“Peirce tells the intriguing story of the battle for shorter hours … and why now is finally the moment for a breakthrough that would give us all more of the precious gift of time.” — LINDA McQUAIG, journalist and author
You can’t have a healthy economy with an unhealthy work force. Work Less proposes ways to reduce work hours and keep workers happier, healthier, and more productive.
Recent years have revealed just how stressed out many workers are. While the trend to longer hours has been developing for several decades, the trend’s effects have been aggravated during the pandemic by the growing use of Zoom and other new technologies for meetings with clients, customers, and co-workers.
Exhausted and fed up, today’s workers are starting to insist on shorter hours and greater flexibility as to where they do their work. There is growing consensus that the forty-hour week, the norm since the 1940s, has outlived its usefulness. And there is an urgent need for new work schedules that adequately reflect the far greater intensity of work today, as well as the greater family demands on a labour force made up of almost fifty percent women, who bear the brunt of domestic duties.
Work Less offers practical scheduling suggestions to employers and workers and numerous policy options for government policy-makers to improve working conditions.
You can’t have a healthy economy with an unhealthy work force. Work Less proposes ways to reduce work hours and keep workers happier, healthier, and more productive.
Recent years have revealed just how stressed out many workers are. While the trend to longer hours has been developing for several decades, the trend’s effects have been aggravated during the pandemic by the growing use of Zoom and other new technologies for meetings with clients, customers, and co-workers.
Exhausted and fed up, today’s workers are starting to insist on shorter hours and greater flexibility as to where they do their work. There is growing consensus that the forty-hour week, the norm since the 1940s, has outlived its usefulness. And there is an urgent need for new work schedules that adequately reflect the far greater intensity of work today, as well as the greater family demands on a labour force made up of almost fifty percent women, who bear the brunt of domestic duties.
Work Less offers practical scheduling suggestions to employers and workers and numerous policy options for government policy-makers to improve working conditions.
Authors
- Pages
- 296
- Published in
- Toronto, CA
- Rights
- Jon Peirce
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Half Title 2
- Title 4
- Copyright 6
- Dedication 6
- Contents 8
- Introduction: Suddenly, the Time Is Now (Once Again) 11
- 1 Working Ourselves Sick 19
- 2 Historical Development of Work Hours I: The United States 31
- 3 Historical Development of Work Hours II: Canada 63
- 4 Historical Development of Work Hours III: Work Hours Around the World 73
- 5 A Special Decade: Work Hours and the 1920s 101
- 6 Technology, Work Intensification, Stress, and Distress 113
- 7 The "Great Resignation"and Its Effects on Work Hours 131
- 8 The Right to Disconnect 143
- 9 Hybrid Workplaces and Their Implications for Work Hours 169
- 10 What's Been Happening Lately on the Shorter Hours Scene? 189
- 11 Recommendations 213
- Conclusion 221
- Acknowledgements 222
- Appendix A: Profile of Joe O'Connor: He Works so You Can Work Less 225
- Appendix B: An Interview with Henry O'Loughlin 229
- Appendix C: People and Organizations Working for Shorter Hours 235
- Notes 239
- Bibliography 273
- Index 285
- About the Author 298
