Aloha,
Recent article in the NYT, with a title in the on-line edition much more
funky (and apt) than in the print one: "Women Did Everything Right. Then
Work Got ‘Greedy'’ (vs "Longer work hours widen gender gap")
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-greedy-professions.html
(funky illustration too, btw)
The article is about "how America’s obsession with long hours has
widened the gender gap". An utmost concerning issue and also a classroom
grade instance of 'Kaliyuga' (aka 'verschlimbesseren' in the former GDR)
in case you need one.
Aside from the gender pay gap gone even worse than before I learned two
things: the moniker 'greedy professions' to describe the more edgy - and
egregious - trades spawned by neo-liberalism (in finance, law,
accountancy etc), but mostly that the phenomenon of excessively paid,
mandatory overwork is a phenomenon of the past two decades only. With
hindsight, this should come as no surprise.
It comes even less as a surprise since mandatory overwork, this time
scantily - if at all - paid has long been the bane of the
cultural/artistic/voluntary sector. And it encroaches more and more in
other, all other, professions: a kind of pincer movement driven both by
the 'idealistic' as well as the 'materialistic' sectors.
In both, it is all about a certain 'culture' (I surely wouldn't call it
an 'ethic') where all strands in the (hyper)modern world to come
together: individualism, deregulation, religious disaffection,
flexibility-precarity, to name a few, come together, and almost always
helped and abetted by peer pressure on the work-floor (or its current
equivalent).
Excess being the curse of our time, there has been a lot of discussions
about possible tax measures to reign its most visible aspect,
disproportionate earnings. It should be possible in theory - it has been
done before - even though the outlook is pessimistic (and never mind
curbing disproportionate wealth). Now I am wondering if the same sort of
measures could be envisaged in terms of working time.
Not long after the introduction of the law limiting the work week to 35
hours in France, the Paris police irrupted in a boardroom and arrested
directors for illicit overwork. This incident (never repeated) caused
endless guffaws in France and abroad, especially in the 'Anglo' realm.
However I always thought that it was entirely appropriate, and that laws
limiting working time should not only apply to the salariat, to protect
it against exploitation, but possibly even more so to the managerial and
directorial classes, as they set both the example and the norms.
What does come as a surprise to me is that this approach has not been
discussed more - but maybe I have missed something.
Cheers from Oslo, p+2D!
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