Australia's working time crisis

We do not have a problem in relation to long hours of work in Australia - we have a crisis. 31% of our full-time workforce now works in excess of 38 hours a week. Two million Australians work on average in excess of 50 hours a week, each and every week. In Europe, the European Directive on Working Time caps working hours at 48 hours a week. So that is, 31% of our full-time workforce is working in conditions which in Western Europe would be unlawful.

More than half of that number are non-managerial award workers. It is true to say that managers and young executives climbing up the corporate ladder work disproportionately long hours. But it is also true to say that the phenomenon of long hours of work now extends to every occupational group in the workforce and to every industry within the economy.

Australia is the second longest working time country in the developed world. Only workers in Korea work longer hours than workers in Australia. That means that Australians on average are working longer than workers in Japan, than workers in Singapore, than workers in Mexico. And already there are some statistics where Australia is leading the world. Australia has, for example, the greatest proportion of its workforce working in excess of 50 hours a week of any country within the OECD.

Broadly speaking the problem is getting worse. Hours of work for full-time employees have steadily increased over the last two decades and it's true to say that they have also increased in the last 10 years. While it is the case that in the last year or two there appears to have been a drop in average hours of full-time workers, we are far from being in a position of being able to proclaim victory over the problem of long working hours.

Indeed, it seems as though trends in this area are discerned over decades and not as a result of one or two yearly figures. For it is still true to say, today, that we are the second longest working time country in the developed world. It is still true to say that as late as February of this year the second highest figure for average hours of full-time workers in Australia was recorded.

And Australian workers absolutely know it. In the recent ACTU survey of more than 8000 workers, 28% indicated that they would like to work fewer hours and a further 10% indicated that they were dissatisfied with the rostering or configuration of their hours. That is, more than a full third of Australians are concerned with their hours of work. It is consistent with the research that came out of the HILDA survey where 36-37% of workers indicated that they would like to work fewer hours.

Now some may ask whether it is such a bad thing that people are working long hours. Maybe it is good for Australia that we are a long- and hardworking nation. And yet the answer to this is that long hours of work are unequivocally bad.

It is documented that, in terms of health, long hours of work have been associated with increases in heart disease, decreases in fertility, increases with stress and other psychological disorders, decrease in the rate of healthy babies being born and increases in accident rates at work. At its worst, this is a problem which is killing our people. It is perhaps the single biggest occupational health and safety problem in our workplace today.

And the adverse effects associated with long hours of work do not stop there for there are very significant social effects associated with long hours of work. Relationships Australia says that the single biggest factor associated with relationship breakdown is a lack of time couples have to spend with each other. That is hardly rocket science. And yet the single biggest contributor to that is long working hours. Long working hours has also been associated with a decrease in parenting, by which is meant the amount of time that parents spend with their children, both in terms of quantities of 'hang around' time and in terms of more concentrated periods of quality time with their children. And it is well documented that a lack of time spent between parents and their children gives rise to behavioural problems in children, particularly in their adolescence.

This is a problem which is costing our community dearly. In 1999, the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into Fatigue in Transport attempted to put a cost on the total externalities associated with fatigue-related transport accidents which are primarily caused by work-related fatigue. And the figure, which by their own estimation was a conservative estimate, was $3 billion annually.

This is just examining one small adverse consequence of long hours of work. It is not attempting to put a cost on the loss of productivity as a result of tired workers. It is not attempting to put a cost on the increased number of accidents that occur at work. It is not attempting to put a cost on the increase in things such as heart disease and the burden this puts on our public health system. It is not attempting to put a cost of the enormous financial cost associated with family breakdown and divorce.

This is a problem which must be costing Australia tens of billions of dollars every year. And to give a sense of the order of magnitude of that figure the Victorian government's annual budget is $25 billion. That is, it is costing us about the same amount of money to run the second largest state in this Federation as it is to deal with this country's appalling record in relation to working time.

And yet Australia has a proud history in civilising hours of work. On the 21st April 1856 there was a march from a building site at the Old Quadrangle Building which was the original building at Melbourne University. It's a building which still stands today. Workers marched from there to the city in celebration of the institution of the 8-hour day on that worksite. It arose from a meeting about a month before on the 25th March 1856, a meeting that was chaired by Abraham Linacre, a building contractor, an employer. Indeed, the 8-hour day in this country was instituted by cooperation between employers and unions.

The significance of this is that it was the first worksite in the world where an 8-hour day was instituted. As remarkable as it seems to us in 2006, most of the labourers working on that site hailed from the British Isles and they sighted the oppressive heat of the Melbourne climate as being a reason why they couldn't work the same kind of long hours that were expected of them in the British Isles. And so it was that hours of work became a critical issue within the Australian workplace. And so it was that Australia began leading the world on this issue.

At the time of Federation the standard working week in Australia was 48 hours - 6 days of 8 hours per day. In 1920, in the Timber Workers Case, a case decided by his Honour Justice Henry Bourne Higgins, a 44-hour week was instituted for the first time in a national industry - five 8-hour days, plus 4 hours on Saturday. In other words, Saturday afternoons were given off. And that was confirmed for the entire Australian workforce in the 1927 44 Hour Case.

Twenty years later in 1947, the Standard Hours Inquiry introduced the 40-hour week into Australia - five 8-hour days. It was, in effect, the decision which gave Australia the weekend. At all points along that time line Australia lead the world in civilising hours of work.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the way in which Western Society organises its days and weeks now is partly as a result of the efforts of Australian unions, Australian governments and Australian employers in the period 1856 through 1947. It is perhaps Australia's signature contribution to the way in which the world works today.

It is therefore a tragic irony that Australia now languishes at almost the bottom of the ladder in relation to this issue. It is a tragic irony that in the year 2002 this country is the second longest working time country in the developed world. Australia has always been known for the hours its workers work. In the early part of our history we were known for civilising those hours but in the latter part of our history we've come to be known as a long-hours country. Indeed, on every OECD table we rate as a middle ranking developed country bar one and that is working time. It is what the world is starting to know us for. And so this is a problem in international terms. It is a problem in historical terms. It is a problem in financial terms. And it is a problem in human terms.

All of which begs the question as to what is the next step in re-civilising working hours in Australia?

In order to empower workers to be able to make the choices they want, in order to empower workers to be able to make choices which are relevant to their lives, then we need to provide them with a fair framework in which to make those choices. It is naive to think that Australia's long working hours problem will be solved by a collection of individual choices. Even Thomas Jefferson, who was no fan of regulation, who was the father of small government and individual liberties, even he acknowledged that those individual liberties needed to be exercised within a macro policy framework.

So what is an appropriate macro policy framework for Australia in the 21st Century? Western Europe has adopted a 48-hour cap through the European Directive on Working Time. The UK, a country which has a similar working time profile to our own, has put in place that directive within its own nation. And it has done so in a way which has not seen its economy go down the tubes. It has done so in a way which has not seen the sky fall in. And it has done so in a way which does appear to have reduced working time in its country.

And so, perhaps, it is to Western Europe that this country should look. At least in so far as commencing a debate about whether or not, at this time in history, it is appropriate to embark on a legislated 48-hour cap on working time.

For further information visit the ACTU website.