FW working hours - visions
In response to Tom Lunde, Arthur Cordell, Michael Gurstein, Eva Durant, Neva Goodwin and Sherry Martin Thanks to all of you for your comments. I think we do need positive and optimistic visions as Arthur Cordell and Sherry Martin were posting. We also need the pessimistic "black" visions like Michael Gurstein's "Angell Dust", just to know, whereto it could lead us. I fully agree with Eva Durant, that more democracy will bring more chance of conscious cooperation, of free flow of information about dangers and options. Take the example of the end of the German Democratic Republic - "We are the People" was the slogan of the peaceful revolution. There are a lot of economic and political trends coming from North America to Europe, but it could be the other way round some time : take the efforts for a 35hours work week in France and Italy, take the strike in Denmark for more paid vacation days. The new social democratic governments in Europe - far away from beeing socialistic - are still fearing the political impact of a rising unemployment rate. The creation of labour is their first goal. Unfortunately there are only few voices who are asking, what kind of work is needed. Job creation politics has to start - like energy politics - with an evaluation what kind of work should and could be reduced. After that we should discuss ways to achieve a fair distribution of paid and unpaid work, between men and woman, between regions and continents. I would be happy, if based on internet-debates like our's, we could formulate an international work-reduction programme for the next 20 years. Let us try a revival of the strong 8-hours movement in the USA some 100 to 120 years ago. With best wishes, Robert Neunteufel I invite you, to visit my personal website: http://members.EUnet.at/ro.neunteufel
Re: working hours-visions
Hi Robert, you don't know me, I am Thomas Lunde's friend, Sherry Martin. He shares some e-mail with me and I was intrigued by your question. So, my reply: In five years I still see the expanding of "normal" work hours, not formally but just happening. I think the average employee feels threatened and driven to achieve or be replaced. I see people working 60 + hours per week. I remember when the business world switched from a standard 40 hour week to 37.5. It was supposed to be more humane. Ha, I think the employee lost something. As I remember it, we used to get paid for breaks and sometimes even lunch. I feel that in the 37.5 hr week we lost our hour lunch break, it's now standard 30 minutes. We mostly lost the 15 minutes coffee breaks. This took a little longer, around 5 years ago I noticed people stopped taking formal breaks and the smokers just ran outside every two hours for a cig, and the others just worked and looked like a better employee. Anyway, I see the pressure increasing and the hours extended. Then... Relief... I think in about 10 years the technology and peoples attitude will bring about a change, maybe not so much shorter hours, but the amount of work done in our homes will be greatly increased. When technology can assure the boss that the employee is really doing the work and not walking the dog, then we will be able to work at home more and more... then... In 15 years, I see finally the slow down of the driving pressure to perform in todays work world. By then if people are still working and not just robots, I would expect the emphasis to be on the task at hand rather than the amount of hours worked. Reward for completing the task is a broader view, think we can expand that way? Perhaps in 20 years we will be able to choose if we want to work or not, maybe it'll even be a considerable privilege to be chosen a worker! I think it would be grand if workers could choose their work, or contribution based on the fact that they want to do it, rather than just for survival. If in 20 years we could evolve to a society where the person was valued no matter what they did or didn't do, just because they were there, would this be my number one choice. I can see it laid out in different ways but the end result is the same. Peace on Earth. Sherry Martin -Original Message- From: Robert Neunteufel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: November 24, 1998 2:58 PM Subject: Re: working hours-visions >Thomas Lunde wrote: >> >> Robert wrote: >> >> I'd like to ask you all for your visions for the development of the >> regular amount of working hours in the next 5, 10, 20 years! >> >> Thomas: >> >> It will depend on subsistence. If we become owners of intelligent robots, >> we may evolve into a non working environment, the best of the techies dream. >> If we face dieoff, subsistence may take extraordinary efforts in time and >> energy, the pessimist worst viewpoint. > >Dear Thomas, > >thank you for your comment. What is your opinion, which one of the two >possibilities you mentioned above has greater chances to come true? > >With best wishes, > >Robert Neunteufel > >
Re: working hours-visions
-- Hi Sherry et al, [snip[ >In five years I still see the expanding of "normal" work hours, not formally >but just happening. I think the average employee feels threatened and driven >to achieve or be replaced. I see people working 60 + hours per week. I >remember when the business world switched from a standard 40 hour week to >37.5. It was supposed to be more humane. Ha, I think the employee lost >something. As I remember it, we used to get paid for breaks and sometimes >even lunch. I feel that in the 37.5 hr week we lost our hour lunch break, >it's now standard 30 minutes. We mostly lost the 15 minutes coffee breaks. >This took a little longer, around 5 years ago I noticed people stopped >taking formal breaks and the smokers just ran outside every two hours for a >cig, and the others just worked and looked like a better employee. Anyway, I >see the pressure increasing and the hours extended. Then... > >Relief... I think in about 10 years the technology and peoples attitude will >bring about a change, maybe not so much shorter hours, but the amount of >work done in our homes will be greatly increased. When technology can assure >the