[No wonder unemployment is so high with so many 'volunteers' taking the extra jobs. --- Trudy] The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9902/18/text/national5.html Overtime: the second job Date: 18/02/99 By SUZANNE HALL Software engineer Mr Owen Caughley used to work as many hours unpaid overtime as many people in a normal working week. Installing software for a Japanese multinational, Toshiba, he was frequently working a 65-hour week without compensation. According to a Newspoll survey, funded by the NSW Labor Council, overtime is becoming the scourge of emerging "gold" collar sectors - high-income professionals in the fields of accountancy, law and medicine. In the telephone survey of 568 full-time workers, 44 per cent said overtime affected their health, more than half said it harmed their social life and almost a third that it affected sexual relationships. The survey found highly paid professionals, particularly lawyers and accountants, were most likely to find overtime encroaching into other aspects of their lives. While satisfied with their salaries they felt pressured to work extra hours to be seen as committed and to gain promotion. A study by the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training last year found more than 50 per cent of NSW workers regularly worked more than 40 hours a week, with almost a third working more than 49 hours. Mr Caughley said long working hours had a negative impact on his health and social life. "Life amounts to going to work ... it kills your social life and in addition to stress, there's sleep deprivation, not eating properly and not seeing the sun," he said. He said long hours were not uncommon in the information technology industry, where most workers work at least 10 hours' overtime a week, with only a small proportion being compensated. Reasons for this level of overtime include low-profile union presence, high salaries and a shortage of workers in the information technology industry, according to Mr Caughley. But things are changing. The Australian Services Union has been negotiating an enterprise agreement with Toshiba International, which develops software for Japanese power stations, with changes including a cap of 37 work hours per week. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
