Whining About Work

Yes, the TUC is complaining about working hours again.

The TUC called on the Government to back proposals aimed at strengthening the European Working Time Directive, which aims to tackle excessive working hours, when the issue is discussed at a meeting next week.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, said: "After slow but steady progress over the last decade, long hours working is making its way back into Britain's work places.

"Employees across Britain already work the longest hours in western Europe. The recent increase will mean lower productivity, more stress and less time to have a life outside the office with friends and family.

"When the Government meets with other European ministers next week, it should side with Britain's 25 million workers and take action to end the excessive working hours, rather than siding with the business lobbyists who act as apologists for Britain's long hours culture."

I've had occasion to complain about this analysis before. For we most certainly do not work longer hours than our forefathers just as a start. But more importantly, looking at the number of hours in paid work only is a flawed measure in itself.

The more important question is whether we have more leisure hours than our forefathers did and it is most certainly true that we do. What has happened is that (whatever has happened to hte number of paid working hours) the number of unpaid working hours that we do in home production has fallen. Yes, for both men and women. Washing machines, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, central heating instead of coal fires: all of these technological advances have increased (substantially) the amount of leisure time that we enjoy.

We can actually go further than this. Given that increase in potential leisure time, it's obviously (or rather it obviously should be) up to each individual as to how they spend it. Some might indeed like to wander through meadows saying "Hello, sky!". Others might wish to play with, or practice the procreation of, children.

Still others might want to keep their leisure hours constant and substitute the formerly unpaid work in the house for paid work outside the house (as women have been doing in increasing numbers for decades and we think it's a jolly good thing that they have).

That latter actually means that there's nothing inherently bad about the paid working week getting longer: if that's what people want to do then that's simply an expression of their liberty and freedom to do so, isn't it?

So why would anyone want to ban them from being able to do so?

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