What am I talking about? A shortened workweek! Why not? We have let ourselves be cheated out of more than a decade’s worth of productivity gains.

Helga's Heartlines: A Journal
October 28, 2000

Here we are, again, my dear commuters. October 23rd, 7:30 am - Monday Morning Malaise. The southbound Go Train to Toronto's Union Station glides swiftly past semi-dark scenery, as I sit and gaze discreetly at you, the passengers who comprise my fellow workforce. What a lively bunch we are. Some folks, like me, I see, are practically comatose.

Not for the first time, I ask myself "Why are we doing this? Why so many of us - still? Why is it taking so long to benefit from Alvin Toffler's Third Wave? What ever happened to the 4-day work-week, the very least, of that, which we were promised?"

Even half asleep, the absurdity of the situation assails me. In this day and age, threshold of a new Century - mankind having traversed the farthest reaches of this planet and beyond, split the atom, manipulated electronic particles, cracked the code on DNA, mapped the human genome - we can't manage to keep working men and women out of the office for one more day? With such strides in science and technology as these, surely there ought to be more time available to us, not less? What is all this development for, if not to do things for us - better and faster - and free us up? Well, we know the answer - obviously, it's a matter of priorities. The primary driving force, in this, our North American economy and culture, is greed.

Brought up in the Protestant Work Ethic, we seasoned employees naturally, understandably, identify with the need for Business to husband the bottom line, get the most with the least, squeeze out as much profit as possible, in order to be, and stay competitive - and keep our jobs. But we've bought into these external goals of the corporate world largely at our own expense. We working people are for the most part its' willing or unwitting pawns. What am I talking about - a shortened work week! Imagine! In the last several years we have progressively given up our hardest won historical gains - our precious time - along with no appreciable increase in pay. We have let ourselves be cheated out of a decade's worth of productivity gains in the process. The last time there was such a tremendous shift in the work place - thanks to the Industrial Revolution - the workweek was reduced from 6 days to 5. Well, now, there has been a Technological Revolution - It's about time all of us benefited from it.

What are we waiting for? Heaven knows, most of us could use the extra time. We don't all live to work. I, for one, do not accept the situation with complacence. Think about it. Life is not nearly what it ought to be, for most of us, in spite of our material advantages. I'll bet we work as hard or harder than the serfs and slaves of yore. We call this Progress? For most of us the quality of life has been in a state of deterioration since our youth. Our level of existence ought to have moved up a notch or so with all this development. It's not supposed to be about worrying, and striving, working harder and faster, to merely amass material goods and maintain a roof over our heads. We human beings also have a need to move toward higher concerns - derive more personal pleasure and reward from daily living, explore and develop our individual creativity and potential, foster our family and community relationships, pay more attention to the needs of our youth and the growing numbers of elderly.

These days there is talk of our Ontario Government formally recognizing what is already a de-facto situation - the 60-hour work-week. These were the regular hours in a work-week back in 1890 and that my mother worked while a refugee in Hitler's Germany!

Business - Corporate Canada/America - Get your house in order. Get with it. See past existing paradigms - In your own jargon, "think outside the box". Give us long-standing, dedicated, hardworking people what you owe us - time without reduction in pay. Give us back some of those hefty profits that went into your executive bonuses all these years. Hey, you can have machinery and computers hum around the clock, seven days a week, should you wish, as compensation, and employ more people for less hours. You can fulfill both yours'and Society's needs, with the added benefit of being seen as fair and socially responsible. For our part, we'll see to it the money gets re-cycled.

In the meantime, in the words of Bob Black, way back in 1985 - highly recommended reading - from his essay "Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery", "Workers of the world... Relax!"

Still 40 minutes to go on the Go - think I'll take a nap. Have a good morning, everyone.