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eelhound · 5 months

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"We live in a time of crisis. Consider three interwoven ones.

First, climate change. Every year brings more forest fires and less breathable air, the result of an economic system predicated on burning fossil fuels and working long hours to fuel energy-intensive consumption.

Second, overwhelmed families. Even though people in the Global North live in the richest societies the world has ever known, the majority still find themselves overworked and overwhelmed. Practically every family, especially with young kids, is stressed and strained, struggling to balance the unbalanceable demands of care with no support and work with no flexibility.

Third, millions of poor and working-class people are profoundly unfree in that they have no time for anything but the constant scramble to stay ahead of the bills. In Europe, the average woman in a couple with children works a massive seventy-one hours per week when you include her unpaid care labor. In New York, a single mother on minimum wage would need to labor for an astounding (and impossible) 117 hours every week to meet her basic needs. We live in an epidemic of time poverty, where compulsory overwork defers dreams and crushes aspirations under the relentlessness of Sisyphean toil.

Imagine, for a moment, a different kind of society where the standard job was part-time, but also a good job, offering decent pay and benefits as well as flexibility and career advancement. Public provision of essential services would provide a background of economic security: from health care to childcare, pensions to transit (and, ideally, a basic income as well). With their basic needs met, individuals wouldn’t have to rely on their jobs nearly as much to get by — and working substantially less than forty hours would be something to be desired rather than feared.

The Research on Part-Time Work

Recent scholarly evidence shows that slashing work hours is key to confronting climate change. For example, Jonas Nässén and Jörgen Larsson find that “a decrease in working time by 1% may reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by about 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively.” David Rosnick and Mark Weisbrot find that if the United States were to slash its working hours to Western European levels, energy consumption would drop by 20 percent. The most rigorous study to date is probably that of Jared Fitzgerald and colleagues, who performed a longitudinal study on fifty-two countries. They confirmed the results of other studies that more working time leads to more energy consumption, and that this relationship is intensifying over time for both rich and poor countries.

We know that under regular conditions, capitalist economies grow and grow, but so far only by producing more and more emissions. Global emissions have only fallen four times over the last sixty years — 1981, 1992, 2009, and 2020 — precisely when the world was in the throes of economic recession. This is the cold reality of neoliberal capitalism: it forces us to choose between environmental destruction or the social misery of mass unemployment.

Good part-time work offers us a structural escape hatch — a new model to immediately reduce emissions without putting people out of work.

Of course, part-time work isn’t enough by itself. A pro-worker climate agenda must also include national and global agreements on carbon caps, a Green New Deal that unleashes massive state investment fueling decarbonization (for instance, shifting toward clean energy and building new public transit infrastructure), and so on. But good part-time work is a necessary, if insufficient condition, for preventing ecological disaster.

In terms of work-life balance, the evidence is even stronger. The academic literature finds again and again that bringing down work hours alleviates family stress and strain. To cite one of many examples, Rosemary Crompton and Clare Lyonette report in a 2006 paper that in every one of the five countries they studied, “working hours were the most significant predictor of work-life conflict.”

We also know that free time is foundational for individual freedom. To live the life one wants, free time is essential to devise and accomplish any of one’s life goals. One cannot be deeply engaged with family, friends, art, activism, sport, music, education, or any of the variegated projects that animate people’s aspirations if one is always on the clock.

The US vs. Western Europe

For hundreds of years, a vibrant strand of socialism has aspired to build a world with substantial freedom from toil — a world where machines do much of the work so humans don’t have to, freeing us to pursue our aims, develop our capabilities, and flourish in whatever directions we see fit. This is a world where artificial intelligence and robots actually make human life better and easier, rather than ushering in unemployment, fear, and inequality.

But is good part-time work really possible?

For those of us living in North America, part-time employment usually means poorly paid and precarious, with few benefits and even less autonomy. However, there’s nothing inevitable about this. Western European examples show that it’s completely possible to transform crappy part-time jobs into good, secure jobs.

In Denmark, for example, part-time work is usually good work. Whereas the hourly wage gap between full-time and part-time women is more than 20 percent in Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, in Denmark, it is about zero. Danish part-timers also enjoy robust benefits and pensions; a person who works part-time at 75 percent for ten years then full-time for the rest of their career, will end up with a pension worth 98 percent as much as someone who worked full-time their whole career.

A single mother working at the lowest wage (there is no official minimum wage in Denmark, since wages are set through collective bargaining) for thirty hours per week earns €27,600, while the living wage is roughly €15,000. Danish part-timers appear to be very happy with their situation. The percentage of part-time women who say they are “dissatisfied” with their job is only 4 percent, and the percentage of part-time workers who are dissatisfied with their life as a whole is just 0.4 percent.

The Netherlands is another illuminating example. It is the world’s first so-called “part-time economy,” with the highest proportion of part-time jobs in the world. Amazingly, close to 50 percent of the entire labor force works part-time (compared to only 18 percent in the EU27).

