BY TERRICA STRUDWICK
Australian workers are second to South Korea in working the longest hours. They may soon be in first place, as South Korea is legislating to reduce working hours.
With long working hours reaching epidemic proportions, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has lodged a case in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission as part of the ACTU's "reasonable hours" campaign. The ACTU seeks guidelines on excessive working hours and unhealthy roster plans.
In 1947, the 40-hour work week was won. Since the 1980s, there has been no public policy response to increased working hours. It was in that period that Australia departed from the international trend of decreasing working hours.
An overwhelming number of people in Australia work long, often unpaid, hours of overtime. Between 1981 and 2000, there was a 76% increase in the number of Australians working more than 45 hours per week, bringing the number to 2.4 million people, with 1.6 million working more than 50 hours per week. The largest increase — a staggering 94% — was for those who work 50-59 hours per week.
A 1997 report conducted by the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training indicated that only 36.5% of the work force work the "standard" 38-hour work week.
It is estimated that 60% of overtime is unpaid. ACTU president Sharon Burrow told reporters outside the AIRC, "It's equivalent to 400,000 full-time jobs". She noted that in Australia there is no choice on doing overtime or not.
The ACTU is requesting that the AIRC put in place a standard that says an employer may not require an employee to work unreasonable hours, with criteria to determine this. This will give employees and unions the right to prosecute those employers who do not comply.
The ACTU is also asked for criteria to define what constitutes extreme hours. If an employee meets this, then they would be entitled to sufficient time off for rest.
ACTU assistant secretary Richard Marles told the AIRC: "We work so that we can live, we do not live so that we can work. Unfortunately, Australian society and Australian workplaces are fast becoming characterised in precisely opposite terms."
Steve Smith from the Australian Industry Group, an employers' organisation, maintains that the unions' claims are "fundamentally flawed". Smith insists that working hours "is an issue that should be dealt with on an industry-by-industry basis. That's the way the commission has looked at hours of work issues in the past."
That is precisely why extreme working hours have reached such epidemic proportions.
From Green Left Weekly, December 5, 2001.
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