Stress Production (Part 2)
Throughout the 20th century, prominent intellectuals have prophesized a radical reduction in working hours through the advancement of technology. Indeed, Gerald Wendt, director of Science for the New York World’s Fair in 1939 pointed out that, “It is estimated that we can now produce enough of all materials needed in our complicated industrial life without requiring more than thirty hours of labor per week”. Similar predictions were common during the optimistic post-war years. Thus, in 1955, Sir George Thomson, Nobel Laureate and Master of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, wrote, “It is reasonable to suppose that available leisure will continue to increase”. Even as late as 1985, William Grossin, a professor of sociology at Nancy University, France, asserted, “In the long run the effects of technology are indisputable: they translate to a decrease of the time devoted to work”. All of these predictions seem reasonable. It is perfectly logical that as productivity increases through the adoption of new technologies, a smaller amount of time will be needed to maintain or increase production levels. Indeed, as the market becomes saturated with products, it appears inevitable that individuals will be able to scale back their workloads while still retaining or even improving their current standard of living. Unfortunately, historical records demonstrate the falsity of this hypothesis.
Before evaluating work-time figures and trends, it is important to recognize the difficulties preventing completely precise and accurate measurements of work-time averages. Indeed, several complications occur concerning the categories of overtime, part-time, and secondary employment hours. Moreover, several nations calculate average work-hours using different inputs. In addition, a highly developed country, such as Italy, has an estimated 22.3% rate of undocumented employment. Furthermore, dozens of weekly work hours are excluded because domestic work is rarely counted. Finally, the intensity of segmentation within advanced labor markets necessitates attention to averages within different employment fields. Only with these empirical limits in mind can one begin to examine historical work-time data.
After analysis of national work-hour averages, historical trends appear. Indeed, according to one source, the average employed, American male spent 50 hours at work per week in 1997. Moreover, the average employed, American female averaged 44 hours of work outside the home and by including household work, the total is between 65 and 80 hours per week. Indeed, contrary to the doubling of American productivity since 1948, average annual hours rose 158 hours between 1969 and 1989. In addition, the average work-hours per week rose by an hour and a half between 1980 and 2000. Moreover, between 1948 and 1987, America’s work hours increased by 2.5% for workers involved with manufacturing, making it the only advanced economy to do so in those years. At the same time, Germany reduced hours by 10% and France by 13%. In addition, examination of other sources reveals that the majority of America’s 2.5% increase in manufacturing hours transpired during the 1980’s, when hours rose from 39.7 to 40.9 per week. Thus, work-time measurements demonstrate that, in America, unlike Western Europe, work-times stabilized and began to increase, starting in 1980. Consequently, increases in productivity did not lead to increases in leisure.
Despite the many indications that work-times have increased for Americans, there is also significant evidence of a more general intensification of work itself. In many ways this intensification is reflected by an increasing concern for micro-managing every minute and procedure of the work process. Indeed, this micro-management appears as early as 1972 in a chemical factory which mandated exactly 12 minutes per day for hand washing. Moreover, this concern for absolutely efficient time exploitation through intensely precise time specification is further demonstrated in Linder and Nygaard’s comprehensive study of bathroom break regulations, Void Where Prohibited. The authors draw attention to a 1995 lawsuit filed by female Nabisco workers in Oxnard, California, stating that they had developed “bladder and urinary tract infections… from being forced to wait hours for permission to use the restrooms”. The lawsuit also revealed a company order “to urinate in their clothes while working on the production line” in order to avoid a three day suspension for using the rest room. Moreover, the study draws attention to how even unionized workers may be fired for taking a bathroom break after being refused permission. Thus, the intensification of work is highly apparent.
Moreover, it is useful to draw attention to the numerous ways in which employers have extracted extra periods of work without proportional increases in pay. One prominent method is to mislabel fast food workers and retail clerks as “managers” to avoid granting them over-time pay. Consequently, this practice both widens the profit margins built on the backs of exploited employees and diminishes the likelihood of resistance from these employees by instilling an artificial sense of power and stake-holding towards the firm. In addition, a casual observer may easily recognize the various ways in which service-providers are exploiting every minute of time not only from their employees but from their customers as well. Thus, the rise of self-service “fast food” and online shopping may be understood as a shifting of time burdens away from employees (who’s work requires pay) towards customers (who will pay for the privilege of serving themselves). Indeed, consideration of intensified work practices during the work day leads to discussion of the rapid invasion of leisure time by the practices, attitudes and relations associated with work time.
