So Much to Read, So Little Time...
What we try to do here is sift through material on the web and present a selection of research reports, news and review articles that are informative, diverse, thought-provoking and germane to policy debate. The main theme is work and work time.
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BOOK REVIEWS | POLICY REPORTS | |||
NEWS FEATURES | ESSAYS AND ANALYSIS | |||
COLLECTIONS |
- Critique of Economic Reason. (Andre Gorz)
- Gorz's view is that we are facing a society where there is more free time than working time and in which, therefore, life ceases to be governed by economic rationality...
- The Overworked American. (Juliet Schor)
- Schor refutes the entrenched view of neoclassical economists that the length of the work week is chosen by workers rather than employers, buttressing her own view by making a compelling case for increasing satisfaction through working less.
- The End of Work. (Jeremy Rifkin) --Link discontinued.
- Rifkin wants a shortened workweek, which would provide full employment at 25 to 30 hours weekly. He also urges a new, publicly-funded economic 'third sector' to hire the still-unemployed to educate children, care for the elderly, and otherwise maintain the nation's 'social economy.'
POLICY REPORTS- B.C. Jobs and Timber Alternative Work Arrangements
- The Jobs and Timber Accord announced June 19 by B.C. Premier Glen Clark includes 3,000 new jobs from "new work arrangements" -- mainly reductions in overtime and hours of work to be negotiated in collective bargaining between unions and forest companies. The government has committed to spend up to $20,000,000 to offset payroll costs of the new work arrangements.
- British Columbia Premier Glen Clark, addressing the B. C. Federation of Labour, November 26, 1996
- I am convinced we must look for ways to redistribute the work available so that more British Columbians can be employed. And I am convinced that we can make these changes while actually maintaining or improving productivity.
- A Level Playing Field in Working Hours (Lars Osberg, Advisory Committee on the Changing Workplace)
- The design of payroll tax-based programs such as Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan now encourages firms, when they need more labour, to increase overtime hours rather than hire new employees.
- A Job-Creation Strategy for Governments with No Money (William Scarth, C.D. Howe Institute)
- A one percentage point cut in the employer payroll tax on low-wage employees can reduce the unemployment rate of unskilled workers by four-fifths of a percentage point.
- Payroll Taxation and Employment: A Literature Survey (Joni Baran, Industry Canada)
- This paper is a survey of the more noteworthy analysis performed in this area with an emphasis on Canadian empirical research. The objective is to provide a single locus where much of the work relating to the impact of payroll taxes on employment can be presented and from this, to draw conclusions.
- Recommendations of the Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work
- The Advisory Group endorses a new public policy priority that emphasizes
redistribution and reduction of working time.
- Speech of Alfonso Gagliano, Canadian Minister of Labour
- I believe working time and distribution of work issues merit serious consideration. These are not
magic formulas to remedy unemployment but they definitely have an impact on the labour market.
They have the potential to create jobs, or at least to preserve them. They can improve the balance
between work and family life. They contribute to the development of a healthy and productive
workforce.
- Changes in Working Time in Canada and the United States: Conference Report
- The purpose of this conference was: to draw
together research on changes in the distribution of working time across several dimensions... and to
examine why these changes are occurring, assess the efficiency and equity implications of these
changes, and discuss the role of public policy in affecting patterns of working time.
- Why Has Inequality in Weekly Earnings increased in Canada? (René Morissette, Statistics Canada)
- Inequality in weekly earnings increased in the eighties in Canada. The increase in inequality occurred in conjunction with three facts. First, real hourly wages of young workers fell substantially. Second, the percentage of employees working 35-40 hours per week declined while the fraction of employees working either shorter or longer hours rose. Third, there was a growing tendency for highly paid workers to work longer workweeks.
- Canada in a World of Rapid Change: Future Choices and Consequences
- Do you worry that we might be heading towards a world, where animosity grows between the haves and the have-nots and where the society becomes divided by higher and higher physical, social and
economic walls?
- European White Paper on Employment
- Given the scale of the needs that have to be met, both in the European Union and elsewhere in the world, recovery must be achieved by developing work and employment and not by endorsing
basically Malthusian solutions.
IN THE MEDIA- The Book of No Job
- Mother Jones Magazine
- A Shorter Workweek
- Hightower Radio
- Jobless Future?
