an economic slowdown starting to hit Europe, French unemployment rose to 8.9% for July from 8.8% a month earlier....
    [...from 8.7% the previous four months, the lowest since 1983 the year after the previous reduction of the statutory workweek in France, from 40 to 39 hours a week.]
    The number of job seekers rose by 39,600 to 2,372,000..\..
    The rise reflected a slowdown in world economic activity....
    Labor Minister Elisabeth Guigou said France's recent decision to end compulsory military service [also] pushed up the rate, as did the arrival of new graduates on the job market. \However,\ France continues to outperform many of its European neighbors, according to a statement Friday by the Labor Ministry....
    [For example -]
    France's jobless rate was down a full 1.0% from a year ago while the European Union average was down [only] 0.6%.
    [And they certainly outperform the world where it counts in productivity per manhour, according to the story above.]
    ...Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has made reducing joblessness a top priority since he took office in 1997, when the unemployment rate was in the double digits [reached 12.6%]. Jospin had set his government a target of getting the unemployment rate down to 8.5% by the end of 2001, although that objective now looks out of reach.
    [Not if he further lowers the workweek - even just to 34 hrs/wk.]
    Jospin and his government have sought to cut unemployment lines by shortening the workweek from 39 hours to 35, forcing companies to hire more staff to keep up production levels. Officials say the measure has cut unemployment, but many French employers have criticized the government for economic meddling.
    [There are always those who want a free lunch - who want to profit from the markets provided by someone else's employees. If they think about it at all, they must think that markets come out of thin air like the rabbit out of the magician's hat.]
    Companies with more than 20 staffers were required to implement the shorter workweek as of Feb. 1, 2000...
    [Wasn't that backed off to Feb. 15 in the event?]
    ...but businesses with fewer than 20 employees have until January 2002. The Labor Ministry said it expects unemployment to go down as a result.
    [And so do we. There is no economic future for any of us unless we quit straining for too-little too-late government jobs programs and just share the vanishing work.]

  3. Sabena pilots plan 24-hour strike on September 5, Reuters 12:39 08-31-01 via AOLNews.
    BRUSSELS...- Pilots at Belgian national airline Sabena said on Friday they would hold a 24-hour strike on Thursday to protest at what they say are plans by Sabena to abolish a system of promotions based on seniority. The pilots also proposed reducing their working hours to cut costs and avoid forced redundancies [i.e., layoffs].
    [In short, Sabena pilots are proposing timesizing, not downsizing.]
    Sabena spokesman Wilfried Remans...said Sabena management will look into the financial implications of the pilots' proposals to reduce working hours.
    [Why is this such a big deal? Because -]
    ...Management['s] wide-ranging restructuring plan...includes cutting some 1,600 jobs to rescue the ailing airline and return it to profitability by 2005....
    [And just to show that timesizing is not the private preserve of socialists any more than capitalists, check out the criticism that this clueless socialist levelled at the pilots -]
    Socialist trade union spokesman Denis Demeulemeester was surprised by the pilots' move and said he depored it. "It is everything but comradely," he said, adding that the pilots are planning to strike to protect their own interests instead of looking after the interests of the whole Sabena workforce....
    [As if establishing the idea of trimming hours for all instead of jobs for a few (and a few more, and a few more...) isn't very much in the interests of the whole Sabena workforce - and of the union itself, if it wants any members left employed and paying dues!]

  4. [Finland had some interesting 30-hour workweek experiments 1996-98]
    Finland experiments with a six-hour work day - A family friendly policy?, by Ellen Mutari & Deborah Figart, *Dollars & Sense Sep/Oct 2001, 32.
    ...Between 1996 and 1998, the Finnish state experimented with a 30-hour workweek. Workers who participated said they enjoyed more time for other activities: Overall, employees who worked fewer hours reported less conflict between work and family responsibilities....
    [By contrast -]
    Throughout the European Union (EU), employers have increased weekend hours.... In 1993, the EU even issued a directive setting the workweek at a maximum of 48 hours - but allowing the maximum to be averaged over time. For example, employees can work 60 hours one week and 36 hours the next.
