Land of the Long Weekend
The Big Picture, ABC TV
Wednesday, September 6, 9.30pm
Land of the Long Weekend attempts to explain why Australian workers were the first in the world to win the eight-hour day and to examine the legacy of that struggle today. In the process, this documentary uncovers an Australia no longer drunk on sunshine or living weekends to the full, but which has become the land of the lost weekend, of clocking on and off, of extraordinary roster systems, of the haves and have nots.
Through the ironic use of 1950s film footage (predominantly British documentaries portraying a mythical Australian lifestyle of almost permanent relaxation), director Sue Brooks probes a broad range of people's working lives today and compares them with the past. In doing so, however, the program's explanation of the origins of the eight-hour day are utterly fanciful.
According to philosopher Mary Graham who is interviewed in the film, the 40-hour working week won by Australian stonemasons in 1856 was a product of Europeans working in a hot climate and consequently developing a laid-back attitude. "This land is spiritually influencing white fellas to take it easy."
Sadly, the attitude that workers have not had to struggle and have played no part in making their own history, permeates the whole program. Not one identified trade unionist is interviewed.
A more factual explanation for the winning of the eight-hour day is that Australia's geographic isolation, small population and shortage of skilled labour helped workers to win conditions that were well in advance of other western countries in the late nineteenth century.
The fact that the eight-hour day was initially won by an organised section of workers, the Stonemasons, is another important lesson to draw. Yet Freeman completely sidesteps the critical role that trade unions have played in the struggle for decent working and living conditions.
The program goes to great pains to demonstrate that, in recent times, hours of work have increased in this country. However, it offers no explanation about why the average Australian now needs to work longer. The major reason, that workers' real wages have fallen, is studiously ignored.
Since 1982 award rates of pay have fallen by 17 28% and average weekly earnings by about 5%. Hourly award rates of pay have fallen by more than 20% since the beginning of the 1980s. In this context, family living standards have been maintained by more women than ever before entering the paid work force as a second breadwinner. However, as the number of two-income families has increased, so too has the number of no-income families.
The number of long-term unemployed people has risen from just over 100,000 in 1989 to around 400,000 today. If the official figures took into account all of those people who would look for work if they didn't have other responsibilities — mainly women who are caring for children full time, the sick and elderly — then the real unemployment figure would be closer to 2 million people, or nearly 23% of the work force.
But don t expect to find any of this information in the documentary. Instead we are lectured to by Victoria s industry and employment minister, Phillip Gude, about life being too easy and how other countries are working harder. "We must compete", announces Gude. "Those who have work are the relatively privileged."
Land of the Long Weekend has nothing to say about social justice, workers' rights, or how the battle for the eight-hour day was won. It is historically inaccurate and ideologically right wing, attempting to prove that worsening working conditions and lengthening unemployment queues are somehow inevitable and permanent. The message of the film — that there's no way of fighting back — is clear and must be rejected.