I am living in a small city in the province of Styria in Austria. I am
working in the Chamber of Labour (department for education and culture)
in Graz (capital of Styria).
I am a member of the "Association for Retardation of Time - ART", which
tries to something against the inhuman high speed an the stress of our
society. I give you some short information about ART below.
The topic of this years conference is "Time and Work".
I am preparing a talk about "Time and Work and interests of employees".
I kindly ask you, to give me some relevant information on that topic
e.g. examples of shorter working time, the amount of overtime, stress
on the workplace, flexibilization, the fight against sunday - work ...
Any comment is welcome,
with best wishes, Robert Neunteufel
Association for Retardation of Time (ART)
Address: Verein zur Verzoegerung der Zeit, Sterneckstr. 15,
A-9010 Klagenfurt, Austria, Europe
Telephone: US/CA 01143 GB 0043 / 463-2700-742 (Fax -759)
"Time is money", this slogan coined in connection with industrial
production has been transferred to all other spheres of our lives. Lack
of
time is a problem for nearly all people living in a "western" social
system.
As the social and economic forces promoting the acceleration of our
lives
are very strong and active, we need active solidarity to achieve the
cultivation of slowness, deliberation and leisure.
Sten Nadolny, author of the novel "The Discovery of Slowness", says: "We
should try to enable individuals to free themselves of internalized
norms
of speed so that at least in their spare time they are able to decide
freely about the speed at which they want to operate, where this is
possible without existential disadvantages."
The members of the Association for Retardation of Time (ART) should
stand
up for the right to pause for reflection in situations where mindless
activism and vested interests produce solutions that are expedient
rather
than genuine.
The time-retarders try to find new and more deliberate ways of dealing
with
the phenomenon of time all the way from the personal sphere to regional
or
global experiments and projects.
ART has members in Austria, Germany and other European countries.
Once a year there is an ART Conference.
ART has several autonomous regional groups. The author of this short
memorandum is the spokesman of the regional group of the province of
Styria
in Austria.
There is a lot of literature on the topic of "Time".
Here are some personal recommendations:
- Ende, Michael: Momo, 1973
- Dominguez, Joe and Robin, Vicki: Your Money or Your Life, Pengiun
Books
- Gorz, Andre: Critics of Economic Reason
- Hesse Hermann: The Art of Idleness
- Lafargue, Paul: The Right to Idleness
- Linder, Staffan, B.: The Harried Leisure Class
- Russell, Bertrand: In Praise of Idleness and other Essays