boss that the employee is really doing the work and not walking the dog, >then we will be able to work at home more and more... then... > >In 15 years, I see finally the slow down of the driving pressure to perform >in todays work world. By then if people are still working and not just >robots, I would expect the emphasis to be on the task at hand rather than >the amount of hours worked. Reward for completing the task is a broader >view, think we can expand that way? > >Perhaps in 20 years we will be able to choose if we want to work or not, >maybe it'll even be a considerable privilege to be chosen a worker! I think >it would be grand if workers could choose their work, or contribution based >on the fact that they want to do it, rather than just for survival. If in 20 >years we could evolve to a society where the person was valued no matter >what they did or didn't do, just because they were there, would this be my >number one choice. I can see it laid out in different ways but the end >result is the same. Peace on Earth. > >Sherry Martin [snip] Sherry, As much as I like your vision, I see no reason to believe that the majority of the population is at all prepared to grant even subsistance living standards to those who choose not to work. You see that changing in 20 years or so but if you look back 20 years attitudes were not much different than now. Why do you think that the social conscience will take such an abrupt change in so short a time? The more likely path, given that no natural disaster befalls us, is that we will continue to see a concentration of economic power to the disadvantage of most workers. Events will undoubtedly vary from country to country, but eventually major social and political unrest will force local changes. I cannot hazard a guess how that will work out, in the US or anywhere else. I am not optomistic. The likelihood of natural disasters is another matter. As we become more and more tied into a world-wide network of suppliers and customers we become more, not less, subject to disruption due to failures in far-away places. The Y2K will give us a good test of this hypothesis. Even if every computer system in the US functions, how much disruption will occur due to system failures elsewhere? And, of course, some US systems will fail. Since this will occur in just 12 to 15 months, we do not have to wait for 10 to 20 years. There has been much talk about how communities can learn to do without the benefit of the global marketplace. We will find out soon enough. Dennis Paull Los Altos, California
RE: working hours-visions
> I'd like to ask you all for your visions for the developement of the > regular amount of working hours in the next 5, 10, 20 years! > If that includes me - it seems that regularity is already largely out of the window. Also, the question is, what considered "working". Just because something is done for fun or enjoymnet, if it still can create usefulness for more than the individual who is doing it, and so it can be considered work, even if it doesn't need to be sold/bought/valued. There will be some boring/nasty stuff that needs to be done even in a collective/democratic system, but all creative effort will be on making it substitutable or well distributable, so each of us would need to do it only for a few hours/year or even month, which itself can make it to such a novelty as nearly enjoyable. but first you have to get to the stage where such organisation is possible - under a from the bottom to the top power/economy sharing that is not to be discussed on this list for some obscure reason. No, Jay, dictatorial solutions cannot work, they lead to dieoff much quicker than anythoing else, just look at history. Perhaps in medieval times you had legends of "good kings" but even then they were - legends. And in modern times all totalitarianism ended up in catastrophy, however well-meaning it was at the start. The more democracy, the more chance of conscious cooperation, of free flow of information about dangers and options. Is this such mad-sounding to you people that you're boycotting my messages? This is the only message that is simple and practical enough to be understood by all and acted upon by all. It could motivate masses of people before, and it will again, if we are lucky. You may make up fancy new words - they wont make it very far however well received they are in the next seminar/conference etc. Eva > Ok, Ok, attached is a paper from a just over two years ago which also > attempts, in a serious/whimsical way to get at the answer. > > arthur cordell > > THE 2010 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION > > ON WEALTH AND WELL-BEING > > > Presented to the roundtable > > "HI HO, HI HO, IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO: > > Engagement in the 21st Century" > > > State University of NY at Buffalo, October 24-26, 1996 > > Arthur J. Cordell > > (The views expressed are those of the author alone and are not necessarily > those of any department or agency of government.) > > > > > > I have a unique contribution to the Roundtable. A gift from the > future. Through methods which we can't explore now, I have obtained parts > of the year 2010 annual report of the International Commission on Wealth and > Well-Being. > > The International Commission on Wealth and Well-Being, or ICWW, was > established in 2002 in response to the need for new institutions of global > governance. A perception by nations that traditional institutions such as > the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others were hopelessly > connected to the rhetoric and the theories of the industrial economy. > > But why should you listen to me talk about the Report? Why not turn > directly to the Report itself. > > So come with me now as we open the Report. > > > INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON WEALTH AND WELL-BEING > > Looking back from this year, 2010, it is a good time to review some > of the events leading to our founding in 2002. > > It is now clear that the stock market collapse of 1998 was the > final straw for many. While the mutual fund mania was bound to end at some > point, many middle class investors who had been downsized, rightsized or > otherwise bought off were content to leave their permanent jobs and invest > their cash settlements in pension schemes. With the stock market collapse > came the realization that something had clearly gone wrong. > > The recession that seemed to last forever, got worse as a host of > economic numbers spelled out a gloomier future for all. The riots and loss > of life in Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Toronto, Amsterdam, Bombay and Los > Angeles led directly to the emergency meeting by nation states. There is > still much discussion whether the riots and loss of life could have been > prevented. Did nations have to wait for a crisis before acting? We'll > leave that up to the historians. The fact is that action has been taken and > the results are good. > > Back in January 1996, the World Academy of Art and Science noted in > its newsletter, 'All around the world, the arts and sciences and technology > of information/communication are raising productivity while reducing > employment.' > > WAAS was not alone. Many voices were heard. Some noted the end of > work with applause, some were wringing thei
RE: working hours-visions
Arthur Cordell wrote, >Ok, Ok, attached is a paper from a just over two years ago which also >attempts, in a serious/whimsical way to get at the answer. It's appropriate, when asked for our visions of the future, to rummage in the archives and recall past predictions that may or may not have had a chance to be tested by time or, at the very least, by the litmus of readers' reception. A little over a year ago, I wrote a technical paper on contract costing and work time. I'd like to share the introduction to that paper now for two reasons: 1. I'm currently wrestling with writing a new piece incorporating what I've learned in the interim and 2. the paper had a remarkably mixed reception, initially evoking both extravagant praise and censure and eventually settling down into amiable neglect. The paper I wrote a year ago focussed on how well labour unions measure the price at which their members are selling their labour time. The answer was "not very well at all." What I've learned subsequently is that employers are every bit as inept as unions at answering the question "how much does it cost?" To be more precise, neither business nor labour actually asks that question. Instead, they both perform rituals of adversarial arithmetic aimed only at justifying a predetermined outcome. You don't have to take my word for it. Ask Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of an article in the May/June Harvard Business Review on "Six Dangerous Myths about Pay." Next time somebody tells you that a four day work week "would cost too much," remember that they have magically arrived at the answer without ever having asked the question "how much would it cost?" The irony is that in performing their adversarial polka, business and labour have danced themselves into a corner in which labour costs are higher and the returns to labour are lower than they need to be. Contract Costing and the Campaign for Reduced Working Time Tom Walker (September 13, 1997) At it's April 8th, 1997 meeting, the Canadian Labour Congress's Ad-Hoc Committee on Working Time raised the question of how working time issues could better be brought to the membership and to the bargaining table. One strategy that has not yet been widely recognized would be to adopt the use of contract costing methods that are more accurate and more sensitive to the effects of changes in work hours, paid time off and overtime. A review of contract costing methods used by some unions shows that these methods introduce substantial errors into the calculation of contract costs. Such errors are invariably biased against reduced work time. They tend to understate the value of paid time off and of reductions in working hours and they tend to overstate the value of overtime work. But, aside from their errors in calculating the relative benefits of working time proposals, these methods tend to significantly overstate the total cost of a settlement. Miscalculations in costing contract proposals weaken the labour movement's pursuit of shorter working time through collective bargaining. And they may contribute to settlements that contain unnecessary concessions to management. More accurate and time sensitive contract costing could help avoid these pitfalls. >From a broader perspective, more accurate contract costing also could provide new insights into the efficacy of strategies that have long dominated the labour movement's pursuit of shorter work time. These strategies include demands for reductions in work time with no loss in pay and legislative advocacy of increases in overtime premiums. In the concluding section of this brief, these strategies will be re-examined in light of the data from more accurate contract costing. Some of the suggestions for new strategic directions may be controversial within the labour movement, so it must be emphasized that there are two distinct and equally important reasons to pursue better contract costing: · more accurate and time sensitive contract costing can help achieve better results from current strategies; and · better contract costing can lead to adoption of better strategies. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
RE: working hours-visions