    [60+36= 96/2= 48.]
    Since the averaging can occur over a...one-year period, employees can work long hours for many weeks before working a stretch of shorter hours.
    [This is similar to Nucor Steel, the most profitable and one of the last surviving U.S. steel companies that "accordions" its workweek, instead of its workforce via layoffs and rehiring.]
    In the United States, employers have dramatically increased the use of overtime; as a result, many U.S. workers are regularly clocking over 40 hours of work per week....
    Like other European countries, Finland is facing pressure to reduce and reorganize paid work time. The impetus for change has come both from employers, who want to use buildings and equipment more fully, and from unions, which are advocating job creation through shorter work hours....
    [I.e., more people employed by spreading the available work more thinly across all the people who need it, like squeezing out an inch of toothpaste on 2 toothbrushes, half an inch each, instead of the whole inch on just one.]
    The most notable Finnish undertakings - the so-called "6+6" experiments - combined longer operating hours for employers with shorter and less stressful working hours for individual workers. Usually the traditional single 8-hour shift was replaced with two 6-hour shifts.
    The 6+6 plan originated with a recession in the early 1990s, when many municipalities downsized their workforces. As a result, unemployment increased in the public sector, and the remaining employees were overworked. Unions, political parties, and the government sought a solution.
    [With this much support, one wonders why the experiment was discontinued instead of elaborated.]
    Starting in the mid-1990s, the Finnish government, with some financial support from the European Social Fund (an EU program whose mission includes job creation), provided partial subsidies to municipal governments if they hired back some of their laid-off workers in conjunction with the 6+6 trial. The national government agreed to cover up to half the cost of rehiring unemployed workers.
    [They were probably paying for them anyway via the unemployment insurance system, so this saved them money.]
    The subsidies were, unfortunately, only temporary measures to stimulate employment during a period of high unemployment.
    Between June 1996 and December 1998, 20 municipalities participated in the 6+6 plan.
    [Compare the Robien Law's voluntary 10-15% workweek reduction in France with tax incentives, which applied from August 1996 to roughly April 1997 when Jospin was elected and immediately focused on a mandatory nationwide 35-hour workweek.]
    The new scheduling patterns were concentrated in As with many schemes to reduce work hours [Robien included], employers and unions differed over whether compensation would be reduced along with hours or whether increased productivity would allow weekly wages to remain constant.
    [Many employers don't "get" the fact that if spending power isn't spread around, markets will shrink because - the more concentration, the less circulation - and without markets, increased productivity is a liability, not an asset.]
    On average, employees worked 20-25% fewer hours, but their weekly wages fell by only 7%. In effect, the average worker's hourly wages were increased. The additional cost to employers was partially offset by the government subsidies for rehiring workers and by increases in productivity.
    Employers reported that the experiments proved beneficial, even if they had to pay some of the increased labor costs....
    [Again, the question arises, then why was it discontinued? The only answer we've seen so far is, "The subsidies were, unfortunately, only temporary measures to stimulate employment during a period of high unemployment." But that begs the question, if the government was saving unemployment insurance outlay, why wasn't this standardized - or was the EU contribution too large and too temporary?]
    They found that customers were happy with extended hours of service [some employers even changed to three 6-hour shifts], the efficiency and quality of services improved, and absenteeism decreased.
    Women were far more likely to participate in the experiments than men.... Women constituted 75% of eligible employees in the social service agencies where the experiments took place. But 94% of all employees who opted for the 6+6 experiments were women...to facilitate a better balance between work and family life....
    Although the workweek for participants...averaged 30 hours, employees did not have to work a 6-hour shift; in fact, only 40% actually did so. Another 35% took extra days off instead, and 21% took extra weeks off.
    [The difficulty administering this complexity may have been one of the nails in the experiment's coffin.]
