Book Review/Heather Seggel

Know It Don’t Thrill You, Hope It Don’t Kill You

The past year-plus of life in a pandemic has changed the way many people think about their jobs. It’s not just a matter of wearing sweatpants—or no pants—and working over Zoom, either.

Greater access to resources for disabled people was a huge step forward that many fear will be lost in the “return to normal.” But about those hours: If they were grueling before, working from home in some ways meant being on call at all times, and not just for the day job, but household tasks and your children’s education as well. “Overtime: Why We Need a Shorter Working Week” (Verso) argues for a collective reduction in the standard work week, offering several reasons why it’s the right move. Authors Will Stronge and Kyle Lewis are persuasive and offer historical context for their thinking, but this is a somewhat dry discussion given the juiciness of the topic.

Stronge and Lewis are both members of Autonomy, a British think tank (and itself an accredited four-day per week employer), and this book grew out of their work there, so at least a bit of my feeling adrift in it may come down to being poorly versed in any labor history, but especially unschooled in the particulars of English labor law. That being said, the outsize influence of the US in the world means American labor history and present-day policies are also part of the mix. And it’s important to think about this as a global issue, because that is where the warming is happening.

The authors tie a shorter work week to four different ideas, from human flourishing and freedom to two concepts more familiar to anyone steeped in capitalism: Equality and sustainability. The discussion of gender equity feels especially relevant in the US right now, as women lost many jobs due to the pandemic, while also being forced to do double and triple duty as caregivers at home (these impacts were harder on women of color). The notion that the so-called “caring economy” is itself infrastructure is only surprising to people never asked to do those jobs, but it’s being legitimized by its inclusion in the American Jobs Plan. Fewer and less grueling hours at higher pay will increase the quality of care, most likely improving outcomes for workers and those in their care alike.

I found the writing most persuasive when a shorter week was considered as a critical element of environmental sustainability. We saw how our collective slowing down in the early days of the pandemic reduced pollution and allowed the earth to briefly catch her breath. Stronge and Lewis tease out a flaw in one of the main selling points behind the Green New Deal, namely, its emphasis on big numbers of “good jobs,” when less industry overall will be required for us to save the planet. Will there be time to redirect that energy away from some kind of solar powered bootstrap factory and still allow people to feel useful? President Biden has said, “When people talk about climate, I think jobs,” and it’s a canny way to avoid being sucked back into a debate about whether global warming is really happening or not, but it also remains faithful to ideas about work, personal worth, and economic growth, that are no longer relevant to our lived existence.

As coal mining jobs decline in the US, workers have agreed to transition out of the field in exchange for comparable jobs in sustainable energy, including work cleaning up some of our environmentally disastrous mining sites. Work rewilding our landscapes feels like it has the potential to undo some past harm, but again, less work overall feels increasingly like the cooling saucer we need to let the planet rest in. Reducing the work week by one day means more people who want to work have the opportunity to do so without unduly burdening our infrastructure, while also making space and time for more pleasurable activity and social connection.

“Overtime” makes a plain case for all this, suggesting guaranteed income as one way to correct for wealth disparities and make collectively doing less, more feasible. Experiments with Universal Basic Income have shown that many people use the modest financial cushion to find better-paying work or training to advance in their current careers. The instinct and pressure to be productive has been so thoroughly ingrained in us, and work really can give one a sense of pride and accomplishment; unlearning those habits to make room for more participants and allow for more rest and rejuvenation...well, it feels like the stuff of fantasy. But it’s within our grasp to live this way. The analysis here is straightforward, just the facts, but while reading you can’t help but try to imagine it all in action, and it can be downright euphoric to think about. Read it, and give some thought to making it real.

Heather Seggel is a writer living in Northern California. Email heatherlseggel@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2021

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