Helga’s Heartlines: A Journal

Toronto, Ontario.


Here we are, again, my dear commuters. October 23rd, 2000, 7:30 am – Monday Morning Malaise. The southbound Go Train to Toronto’s Union Station glides swiftly past semi-dark scenery, as I sit and gaze discreetly at you, the passengers who comprise my fellow workforce. What a lively bunch we are. Some folks, like me, I see, are practically comatose.

Not for the first time, I ask myself “Why are we doing this? Why so many of us - still? Why is it taking so long to benefit from Alvin Toffler’s, The Third Wave? What ever happened to the 4-day work-week, the very least of that which we were promised?”

Even half asleep, the absurdity of the situation assails me. In this day and age, threshold of a new Century – mankind having traversed the farthest reaches of this planet and beyond, split the atom, manipulated electronic particles, cracked the code on DNA, mapped the human genome – we can’t manage to keep working men and women out of the office for one more day? With such strides in science and technology, surely there ought to be more time available to us, not less? What is all this development for, if not to do things for us, better, and faster, and free us up? Well, we know the answer - Obviously, it’s a matter of priorities. The primary driving force, in this, our North American economy, and culture, is greed.

Brought up in the Protestant Work Ethic, we employees naturally, understandably identify with the need for Business to husband the bottom line, get the most with the least, squeeze out as much profit as possible, in order to be, and stay competitive – and keep our jobs. But we’ve bought into these external goals of the corporate world largely at our own expense. We working people are for the most part its’ willing or unwitting pawns.

What am I talking about: a shortened workweek! Imagine. In the last several years we have progressively given up our hardest won historical gains – our precious time – along with no appreciable increase in pay. We have let ourselves be cheated out of a decade’s worth of productivity gains in the process! The last time there was such a tremendous shift in the work place – thanks to the Industrial Revolution – the workweek was reduced from 6 days to 5. Well, now, there has been a Technological Revolution - It’s about time all of us benefited from it.

What are we waiting for? Heaven knows - Most of us could use the extra time. We don’t all live to work. I, for one, do not accept the situation with complaisance. Think about it. Life is not nearly what it ought to be, for most of us, in spite of our material wealth. I’ll bet we work as hard or harder than the surfs and slaves of yore. We call this Progress? For most of us the quality of life has been in a state of deterioration since our youth. Our level of existence ought to have moved up a notch or so with all this development. It’s not supposed to be about worrying, and striving, working harder and faster, to merely amass material goods and maintain a roof over our heads. We human beings also have a need to move toward higher concerns -deriving more personal pleasure and reward from daily living, exploring and developing our individual creativity, and potential, fostering our family and community relationships, paying more attention to the needs of our youth and the growing numbers of elderly.

These days there is talk of our Ontario Government formally recognizing what is already a de-facto situation - the 60-hour workweek! These were the regular hours in a workweek back in 1890 and that my mother worked while a refugee in Hitler’s Germany! Business - Corporate Canada/America – Get your house in order. See past existing paradigms – In your own jargon, “think outside the box”. Give us long-standing, dedicated, hardworking people what you owe us – time without reduction in pay. Give us back some of those profits that went into your hefty executive bonuses all these years. Hey, you can have machinery hum around the clock, seven days a week, should you wish, in compensation; employ more people for less hours; fulfill yours’ and Society’s needs - with the added benefit of being seen as socially responsible.

In the meantime, in the words of Bob Black, in 1985 – recommended reading - from his essay, Abolition of Work, shared with you here courtesy of CLAWS, “Workers of the world... Relax!” Still 40 minutes to go on the Go – think I’ll take a nap. Have a good morning, everyone.

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A 1958 study under the auspices of the newly inaugurated Center for the Study of Leisure at the University of Chicago fretted that "the most dangerous threat hanging over American society is the threat of leisure," a startling claim in the decade in which the Soviets got the bomb.(4) 'Life' magazine echoed the warning about the new challenge of free time: "Americans now face a glut of leisure," ran a headline in February 1964. "The task ahead: how to take life easy." - 'Bowling Alone' by Robert D. Putnam.

Ah yes, as a teen, I remember reading that very Life magazine article, watching more than one tv program on the subject...thinking what a pity I wasn't going to benefit from it soon enough...Anyone else recall those predictions? Well, then, how did that agenda, that very real prospect get railroaded?


~ Helga Marion Ross ~

Copyright 2000