    Yet those who took the 6-hour shifts reported the most satisfaction..\.. According to University of Jyvaskyla researchers Timo Anttila, Jouko Natti, and Mia Vaisanen...when free time was distributed more evenly on a daily basis, employees found it easier to balance work and family responsibilities - especially if they had children....
    [Not surprising, considering that many surveys have found that changes in schedule are among the most anxiety-producing types of changes for people.]
    They noted [that] most participants in the experiments were less exhausted and less emotionally drained at the end of the work day.
    ...Though the 6+6 scheme was presented as a new form of full-time work, women workers were...worried about being stigmatized for working shorter hours....
    [Stigmatized and presumably docked in pay, although at the moment they were averaging 7% more in hourly wages than before. These fears were also present the Kellogg's 30-hour workweek experiment between 1930 and 1986, as described by Ben Hunnicutt in his "Kellogg's Six-Hour Day." They are probably also present in the work-sharing experiments currently going on in Japan. By contrast, they are not present under the statutory nationwide shorter workweek (35-hr) in place in France today. And they are not present under Ron Healey's 30/40 Plan because Ron takes great care to ensure that the 30/40 employees he recruits feel like a privileged elite that any employer would be lucky to hire.]
    Once...the overall unemployment rate fell \and\ the state subsidies disappeared...many municipalities reverted back to the old work schedules and most of the newly hired workers were let go. [Outside] the rationale of job creation, unions (and some employees) were unwilling to accept the small reductions in weekly salary that accompanied reduced hours.
    [At least 50% of unions are suicidally short-sighted. Of their two historic goals, higher pay and shorter hours, they persist in ignoring the historic facts that higher pay gets you neither but shorter hours gets you both, by the simple working of the laws of supply and demand on general labor. Distraction from the goal of shorter hours is the single most significant reason for the weakening of labor leverage around the world, including the USA where labor is down from 39% in the 1950s to 13% of the workforce today.]
    Even though both supervisors and employees rated the experiments positively, employers decided that the resulting increases in productivity, efficiency, and availability of services were not sufficient to absorb the increased labor costs.
    [Unless employers can work this out, their concentration of income and wealth is going to continue to strangle their markets and destabilize their investments. Not to mention the personal security factor of heightened crime, especially in the United States, that comes from making it easier for many people to earn a dishonest living than an honest one.]
    The experience of [the mostly] women working in public services contrast[ed] with [that] of a small group of mostly male...workers who also participated in 6+6 schemes \in\ manufacturing.... In the[se] private sector [experiments], working time was reorganized with [no] state subsidies. Nor was job creation the motive. Employers pursued 6+6 (as well as 6+6+6 and 4x6) schemes in order to utilize their capital equipment for longer hours without paying overtime. Employees were not asked to take cuts in their weekly paychecks. but employers did speed up the production process and eliminate some holidays.
    [This is similar to Ron Healey's 30/40 Plan.]
    Natti and Anttila found that, because productivity increases were more dramatic in manufacturing than in services, the new schedules proved relatively cost-free for private-sector employers. The same work was accomplished in less time....
    [Unfortunately we are not told whether these experiments continued.]
    In the United States, the last major push for shorter work hours occurred in the 1930s.... Today, Americans, on average, work longer hours [1966 hrs/yr, see 7/08/2001 #3] than employees in any other industrialized country [if they can find a job at all]. Even in Japan, where long hours are considered normal, average annual hours are lower [1889 hrs/yr] than in the United States. Both women and men in the U.S. work long hours.... A recent study by the Families and Work Institute in New York...found that Reasons for overwork \are\ Though the range of preferred hours is quite broad, on average, employees say they would like to work about 35 hours per week....

Click here for news on spontaneous timesizing cases in -
Aug. 16-31/2001
Aug. 1-15/2001
July 16-31/2001
July 1-15/2001
June/2001
May 16-31/2001
May 1-15/2001
Apr.16-30/2001
Apr.1-15/2001
Mar.11-31/2001
Mar.1-10/2001
Feb.16-28/2001
Feb.1-15/2001
Jan/2001
Y2000
1999
1998 and previous years

Top | Homepage