-- From: Robert Neunteufel To: Futurework Subject: working hours-visions Date: Saturday, November 21, 1998 8:29PM In addition to the postings on the views on Rifkin's theory (thanks for all the interesting informations) I'd like to ask you all for your visions for the developement of the regular amount of working hours in the next 5, 10, 20 years! Ok, Ok, attached is a paper from a just over two years ago which also attempts, in a serious/whimsical way to get at the answer. arthur cordell THE 2010 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON WEALTH AND WELL-BEING Presented to the roundtable "HI HO, HI HO, IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO: Engagement in the 21st Century" State University of NY at Buffalo, October 24-26, 1996 Arthur J. Cordell (The views expressed are those of the author alone and are not necessarily those of any department or agency of government.) I have a unique contribution to the Roundtable. A gift from the future. Through methods which we can't explore now, I have obtained parts of the year 2010 annual report of the International Commission on Wealth and Well-Being. The International Commission on Wealth and Well-Being, or ICWW, was established in 2002 in response to the need for new institutions of global governance. A perception by nations that traditional institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others were hopelessly connected to the rhetoric and the theories of the industrial economy. But why should you listen to me talk about the Report? Why not turn directly to the Report itself. So come with me now as we open the Report. INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON WEALTH AND WELL-BEING Looking back from this year, 2010, it is a good time to review some of the events leading to our founding in 2002. It is now clear that the stock market collapse of 1998 was the final straw for many. While the mutual fund mania was bound to end at some point, many middle class investors who had been downsized, rightsized or otherwise bought off were content to leave their permanent jobs and invest their cash settlements in pension schemes. With the stock market collapse came the realization that something had clearly gone wrong. The recession that seemed to last forever, got worse as a host of economic numbers spelled out a gloomier future for all. The riots and loss of life in Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Toronto, Amsterdam, Bombay and Los Angeles led directly to the emergency meeting by nation states. There is still much discussion whether the riots and loss of life could have been prevented. Did nations have to wait for a crisis before acting? We'll leave that up to the historians. The fact is that action has been taken and the results are good. Back in January 1996, the World Academy of Art and Science noted in its newsletter, 'All around the world, the arts and sciences and technology of information/communication are raising productivity while reducing employment.' WAAS was not alone. Many voices were heard. Some noted the end of work with applause, some were wringing their hands. Some called for still more competitiveness in the face of rising unemployment. The fact is that in the last decade of the 20th century few were unaware of the great changes affecting the workplace. The western world was coming to the end of the industrial era: an era of traditional scarcity, of people having to work in one job or another to earn money for life's necessities. Other fundamental changes were taking place. During the 1980's and 1990's the developed world was shedding many of the hard won gains of development. Universality, a hallmark of economic development was challenged. At first it was nibbled at by the de-regulators championing competition in telecommunications and transportation. Soon it affected education, libraries and water supplies. De-regulation was based on a simple premise: let the market decide price and allocation. Avoid cross-subsidization in markets, nations, and communities. De-regulation took on a life of its own. University fees skyrocketed, public libraries were closed, private schools mushroomed for the rich, bottled water became the norm--the poor either boiled water or adopted the lifestyle of their third world brethren. The 'gated' community, private security forces...We created a society of haves and have-nots. The middle class was barely hanging on--but the stock market collapse put an end to that final hope. The plunge in housing prices followed soon after. The 90's were an odd time. In the face of so much evidence t
working hours-visions
In addition to the postings on the views on Rifkin's theory (thanks for all the interesting informations) I'd like to ask you all for your visions for the developement of the regular amount of working hours in the next 5, 10, 20 years! I give you some visions from the past: Aistotle, 350 B.C.: "If each tool could - by order, or knowing by itself - do the work it is ment to do, like the artistic products of Daedalus where moving automatically, or the tripods of Hepaestus where doing their holy work voluntarily, the master would not need assistents and the bosses no slaves." (translation from a german version of his work "Politics" - sorry, I don't have an english source) Lukian, a greek writer, 150 A.D.: "6 hours are enough for work, the others say to mankind : live!" Thomas Morus, about 1515 A.D. : people in Utopia are working 6 hours a day Paul Lafargue, leader of the french and spanish labour movement wrote his essay "The Right to Idleness - Refutation of the Right of Work from 1848" in 1880. He is pleading for a 3-hours workday. He is quoting Aristotle and writes: "The dream of Aristotle has come true today (1880!!). Our machines are doing, with fiery breath, with untiring limbs of steel, with wonderful inexhaustible procreative power, teachable and automatically their holy work...the machine is the redeemer of mankind, the god that is bying mankind off from work, the god who will bring them leisure and freedom." 1889: International conference in Paris: 8-8-8, 8 hours work, 8 hours leisure time, 8 hours sleep ! Bertrand Russell: we already had the "needle"-example - 4 hours workday! André Gorz, 1989: 20.000 hours of work in a lifetime What are our visions for the next 5, 10, 20 years? With best wishes, Robert Neunteufel Visit my personal website: http://members.EUnet.at/ro.neunteufel !
Re: working hours-visions
Robert wrote: I'd like to ask you all for your visions for the development of the regular amount of working hours in the next 5, 10, 20 years! Thomas: It will depend on subsistence. If we become owners of intelligent robots, we may evolve into a non working environment, the best of the techies dream. If we face dieoff, subsistence may take extraordinary efforts in time and energy, the pessimist worst viewpoint.
