Free time = less stress!! (The Working Week: Do We Work Too Many Hours?)

Member Name: strange_child

Product:	The Working Week: Do We Work Too Many Hours?
Date:	15/05/02 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: read on

Disadvantages: read on

This is quite topical for me, having just finished a French oral about how they are going to implement the same thing, except that workers will not have to work more than 35 hours a week. I am only a student, and I’m not likely to start a full time job for about 5 years, but I think that this is an interesting debate that will eventually affect everyone. However, there are a few arguments for and against which I will try and fairly outline;

<Against>
This won’t work for all jobs. My mother is a teacher, which requires being at school from about half past eight until sometimes even six o’clock each week day, and then when she comes home she has to prepare work for the next day. There isn’t anything measuring the exact amount of time that she spends on work altogether, but I would guess that it is more than 48 hours a week, and she is on a salary. If she didn’t do this work at home, then her teaching would suffer, and the children’s education as a result, I suppose this is only homework in a way, but it may count as her 48 hours, and this is quite voluntarily (i.e. there is no one there to make sure that she actually does this preparation.)

Also, businesses will have to employ more people and therefore either cut the salary, or lose even more money for companies such as electricity or gas, that have to keep running 24 hours. They need the workers, but the workers won’t be able to do more hours as a result.

<For>
As I said before, I am a student, but I find myself working a nine hour shirt every Saturday. While this isn’t anything like what some people work, it is quite intensive, requiring me to stand on my feet for nine hours in either the bitter cold or sweltering heat (I work in a garden centre!) with only half an hours relief half way through. Now there are people at my work which must endure this every day, Monday to Friday, and have been doing so for a long time. That’
s only about 45 hours a week, not even up to the maximum required, but that must be a lot of effort.

I think that people work better when they’re less stressed, and that means taking a bit more time off. I do psychology, and I know from various studies that when you are stressed you cannot achieve your full potential, i.e. you could be really rude to the customers because you are tired. Employers always want their staff to achieve their best, and if doing that by cutting their hours then they should realise the value of this.

I agree that workers should have the right to only have to work a certain amount of hours, and this law will prevent tyrant bosses from intimidating their staff into accepting work that they really don’t want to do. I think that people should have the choice to accept supplementary hours if they want to, as long as this is their choice, and they aren’t forced into it. I don’t know how that would work though. I’m not sure if this is the case here in England, but I know that in France, the amount of supplementary hours that you can do a year will be decreased from 180 to 130, which I think is quite a big leap.

Altogether, this is a good thing for workers in their 9-5 jobs, but not necessarily for those who may not work to a particular time, or have to do preparation. Also, it is taking away a right of being able to choose to work lots of hours, which some people may want. But overall, I think it is good, because it will help ensure that ‘inferior’ workers aren’t exploited as much as they could have been in the past.

Summary: