Adapted from Richard Schiffman Why We Should Work Less 2012 by The Washington Post Company Originally published January 28 2012 1 Recently a friend confided over dinner that her job was killing her I was surprised She is a director of a midsize nonprofit

Adapted from Richard Schiffman, “Why We Should Work Less.” ©2012 by The
Washington Post Company. Originally published January 28, 2012.
1 Recently a friend confided over dinner that her job was “killing” her. I was surprised.
She is a director of a midsize nonprofit that is doing citizen diplomacy work in the
Middle East, and she has often remarked on how gratifying it is to be involved in
a program that brings historical enemies face to face to share their stories.
2 But 2011 was a tough year for fundraisers, and my friend has been doing double
duty as her understaffed organization struggles to make up the shortfall. Like many
nowadays, she takes her work home with her, which has taken a toll on her personal
life, health and sleep. She is thinking of leaving the nonprofit but is afraid to do so
before she finds another job.
3 Another friend, who is employed by a large insurance company, is routinely forced to
work late and at home on weekends—often without pay—on the projects she didn’t
have time to finish at the office. With the threat of layoffs ever-present, she dares not
complain....
4 Americans already work hundreds of hours a year more than their counterparts in
other developed countries, including workaholic Japan. They also have fewer days
off than Europeans, who typically take four to six weeks of paid vacation a year.
5 Companies argue that grueling work schedules are necessary to boost productivity.
But consider that, despite the recession, the productivity of U.S. workers has
increased more than fourfold since the 1950s. Meanwhile, the buying power of wages
has remained stagnant and in recent years has even begun to decline. Someone is
getting rich off the exponential rise in productivity, but it is not the American
worker.
6 In the past, unions struggled not only to raise pay but also to shorten the hours that
their members had to work. The trend toward shorter hours continued unabated
from the Civil War through the end of the Great Depression and the enactment, in
1938, of the Fair Labor Standard Act’s 40-hour-week provision. But during World
War II work hours increased sharply, and it has not been a significant public issue
since.

7 Given the recent troubles in the U.S. economy, this may seem an odd moment to
reconsider the value of working less. But this crisis is not due to poor productivity;
U.S. workers’ productivity is at an all-time high. Neither is it a crisis in corporate
profitability, which continues to soar despite tough economic times for ordinary
Americans. It is arguably a crisis in corporate greed, one created by financial entities
pushing for ever higher growth rates and levels of profitability regardless of the cost
to the long-term health of the economy or for those whose hard work made that
economy flourish over the past century.
8 Americans know that we can no longer afford a corporate culture on steroids that
generates unsustainable profits by systematically cannibalizing our nation and the
people who make it work. So a good place to start applying the brakes on this
runaway train would be making sure that we don’t have to kill ourselves at work just
to make a living.
9 A widescale reduction in work hours would spread out the national workload and
help to make more jobs available for the unemployed. Historically, shorter
workweeks have been as large a creator of new jobs as market growth, sociology
professor Juliet Schor argued last year.
10 While shorter hours would mean less income for many, nearly half of Americans
surveyed in 2004 by the Center for a New American Dream said that they would
be willing to accept a smaller paycheck in return for more time with their families
and leisure. This would help explain the popularity of four-day workweeks; a pilot
program in Utah found 82 percent of state workers surveyed said that they liked the
change and wanted to stick with it.
11 The benefits of shortening the workweek would be incalculable for Americans’ health
and well being. And it would even be good for the planet. A 2006 study by the Center
for Economic and Policy Research estimated that, if the United States were to
emulate the shorter workweeks of Western Europe, energy consumption would
decline about 20 percent and our country could significantly diminish its carbon
footprint. Millions of Americans could live with less stress and more happiness and
fulfillment.
12 With so much to gain, we need to cut work hours while there is still time.