Not only has work itself become more intense, but work attitudes and situations have begun to encroach upon activities and times previously classified and devoted to leisure. One need only consider the transition concerning perceptions of volunteer work. Thus, an activity performed for enjoyment or for the benefit of the community transforms into a method for building one’s resume in order to work more. A similar dynamic is present in the rising number of internships. Moreover, one might surmise that an increasingly competitive job market has led to an increased emphasis on those college majors which will help students find employment. Thus, a traditionally personal decision must now be made with market considerations in mind. Consequently, further research into these topics would be very informative. Moreover, many high profile court decisions have upheld the right of employers to refuse compensation to employees forced to endure onerous travel times, even those whose commutes are over 9 hours daily, or who transport company equipment in the course of their commute. Thus, the increasing regional specialization of an economy can lead to increased burdens (and correspondingly increased profits) as employees shoulder the transaction costs of regional specialization. Conversely, the growth of so-called telecommuting practices may lead to a constant engagement with work and put employees constantly “on-call” as these workers become increasingly enmeshed in a communication nexus of cellphones, email, and data entry programs. Thus, the overall development is for leisure time to be simultaneously encroached upon and transformed into a new site of work which may be exploited with impunity by employers.
In order to explain the phenomenon of over-work, one may examine a primary historical cause of increased working hours in the United States; namely, the rejection of work reduction by many labor unions during the 1940’s and 50’s. This rejection was a result of many factors. Primarily, unions during this period faced a dilemma concerning whether they should emphasize work reduction on the one hand, or pay increases and better working conditions on the other hand. Inevitably, work reduction received divided support while pay increases and improved working conditions received unanimous support. This phenomenon arose because all workers could benefit from increased pay and working conditions, but only some would want to reduce their hours and lose income in the process. Moreover, any firm with reduced hours would be less competitive than other firms. This demonstrates the need for national legislation to make work reductions uniform and to prevent unfair economic advantages through over-work. However, American unions have been far less aggressive in their agitation for national labor legislation than their European counterparts, and this difference has had significant results. Tellingly, between 1948 and 1975, 75% of the increased standard of living in the United States was through wage increases, while in countries such as Sweden and the Neatherlands, the increase in living standards was split between increased wages and decreased working hours. Consequently, examination of unions provides understanding concerning the lack of work reduction in the United States.
In order to more carefully analyze the relationship between U.S. labor unions and the length of the work-week, one may look to case studies. Jonathan Cutler’s book, Labor’s Time, focuses on the agitation by unionized auto-workers at Ford’s River Rouge Plant for 30 hours work at 40 hours pay. According to the book, it was the competition between the UAW-CIO and the UAW-AFL for rank and file support which led union leadership towards an opportunistic adoption of work reduction agitation. However, when the UAW-CIO received recognition as the exclusive union at the River Rouge Plant, the union leader, Walter Reuther, immediately dropped work reduction demands. Moreover, support for work-reduction was strongly supported by unemployed members of the union as a means of work-sharing, and when the union constitution was altered to prevent voting by unemployed members, work-reduction agitation decreased. In addition, Kellog’s Six Hour Day examines how union support for reduced hours transformed into opposition and support shifted towards increased pay. Indeed, this phenomenon was fairly common during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Thus, case studies present an in-depth examination of large-scale trends.
Several explanations exist for why labor unions began to shift away from the work reduction issue. In 1954, Business Week offered one explanation for this transformation in terms of the interests of senior union members: “Shortening the work would make them share the loss of earning time equally with the younger hands. Holding the work week at 40 hours, but cutting the number of employed would leave them where they are since layoffs are made on a strictly seniority basis”. Another possible cause of the transition away from work reduction was the transition between a deflationary, depression economy to a booming and inflationary war-time and post-war economy. Thus, if the value of money is steadily decreasing, it is in one’s best interest to spend that money rapidly, and thus one cannot “buy” leisure time through the accumulation of savings. Finally, the present rate of American union membership is only 17%, the lowest figure among industrialized nations. Consequently, unions must presently focus on issues in a pragmatic fashion and work-reduction presents a more difficult goal compared to others. Thus, several factors contributed, and continue to contribute, towards the redirection of union activities towards increased wages and away from work reduction.
It is important to note that leftist intellectual currents often ran counter to work reduction, and work reduction movements were hampered by these currents. Perhaps one of the most important figures for the American Left was Karl Marx himself who stated in his essay, “Alienated Labor”, “It is in the working over of the objective world that man first really affirms himself as a species-being. This production is his active species-life.”
Thus, according to Marx it is only through work that humans can truly be human, and while the alienation and exploitation of work is highly problematic, work itself is still essential. Moreover, the primary economic thinker of the mid-20th century, John Maynard Keynes stated in his highly influential The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, “This [work-sharing] seems to me to be a premature policy- much more clearly so than the plan for increasing consumption… I see no sufficient reason for compelling those who would prefer more income to enjoy more leisure.” Consequently, Keynes emphasized job creation through consumption over attempts to share work through the reduction of individual hours. Indeed, prominent New Deal intellectuals and officials such as Chester Bowles and David Lilienthal supported consumption as the primary economic policy and goal of government intervention. Moreover, the Employment Act of 1946 further reflects this new policy direction as it listed the federal government’s primary duties as “promot[ing] maximum employment, production, and purchasing power” Thus, the macro-political and intellectual changes of the mid-20th century shifted emphasis from work reduction towards increased consumption.
Moreover, there exists a significant and highly apparent link between over-consumption and over-work. While some may dispute that American society is characterized by over-consumption, it is highly significant that the average American spends 5.4% of their income on “Entertainment” compared to 1.7% on “Education”. In addition, increased consumption demonstrates an adopted strategy by individuals who seek to maximize their pleasure with limited time. Indeed, Professor of History, Gary Cross, has pointed out the existence of “the linkage of discipline (at work) with freedom (in consumption)”. Moreover, Juliet Schor asserts: “The more time substitutes for money, the more difficult it is to establish an independent measure of time’s value.” In addition, Schor explains, “commoditization of time transforms a quantity that is equally distributed among individuals into a quantity that is highly unequal in its distribution”. Furthermore, this increased consumerism can be attributed to increased marketing expenditure, which tripled between the end of World War II and 1959. Finally, recent research has revealed that television viewing leads to serious perception distortions concerning the reality of the world. This is extremely important once one becomes aware that the United States has the highest per capita television ownership for any country in the world, 806 per 1,000 people. Thus, Americans present easy targets for marketing campaigns. Indeed, the targeting of individuals by advertising and the consequent increased level of consumption reveal much about the dynamics of over-work.
Complementary to the trend of increasing consumption has been a trend towards increased employment of credit. Indeed, the total value of consumer credit grew by a factor of 11 from 1945 to 1960, and installment credit grew by a factor of 19. Moreover, rising inflation encouraged consumers to employ credit, because over time, their debt would remain nominally the same, but in terms of real exchange value, it would decrease. Furthermore, after a 1978 Supreme Court ruling, Marquette Nat. Bank v. First of Omaha Corp, banks and other credit institutions began to bypass state anti-usury laws, thus allowing for exorbitant interest rates. In addition, for the average American, “Total debt outstanding doubled in each of the first two decades of the twentieth century, then doubled again in the 1920’s, and again between 1933 and 1939.” Later, the ratio of credit to disposable income for Americans was 10.4% in 1950, 16.1% in 1960, and 18.5% in 1970. Finally, nothing better illustrates the excessive reliance on credit better than the creation of self-help groups such as Debtors Anonymous and Shopaholics Limited. Thus, consumer credit facilitated over-consumption which facilitated over-work.
It appears that a combination of union policies and politics, intellectual trends, over-consumption, inflation, and liberal credit polices all contributed to the work intensifications and expansions of the late 20th century. Indeed, during the 40’s and 50’s, union policies clearly transitioned towards an emphasis on wage increases over work reduction. Moreover, many prominent intellectuals on the left were opposed to work reduction policies. In addition, consumption has clearly increased since World War II. Indeed, increasingly liberal credit policies facilitated this trend towards over-consumption. Finally, constant inflation following the Great Depression led to a constant incentive towards accumulating and spending capital as quickly as possible. Indeed, the connection of inflation to over-work could be the key to this puzzle and more research into this topic would be incredibly informative.