Since implementing the Equal Treatment (Working Hours) Act in 1996, it has been illegal for Dutch employers to discriminate between full- and part-time workers in the provision of pay, benefits, holidays, and employment opportunities. Part-time jobs are mostly open-ended contracts, not a precarious form of nonstandard employment — part-timers are not significantly more likely to work unsocial hours like evenings, nights, or weekends — and the country boasts the highest proportion of firms in Europe with part-time positions at high levels of qualification (47 percent). The result is that the gap between hourly part-time and full-time wages is only about 5 percent, with very little part-time work being involuntary (only 5 percent of female and 10 percent of male part-timers would prefer to be full-time).

Crucially, the cluster of policies boosting part-time work exists against a background of relatively robust economic security. The country’s National Old Age Pension guarantees every citizen a flat-rate pension by sixty-five, regardless of previous employment or earnings. A living wage for a single mother in the Netherlands is today about €15,000, whereas her income from working thirty hours per week on minimum wage is roughly €19,000. A family with two adults, both working thirty-hour weeks, earns a median income of roughly €60,000 — easily surpassing the living wage floor for the whole family (two adults, two kids) of €43,000. Part-time work, in other words, is perfectly feasible for everyone.

Things could hardly be more different in the United States.

In California, a living wage for a four-person family is roughly $110,000. If both adults worked part-time (thirty hours per week) the family would take in a median income of just $70,000. If part-time work is unattractive for the bottom half of the population, the situation is far worse for the poorest. A single mother in Los Angeles working thirty hours per week at a minimum wage job will bring in only $24,180 — pitifully short of a living wage, which for such a family is more than three-times greater, at over $80,000.

The reason the living wage in the United States is so much higher than in Europe is because social democratic welfare states provide their citizens with free or subsidized health care, childcare, transport, housing, etc. The amount of private money that anyone needs to acquire their basic needs (the “living wage”) is therefore much less. A good life based on part-time work is completely feasible in many parts of Europe.

Germany is another example. Although the country has many fewer part-time jobs than the Netherlands, they have done an excellent job of shrinking the number of hours worked in standard full-time jobs. Germany currently has the shortest working hours in the world — an average of 1,341 a year — which is, remarkably, 26 percent, or the equivalent of eleven full working weeks, shorter than in the United States. In Berlin, a living wage today is about €15,000 — within reach of anyone on a part-time income, since even a minimum-wage part-time worker makes €18,720.

A Transformative Demand

The bottom line is that constructing an economic system where part-time jobs are both good and widely available is possible. Doing so requires the standard social democratic tools of unions, high taxes, and progressive governments willing to regulate the market on behalf of workers. None of this is easy to achieve, particularly in countries with as weak a labor movement and as powerful a business class as the United States. But political will, not technical feasibility, is what is standing in the way of a good life for the majority.

In these times of crisis, it is easy to feel dispirited and hopeless. And when hope departs, cynicism grows. The vision of a freer society built around good part-time work is one antidote to such cynicism. It is a bold, feasible demand — at once radical and realistic in the medium term. The elements that are required already exist in various places around the world.

The result would not be a utopia. It would not solve all our problems. But it could transform our lives."

- Tom Malleson, from "We Should All Be Working Part Time for Full-Time Pay." Jacobin, 22 November 2023.

#tom malleson #quote #quotations #work life balance #leisure #economics #democratic socialism #overwork #adulting #climate change #climate crisis #capitalism #jobs #neoliberalism

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gottawhump · 11 months

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Guard Dog

Eliot

CW/TW: conditioning, overwork, exhaustion, pet whump, BBU/WRU. Eliot meets Jonas. Character development.

It’s exhausting to clean a whole house by himself. Sir-Nikolai’s house is smaller than his old owners’, but still big.

He needs to stop frequently.

Sometimes he closes his eyes for a moment, after closing a closet door behind him. An empty closet, all the carpeted floor space for him to lie down on and rest. Just for a minute.

He wakes up with the Guard Dog above him, looking. He scrambles to get to his feet, but his legs don’t cooperate. He only makes it to his knees.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Rest is earned by work, 704. Do you think you’ve earned it? “I didn’t mean to-to fall asleep. Please don’t tell Sir—“

“Sir? Does he make you call him that?”

He wants to hide from the anger. He wants to hide. If you’re noticed, you’ve already failed. But he’s trapped, the closet wall at his back, the Guard Dog-Jonas, his name is Jonas-blocking the door.

“No-no, he doesn’t.” You can call me Kolya, if you want. “But, but he’s an owner.”

“He’s not your damn owner.”

He wraps his arms around his knees, drops his head down, tries to make himself smaller. If you can’t do better, you’re only useful as Guard Dog bait, 704.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” The snarl is gone, Jonas’ voice is soft now. “I’m not mad at you. Nikolai just doesn’t think sometimes. Why were you sleeping in a closet?”

“I didn’t mean to sleep. Please—“ He can’t breathe. Grey static creeps up at the edges of his vision. Then, darkness.

He wakes up in Sir-Nikolai’s bed, not sure how he got there.

“Sometimes I don’t think either. I’m sorry,” Jonas says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Eliot nods.

