Electrolicious

13 Responses to “Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery (CLAWS)”

1. Brodie
   August 8th, 2003 at 1:17 am

   

   there are several reason to be in education. this is one of them. in my life i choose lifestyle over income. simple.

2. matt
   August 8th, 2003 at 4:28 am

   

   i agree brodie. so many of my friends are high school or elementary teachers. that summer off is fabulous.

   on another note, not all jobs are two weeks vacation and that’s it. i get a little over a month a year.

3. dori
   August 8th, 2003 at 6:32 am

   

   when i was traveling around everyone always thought i was canadian, unless i actually mentioned i was from the states first (when i got “oh, how long are you here, two weeks?”)

4. tlc
   August 8th, 2003 at 9:29 am

   

   I’m fascinated. Thank you.

5. Anna
   August 8th, 2003 at 10:12 am

   

   Carl and I have often talked about moving to Europe one day, where (we’ve heard) most everybody takes the month of August off on holiday and a thirty hour work week is pretty standard. And thanks for the great link!

6. leblanc
   August 8th, 2003 at 11:02 am

   

   if i didn’t have the $20k in credit card, auto, and student loan debt to pay off, you can bet your ass i wouldn’t be working 40 hours weeks and only taking 2-3 weeks off a year. i technically don’t have disposable income AT ALL because i’m trying to pay off my debts.

   when that $20k is gone (2007 baby!), i am SO out of the 40 houraweek gig. this is also one of the reasons i’m not planning on buying a house or making any other long term financial investments (like kids) anytime soon - the more things you accumulate, the more you have to work.

7. ryan
   August 8th, 2003 at 11:43 am

   

   Thank you, Ariel. I’m teetering on the line between the two now, wondering how to achieve the more difficult one. This helped so much.

8. cameron
   August 8th, 2003 at 12:09 pm

   

   The real difference etween “europe” (or the part of europe where long vacations are either traditional or mandatory, or both) and the US is one of choice.

   In europe you can’t really choose >not< to have a month of vacation and a ton of holidays every year.

   Some people may find that this gives them the discipline to take time off that they wouldn’t find otherwise, but I prefer the idea of working like a lunatic for awhile (years) and then taking some gigantic break. This is a relatively easy thing to do in the US (it’s a lot of work, and it requires you steer clear of all the seductive consumer items that are available) but it’s almost impossible in Europe.

   You may not prefer my approach, and that’s totally understandable. Luckily there are numerous jobs here that allow you to take a month off if you feel like it. You exchange security, or money or something else, but it’s your choice.

9. cameron
   August 8th, 2003 at 12:10 pm

   

   Sorry, “>not” in the preceding should be followed by:

   ” to have a month of vacation and a ton of holidays every year.”

10. symbiant
    August 8th, 2003 at 12:37 pm

    

    I am 100% with Cameron on this one. We work hard because we like to spend hard. The American way is to keep up with the jonses, and then we end up having to work our asses off to pay for it. If you don’t want to work your way into an early grave, don’t spend yourself into one either.

11. emily
    August 8th, 2003 at 4:21 pm

    

    Thank you for posting those links. It’s very relevant to my personal inner debates these days.

12. Ariel
    August 9th, 2003 at 8:57 pm

    

    Related news story:

    Work Stress Taking Larger Financial Toll
    Sat Aug 9, 6:59 PM ET
    By Steve James

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the 1999 movie “Office Space,” stressed-out workers crammed in cubicles and belittled by incompetent bosses plot to break out of their bored existence. One smashes the permanently jammed photocopy machine and another finally loses it and burns down the office.

    Hollywood fantasy? Perhaps, but job stress is a leading cause of illness, depression and work place violence in America today and is increasing, experts say.

    It is estimated to cost U.S. industry a staggering $300 billion a year in absenteeism, health costs and programs to help workers manage stress as unemployment rises and companies cut staff in what is euphemistically known as “down-sizing.”

    Fears of losing jobs as the economy stalls, or not having a personal life as pagers, cellphones and the Internet keep employees linked to their work 24 hours a day, have Americans complaining of muscular pain or fatigue or even seeking therapy. Surveys show more people are driven to frustration or physical violence by the daily demands they face at work.

    “Stress is increasing dramatically,” said Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress (AIS), which estimates 1 million workers are absent daily due to stress.

    Causes range from the demands of competing in the global marketplace, the need to keep up with new equipment and technology and creeping depersonalization in the work place.

    “VERY FRUSTRATING”

    “People sit 6 feet apart in little cubicles and never speak with each other except by computer. You never hear a human voice and it’s ‘press one’ or ‘press three’, it’s very frustrating,” Rosch told Reuters by telephone from his office in Yonkers, New York.

    The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work reports that more than half of the 550 million working days lost annually in the United States from absenteeism are stress-related and that one-in-five of all last minute no-shows are due to job stress.

    “We estimate it (stress) costs American industry $300 billion a year in terms of diminished productivity, employee turnover and insurance,” the AIS’s Rosch said.

    His institute cites a 2000 Gallup Poll, “Attitudes in the American Workplace,” sponsored by The Marlin Co., a North Haven, Connecticut-based work place communications firm.

    It found that 80 percent of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half say they need help coping with it. Twenty-five percent have felt like screaming or shouting because of job stress, 14 percent felt like striking a co-worker and 10 percent are concerned about a colleague becoming violent.

    According to AIS, an average of 20 workers are murdered each week in the United States, making homicide the second leading cause of work place deaths.

    “Postal workers who work in a safe environment have experienced so many fatalities due to job stress that ‘going postal’ has crept into our language,” the Institute’s Web site, http://www.stress.org, says.

    “Desk rage” and “phone rage” have also become increasingly common terms, it said. Adding to the increasing stress of modern living, Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations to unwind, than people in Europe or elsewhere.

    An International Labor Organization study showed that Americans worked the equivalent of an extra 40-hour week in 2000 than 10 years before. Americans work almost a month longer than the Japanese and three months more than Germans, it said.

    MORALE CAN SUFFER

    Stress can manifest itself in different ways, from breaking out in hives to chronic headaches, back pain, obesity, insomnia and depression, all contriving to drive up health-care costs. In addition, morale often suffers.

    Betsy Robinson, director of strategic program development at Intracorp, a medical and disability management company, said a recent survey by Mercer Management Consulting revealed that although muscular and skeletal problems are the leading cause of disability in the work place, 70 percent of employers said stress was the fastest growing cause.

    “It’s a strong driver of absence and requires management,” she told Reuters. “It’s in a kind of stealth mode, because although headaches or insomnia may be the reason for long-term absence, underneath could be stress.”

    Diane Larson, employee assistance consultant at Cigna Behavioral Health, a subsidiary of health insurer Cigna Corp., said stress covers many things such as uncertainty over the future, lack of recognition by employers, a lack of control or unsure job responsibilities.

    She said she speaks to employers about different ways to identify stress in workers and institute programs to prevent or deal with it on an individual basis or in wellness seminars.

    “We talk of red flags, such as increasing absenteeism, decreases in job performance, not being able to complete jobs, or even crying and anger on the job,” Larson said. “Earlier intervention is better.”

13. tlc
    August 11th, 2003 at 10:06 am

    

    THE MURDERING OF MY YEARS by Mickey Z. is about this very thing, artists and activist participated in giving the author/editor their take on how they live, what they think about wage slavery, etc. Great stuff:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi.....24-7980967