cut the working week

The workers' Mayday originated in the fight for the 40 hour week 5 day week and was finally achieved (more often honoured in the breach as in reality) in the US in 1938. Fifty years ago the American Federation of Labor called for a 30-hour work week (the U.S. Senate even passed a 30-hour law, though it was defeated in the House); in 1961 the head of the New York Central Labor Council urged unions to campaign for a 4-hour day. For decades the radical union the Industrial Workers of the World have had the demand for the 20 hour week - "4 hours work for 8 hours pay puts more workers on the job every day" but today the mainstream unions won't campaign even for a 35-hour week.

Now the New Economics Foundation have re-newed the call for a drastic cut in working hours. In a recent paper they argue for a 21-hour work week. The NEF says there is nothing natural or inevitable about what’s considered a "normal" 40-hour work week today. In its wake, many people are caught in a vicious cycle of work and consumption. They live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume things. Missing from that equation is an important fact that researchers have discovered about most material consumption in wealthy societies: so much of the pleasure and satisfaction we gain from buying is temporary, ephemeral, and mostly just relative to those around us (who strive to consume still more, in a self-perpetuating spiral). The NEF argues we need to achieve truly happy lives, we need to challenge social norms and reset the industrial clock ticking in our heads. It sees the 21-hour week as integral to this for two reasons: it will redistribute paid work, offering the hope of a more equal society (right now too many are overworked, or underemployed). At the same time, it would give us all time for the things we value but rarely have time to do well such as care for our family, travel, read or continue learning (as opposed to feeding consumerism).

To save the world by laying the foundations for a "steady-state" economy -- and to just make our personal lives better -- we will need to work less.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-case-for-a-21-hour-work-week.html

Calling time on the call centres

Having talked to a few Indian's about their experiences of working in the call-centres it seems my personal anecdotal evidence appears very true from this story .

Young men and women in call and contact centres across India are over-worked and stressed out. Many are leaving the industry.Call centres hold no attraction for these people anymore. They are changing professions.

Shabana Pavaskar, a senior staff at a reputable call centre in Mumbai, feels it is not a career, just a job.
"I have been working here for many years but there's no promotion, no motivation and the hours are extremely demanding," she says. "Over-time is not an option but a compulsion. A government job with a fairly less salary will be more feasible than working here."
She says it loud, she says it clear. And so do many others. The industry has tried hard to make it lucrative for young people by creating cool recreational facilities and improving infrastructure, but that has failed to stop them from leaving for greener pastures.
"Where's the time to use their damn gym or cafeteria or other facilities?" says Ms Pavaskar.

Shameela Zaidi was among the first to join the fledgling BPO industry at the beginning of the decade. She found little time to spend with her growing son and the shifts were at odd hours [ due to varying time zones ].
"I didn't get time to spend with my son and my health completely deteriorated," she says. "The other important thing is that there is no growth in terms of salary and career."

There was a time when our office was cluttered with 500 to 600 people who came for recruitment in one day," Abhishek Tiwari, with many years behind him as a call centre man, left the industry recently despite being promoted to senior manager and recruiting youngsters for his call centre says. "Today, even after lowering our standards, getting 40-50 people a day was a struggle."

Little Boxes

Call centre and other outsourced businesses such as software writing, medical transcription and back-office work employ more than 1.6 million young men and women in India .

They are, however, facing sleep disorders, heart disease, depression and family discord, according to doctors and several industry surveys. The IHT writes that the outsourcing industry has come under fire because the sedentary lifestyle of its employees combined with often stressful working conditions makes them more vulnerable to heart disease, digestive problems and weight gain than others. Some complain of psychological distress. A recent survey showed sleep disorders topped health complaints among outsourcing industry workers. About 32 percent of respondents complained of sleep disorders; 25 percent had digestive troubles; and 20 percent reported eyesight problems, said the survey. Sleep and digestive disorders, doctors say, can grow into bigger problems: hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.

One out of 10 persons aged 35 years or more in India is prone to heart attack.Heart disease is projected to account for 35 percent of deaths among India's working age population between 2000 and 2030 according to a World Health Organization study. That number is about 12 percent for the United States, 22 percent for China and 25 percent for Russia.

Most call center jobs involve responding to phone calls through the night from customers in the United States and Europe -- some of whom can be angry and rude. It is monotonous and there is little meaningful personal interaction among co-workers. That can also be true of other jobs such as software writing and back-office work. Long, odd working hours means couples don't have much time together.

Loneliness can also take a toll."There is no social life," said Vats, who worked at night and either slept or watched television during the day. "You are not meeting new people"

The outsourcing boom has created new employment opportunities for Indian women, but there has been little change in social expectations. Adding workplace demands to responsibilities at home, which often includes taking care of in-laws, leaves women workers with multiple stresses

According to this article Indian outsourcers are suffering from high staff turnover rates because many workers see it as a “dead end job”, according to a new report . The study puts the current staff attrition rate in Indian call centres as high as 40%. This turnover has previously been blamed on long, unsocial hours associated with servicing overseas customers in different time zones and higher salary offers from rival firms. But the survey of agents found more than 50% said they considered call centres a dead end job.
The staff attributed their exits to a lack of growth opportunities, expectation mismatches and dissatisfaction with company policies. Night shifts, monotony of work and better salary offers elsewhere were given as reasons for moving on by only 39% of respondents.

Here , we read , that in the past five years, more than 100,000 young Indian graduates have made the move to Bangalore, or the suburban New Delhi city of Gurgaon, to answer calls from credit card holders, make sales pitches or maintain records. The jobs are eagerly sought with pay from 500 to 1,000 dollars a month, compared to per capita annual income in India of around 600 dollars. But late hours far from home led to high staff turnover and companies found that a good salary was not enough to attract employees who were increasingly eager to return to small-town India.

"I was hating every minute of my call centre job in New Delhi," says Sanjeev Rana "I barely got four hours sleep between shifts and meals were at dingy roadside restaurants..." he adds.

it is no holiday for Americans

According to the study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research one in four private sector workers in the USA – 28 million people – receive no paid holiday whatsoever.

The average American in the private sector gets 15 paid days off per year, nine of them as vacation and six as public holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas Day . When you join an American company, you usually start with a week or two's vacation a year. Only after five years or more will the entitlement rise to four weeks.

Many workers don't even take what they are entitled to. Earlier this year the authoritative Hudson Employment Index reported that 56 per cent of workers do not use their full entitlement, and that 20 per cent, one in five, plan on grabbing no more than the odd long weekend.

Germans put in 25 per cent fewer hours per year than the Americans, and the French, with their 35-hour week, fully 28 per cent less. In Europe, the minimum is 20 working days, and 25 or 30 days are often the norm. Some French, Germans, Italians and Brits revel in five or six weeks off, and that's not including public holidays

For Americans job insecurity has grown. People need more money to meet ever-rising healthcare bills and college fees. Yet for middle and lower wage-earners, pay has stagnated. For the average worker, paid vacations are going the way of guaranteed pensions and of healthcare coverage that once came with the job.

Capitalism is offering no real holiday for our American comrades .