Ed Weick wrote: > When I was in my teens I spent fourteen months working in a sawmill which > was part of a huge pulp and paper mill. We worked three shifts, changing > every couple of weeks. Day shift was 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Night shift was 5 > p.m. to midnight; and Graveyard was midnight to 8 a.m. It's probable that > people who work in large operations that are difficult to shut down and > start up still work shifts like that.
Shift work is still of the "9 to 5" kind, albeit shifted. "24/7" is different -- it refers to an around-the-clock availability of the wage slave that is fostered by e-mail and cell-phones. People have been fired because they dared to turn off their private cell-phone (during their "leisure" time!) so they didn't "see" a new order from the boss in time. (Self-employed "one-person companies" are also often exposed to "24/7", waiting for orders from customers.) The shift workers of the old days couldn't even dream of such a level of exploitation -- they at least had their leisure and sleep times and their weekends for themselves. Chris _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