- Left Business Observer
- On The Edge of the Digital Age -- Minneapolis Star Tribune -- Link discontinued.
- We may well need another New Deal in the early decades of the next century. And this New Deal may not just redistribute money -- it might also redistribute time, in the form of shorter workweeks
for everyone.
- The Downsizing of America -- New York Times -- Link discontinued.
- 43 Million Jobs Erased Since 1979. The Price, The Lessons, The Future. This seven-part series originally appeared March 3-9. The opportunity to read and react continues.
ESSAYS AND ANALYSIS- Overworked and Underemployed: Unraveling an Economic Enigma (Barry Bluestone and Stephen Rose)
- There is compelling evidence of both
overwork and underemployment not only across the workforce,
but for individual workers (particularly men) who may face bouts
of full-time work interspersed with years in which part-time hours
are the rule.
- The Case for Working More: Jobs are scarce, but there's plenty of work to be done (Walt Taylor)
- Jobs may be scarce,
but work that needs to be done is not. To respond effectively to our present global and national
problems requires so much urgently-needed work that it would keep everyone on Earth fully
occupied on a full-time basis for the foreseeable future.
- Reducing Working Hours: American Workers' Salvation? (Terry Fitzgerald, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)
- Sharpen your debating skills!: This Economic Commentary describes the basic rationale behind
policies intended to "spread the work," and looks at some of the reasons why they are
likely to be less effective at boosting employment than proponents claim. See also Fitzgerald's "Reducing Working Hours". A gem of tautology.
- Time, Work, and Civic Values (Carmen Sirianni and Andrea Walsh)
- Me... I have very little time for my spiritual life. I don't have a civic life. And I do
very little with friendships -- anything that doesn't have to do with business. I don't
have time to cultivate relationships that aren't profitable.
- The Pursuit Of Happiness (Benjamin Hunnicutt)
- A six-hour day at the Kellogg Company plant liberated time for family and community, and provided jobs for the unemployed.
- A Workaholic Economy (Paul Wallich)
- Only a generation ago social planners worried about what people would do with all
this new-found free time. In the U.S., at least, it seems they need not have bothered.
- AntiWork (J. Hughes)
- Every morning I wake up and think about how I'm hurtling towards a certain death...
And with that cheery thought, I make a special effort not to do anything I'd regret
spending these precious minutes of my life on. Like working at a job I don't believe
in.
- The Changing Face of Wages (Amanda Gosling)
- The change in the structure of wages suggests that the labour market may be changing in a
fundamental way.
- The Future of Work (Sally Lerner)
- This article offers an overview and evaluation of various policy options for dealing with changing patterns of work in North America.
- Vanishing Jobs (Jeremy Rifkin)
- Some business leaders are concerned, but politicians seem strangely deaf
to what is likely to be the most explosive issue of the decade.
- High-Tech Populism in the Information Age (Jeremy Rifkin)
- Sensing that an enormous shift is taking place in the economy, millions of Americans are beginning to worry that there may not be a place for them in the new high-tech Information Age.
- Overtime: exempt and non-exempt [Steve Stewart]
- Many technical workers are being robbed of the right to overtime pay!. Technical workers are not "exempt" from normal hours and work rules! Technical workers are not "managers".
- Farewell to the Working Class? (Anthony Arnove)
- In September 1994, 11,500 workers at GM's Buick City complex in Flint, Michigan went on strike in protest to the company's policy of increasing overtime rather than hiring new workers to meet increased demand... After only three days, GM agreed to hire nearly 800 extra workers.
- The Abolition Of Work (Bob Black) -- Link discontinued.
- Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work.
- The Implications of Changes in the Nature of Work (Sally Lerner) - Link discontinued.
- Rapid technological change and the globalization of economic activity are re-structuring the North American economy, and with it the nature and future of work.
COLLECTIONS OF RESEARCH PAPERS- Statistics Canada
- Statistics Canada Analytical Studies Branch Research Papers Series.
- The Struggle Against Unemployment
- International Federation of Workers' Education Associations
- Fighting Unemployment -- IFWEA
- The labour movement has the highest moral obligation to oppose an egocentric philosophical basis for society and replace it with a philosophy based on social solidarity and mutual aid.
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TimeWork Web is the official web page of the Shorter Worktime Network of Canada
Online: June 29, 1995. Latest Revision: July 23,1997
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