Work until you drop: how the long-hours culture is killing us

[DBoon]

UK Guardian: http://money.guardian.co.uk/work/story/0,1456,1552801,00.html

This week, an American survey concluded that long working hours increased an individual's chances of illness and injury. It noted that for those doing 12 hours a day, there was a 37% increase in risk compared to those working fewer hours.

...
The American study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, points out that overtime and extended work schedules are associated with an increased risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, fatigue, stress, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, chronic infections, diabetes and other general health complaints. In Japan, most karoshi victims succumb to brain aneurisms, strokes and heart attack.

Professor Cary Cooper, a stress expert at Lancaster University Management School, says the risk is not just confined to those who work more than 60 hours but hits those that put in more than 45.

"If you work consistently long hours, over 45 a week every week, it will damage your health, physically and psychologically. In the UK we have the second-longest working hours in the developed world, just behind the States and we now have longer hours than Japan," he says.

So the US has the longest working hours in the world? Something else that makes us number one.

[Double T]

1. The USA Is No Longer #1 For The Things That Really Count And Matter

Working Yourself Into An Early Grave For The Almighty Dollar Is Pure Insanity.

[NoQuarter]

2. Working yourself

into an early grave for the almighty dollar FOR SOMEONE ELSE is the insanity. We all know the grunts doing the work, aren't makin' squat.

[DBoon]

3. Nice if working ourselves to death made us rich

most of the time it just earns us the privilege of keeping our job.

Maybe.

[agincourt]

4. The long menial hours,

also affect our mental acuity too, so that noisy, Rightwing, pseudo sincere, sound bite shit can affect peoples political views more readily. The rise of the GOP has went with people working longer hours to make ends meet. People don't have time to look into stuff, so they stay dumb on issues and can be convinced that a vegetable is a disabled person, that an embryo is a baby, and that the Iraq war was to free people.

[Skittles]

5. I will pull a 14 hour tonight

and that is not unusual

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Not only that--it's killing community life in the U.S.

Between the long hours at work and the long hours in the car before and after, who has the time or energy to take part in community activities?

And how much of the long working hours are really necessary for keeping alive, and how much overwork is simple pressure based on the possibly false promise of promotion if the employee buckles down?

[DBoon]

7. Some is fear of losing your job

If the other workers are putting in the long hours, you don't want to the the "slacker" who doesn't.

With the lack of a safety net, losing your job in the US is very hard. You generally lose your healthcare benefits (other than very expensive COBRA), and unemployment is a joke (if you qualify).

All an employer has to do is make an example of one person. The remaining workers will figure out what's expected.