Subject: Long Workdays Draw Backlash
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 7:23:47 PDT
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (CSM / Abraham McLaughlin)
Organization: Copyright 1998 by Christian Science Monitor (via ClariNet)
Newsgroups: clari.biz.economy.usa, clari.news.labor.misc,
clari.biz.features, clari.biz.economy,
After working harder and longer for years, many Americans want to
take a break.
That's one message coming from recent labor strikes across the
country: the two-week-old walkout by U S West telecom workers, the
Northwest Airlines pilots strike set to start tonight, and the recent
Bell Atlantic and General Motors stoppages.
Indeed, in a nation where workers average enough extra hours to
equal about three more weeks of work per year than they did just 10
years ago, some economists are predicting a period of adjustment on
the issue of overtime. Eventually, that could mean less time at work,
especially for employees with families, or an increase in wages (which
has already begun).
``A lot of the recent labor strife has been about people being
pushed too far,'' says Dale Brickner, an emeritus labor professor at
Michigan State University.
At Northwest, pilots' new reluctance to work overtime is causing
flight cancellations. At U S West, workers are protesting having to
work 60-hour weeks. At Bell Atlantic, employees won limits on
mandatory overtime as part of their Aug. 11 agreement.
American workers are balking now at extra hours for a variety of
reasons, analysts say. For much of the 1990s, fear of being
``downsized'' out of a job or even the desire to buy more stuff led
many employees to clock long hours. But as the US economic boom has
outlasted most expectations, all the time away from home began to wear
on many workers.
For its part, corporate America likes overtime. It's cheaper to pay
current employees extra than it is to hire and train new workers.
Moreover, management is now confronted by a labor shortage, making new
workers hard to come by.
Many economists argue, too, that the overtime glut may have helped
to keep the economy humming: By not boosting wages, employers avoid
igniting inflation.
But there's also evidence that some companies are beginning to
realize their work forces are bushed.
In the U S West strike, the company took out conciliatory ads last
week to tell 34,000 striking workers, ``We get it.'' While management
disputes the contention that union members logged 6.5 million overtime
hours last year - and that many employees work 10-hour days six days a
week - the ads were an acknowledgment that workers are having to trim
family and personal time to work more.
As settlement talks continue, workers are seeking limits on
mandatory overtime, much like those won earlier this month by Bell
Atlantic employees.
Leverage of overtime
At Northwest Airlines, meanwhile, pilots are pushing for a 15
percent raise. They want to share in the airline's big profits. But as
the raise has seemed uncertain in recent weeks, pilots have begun
refusing to work overtime.
The airline counts on that overtime when it creates schedules, so
it has had to cancel several hundred flights.
``The company relies on pilots' goodwill,'' explains Kit Darby,
president of AIR Inc., a consulting firm in Atlanta. ``In the long
term it saves the company a lot of money to count on this goodwill.''
But if that goodwill evaporates, it may exacerbate another issue of
concerned to pilots: job security. They worry they'll be replaced by
less-well-paid pilots of the company's small-airline partners, the
puddle-jumper companies.
All in all, the overtime issues in today's strikes hint at
Americans' growing effort to achieve better balance.
``We're not at the overwork level of Dickens,'' says Stephen Rose,
a senior economist at the Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing
Service. ``But a lot of people wonder if the rat race is worth it.''
For many years, however, the trend has been work, work, work. The
average married-couple family worked 247 more hours in 1996 than in
1989, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute in
Washington. That's the equivalent of three extra weeks per person.
Between 1970 and 1990, the average US worker added 163 hours - a
whole extra month - to his or her yearly total, according to ``The
Overworked American,'' by Harvard University professor Juliet Schor.
She attributes the jump to growing consumerism - people wanting to
earn more money so they can buy more things.
Opportunity strikes
But there may be other reasons. Because of stagnant wages and job
insecurity, more Americans may figure that when they have a job they
should make as much money as they can.
``There's a feast-and-famine phenomenon in the workplace,'' says
economist Barry Bluestone at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
``People may moan and groan about working more hours, but given
falling wages and job insecurity, they do it.''
Working harder has also come at the behest of America's bosses. In
the 1980s, companies like Ford and Chrysler discovered it's cheaper to
have a stable of productive workers. When business booms, these
employees can work overtime - and the company can hire temporary
workers to pitch in.
By not hiring more full-time workers, the firm avoids paying
severance packages, health benefits, and the like.
``If you put a person on your payroll and they stay with you until
they retire, it costs a bundle,'' says Michigan State's Dr. Brickner.
One benefit of the current system, he points out, is that there won't
be as many layoffs during economic slumps.
Yet the new paradigm has caused tension. The GM strike was mostly
about America's biggest automaker playing catch-up on this concept.
Furthermore, unions are realizing that companies' reliance on
overtime - rather than new workers - is hurting their membership
numbers. So now unions are joining with the overworked employees.
``At first workers said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' `` to more overtime,
says Rose. ``But after doing it week in and week out, they're now
saying, 'No, no, no.' ``
Regards,
Tom Walker
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