It’s easier to breathe after Jonas leaves the room.

But he’s soon back, carrying a tray with butter toast and a glass of orange juice. Sick food, his mind supplies from somewhere.

Eliot sits up, and Jonas places the tray over his lap.

“I don’t think you’ve eaten at all today.”

The toast is soft and hot, the butter melting and sweet on his tongue. He finishes both triangular halves, and sips at the orange juice. Jonas smiles, showing disconcerting fangs.

“Thank you, Si-Jonas.”

He shrugs. “You don’t have to clean here, you know. Nikolai hires a service to come in twice a week. And-and you can sleep anywhere. It just worried me, when I didn’t know where you were.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You-don’t need to do that, either. Apologize, I mean, for everything.”

“It’s hard, not to.” It hurts, not to, muscles tensing, throat closing, heart racing. The first and last words out of your mouth needs to be “I’m sorry”, because you’ve been noticed, and if you’re noticed, it’s because you fucked up.

“I know.”

Forgive and Forget taglist: @whumpsday @painful-pooch @whumpinggrounds @justplainwhump @bluetheautisticrat @i-eat-worlds

Eliot/704 taglist: @kim-poce @fishtale88 @i-eat-worlds @roblingoblin285 @cepheusgalaxy

#pet whump #bbu/wru #conditioning #overwork #exhaustion

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depressedgaywriting · 2 years

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Hero watched Supervillain warily as they crossed the room to lounge against the desk in front of them. "What do you want from me?"

Supervillain leaned slightly forwards to look Hero up and down. "You're gorgeous, love, so don't take this the wrong way, but you look like you haven't slept in days."

Only days? Hero had barely slept in months. "It's training." they snapped. "And it's none of your business."

"Training?" They thought they detected a slight tremor in Supervillain's voice.

"It's normal." Hero said. "It's fine. I'm not here so you can save me again."

They smiled humourlessly. "Maybe I wouldn't have to save you if you would do it yourself, but no." They sliced through Hero's binds and tugged them to their feet. "I'm kidnapping you. You're mine now. Go get some sleep."

#NOT A PROMPT #hero x villain #not a prompt #writing #angst #fiction #my writing #villain x hero #fantasy #enemies to lovers #idk #angst angst angst #fluff #hero x supervillain #supervillain x hero #overwork #overworked hero

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chaoticdreamers-world · 1 year

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when the parent figure/team leader of the team is also in charge of other, smaller and more secret teams, and leaves the main team for long stretches of time.

the child figure/youngest waits for them to come back, but every time they do-for just long enough to eat a warm meal and crash in their own bed-they return more exhausted and battered-looking than before, and barely have the time or energy to explain to the child that these missions are top-secret and they can’t tell them anything about them.

until one day, leader ends up in the hospital/goes missing and the team returns without them.

#whump #team leader whump #leader whump #whump prompt #tag/rb if you use #exhaustion #overwork

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mbrainspaz · 10 months

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I keep wanting to say 'i'm sooo sorry I'm such a failure I haven't been working on the comic project more even though I said I would' but then I remember I've been forced to work 45+ hour weeks in 115F for a month now and I'm like 'oh yeah never mind.'

#overwork #millennial life #corporate american hellscape #writer problems #creating black magic #anyway gonna go animate some more character art now before I gotta go back to work #life of a texan peasant #yee yee

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screenshot-thoughts · 3 months

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Always work on two projects at once. That way you can procrastinate on project A by messing around on project B, and when you get tired of project B you can waste time by working on project A. You will be twice as productive while doing nothing but procrastinate.

#ideas #my screenshots #screenshot #thoughts #life #change #mindset #growth #meme #humor #procrastination #projects #overwork #focus

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prouddogboi · 1 year

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my brain hurts so much 🧍‍♂️

#sr i still haven't finished part 2 #school and work are killin' me #cod x male reader #vent #overwork

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secret-bug-pain-blog · 3 months

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@febuwhump Day 5 - Rope Burns

This one features... an AU that we're worked on for a while now over on @mantisgodsaus. You guys like selkies, right? We have more of those.

There is a rope tied around his neck.

He walks, aimless and uncertain. His mouth is dry, his gait is slow.

The fog coating his brain isn’t normal. Isn’t natural. He can feel it dragging at the corners of his brain, lagging, tearing, threatening to draw him under. He resists it as best he can, but he knows that there are things he has lost, even with his best efforts.

There is something that he has to do - some goal, some need- but he can't remember what it might have been now. There is a distinct sense of purpose dogging at the back of his mind, a need to find, a need to continue, to keep going, to move forward no matter what-

But he can't remember what it is.

He continues.

There is a rope around his neck, rubbing at his skin with every step. Maybe it's tied too tight. Maybe it's tied too loose. He can barely breathe with it on, and yet, he can't imagine trying to go on without it. It chafes, chafes, chafes, and he ignores it best he can, trekking forward with single-minded certainty.

He has to do something. He has never been more certain in his life about it. He has to do something, and he cannot delay. People are relying on him.