[PEN-L:11979] Sample Q statements

[knowware@xxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

1	Once the work week has been reduced sufficiently to minimize fatigue, no
further improvements in productivity will be forthcoming from further
reductions in work time.

2	Even if the entire workforce could be retrained for highly skilled,
high-tech jobs there will never be enough positions to absorb the millions
let go as a result of automation.

3	A work sharing scheme that requires skilled workers to work less could
actually reduce the demand for the less skilled workers who make up the bulk
of the unemployed.

4	Government reports on unemployment conceal a bleaker reality in which many
job seekers have become discouraged or take part-time work.

5	Job creation does cost money, but it doesn't necessarily cost more than
what we spend coping with joblessness. Government job-creation might be
self-financing, at least in part.

6	Some involuntary unemployment is necessary to prevent workers from
shirking on the job.
	
7	The glorification of hard work and the claim that working and living can
be one and the same thing is a view that can only be held by a privileged
elite that monopolizes the best-paid, most highly skilled and most stable jobs.
	
8	If an attempt were made to change hours by law to a level well below that
sought by both employers and employees, one would see a sharp increase in
incentives for employers to violate the law.

9	Consumer society promotes the hedonistic values of comfort, instant
pleasure and minimal effort, while at the same time requiring semi-skilled
workers to behave according to the opposite principles in their work.

10	Proponents of work sharing wrongly assume that hours of work and number
of people employed can be substituted for each other at will.

11	Shortening of hours of work necessitates the use of less qualified
workers, thereby lowering the average productivity of all workers.

12	There is a job available for everyone who really wants to work.

13	In the absence of unions, the employer has greater say over hours than
over wages, since wages can be individually negotiated, but a standard hours
schedule is offered to the employee on a take it or leave it basis.

14	People attach to economic growth an emotional, quasi-religious value that
is out of proportion to any reason or purpose.

15	People who keep their jobs don't work eight-hour days, but 10, 12 or even
14-hour days. And people who lose their jobs scrabble together two, three,
even four jobs in order barely to hold on by their finger tips.

16	Management is so preoccupied with its efforts to establish control over
the workers that it loses sight of the presumed purpose of the organization.

17	Highly skilled people and managers are required to put in more time on
the job because of the increasingly complex and critical nature of the work
they do.

18	Even if workers could always set their own work times, the state should
still intervene because many workers prefer to work longer than is best for
society.

19	Proposals to redistribute work time are met with a resistance that
tangles cultural and economic factors with corporate short-sightedness.

20	Unless offset by rising productivity, shorter working hours will mean
lower incomes, reduced consumption and, as a result, slower economic growth.

21	Work sharing rests on the belief that the economy can generate only a
fixed amount of work. History provides little support for this gloomy view,
which economists have labeled the lump-of-labour fallacy.

22	Employers are the main beneficiaries of extended work hours. Employers
avoid the cost of benefits and enjoy reduced pressure for increases as
workers put in more time to compensate for low wages.

23	Early specialization not only deprives students of the general knowledge
and skills needed to adapt to a changing labour market; it also fails to
provide the basis for democratic participation.

24	Politicians who blame 'corporate greed' for what is happening to the
take-home pay of workers are diverting attention from the real problem: an
overly intrusive and expensive federal government.

25	Organized labour tries to claim the lion's share of rises in productivity
even though such changes are typically the result of capital investments in
new technology.

26	Most employed workers are unwilling to cut hours and monthly earnings to
provide jobs for others.

27	There are good reasons to expect an increase in employee effort if work
time is reduced.

28	One impact of the shorter standard work week would be increased
moonlighting. When you have an extremely short work week, people seek extra
jobs, both because they need the extra money and because they have
unexpended energy to do the extra work.

29	Canada is becoming a polarized society. The gap between good jobs and bad
jobs is now accepted as a fact of life by corporate and political leaders.

30	People who have prospered owe something back to the community that has
enabled them to prosper.

31	Work sharing is ineffective as a job creation measure due to its adverse
effects on labour costs.

32	Increasing the overtime wage to twice the straight-time hourly wage would
induce firms to cut back on overtime hours and instead hire more workers to
take up the slack.

33	There is always a danger that additional free time will be wasted through
idle amusements that have no lasting benefit, even recreational, for the
participants.

34	Today's corporate culture says if you don't join the rest of the 'team'
that stays late or takes the laptop home, you just don't fit in and you
might as well get out.

35	Management must be free to plan for the efficient operation of their
particular business.

36	Avoiding the social costs of unemployment, while important, cannot
outweigh other policy goals such as price stability and overall economic growth.

37	Our current economic system prevents people from choosing to limit their
work hours so as to prevent them choosing to limit their desire to consume.

38	The best strategy for fighting unemployment is to create a confident
business climate and eliminate the obstacles to private investment.

39	We have created a technology which pushes people in two directions:
either losing their job because the technology is better, more efficient, so
who needs those workers, or -- O.K., keep the job, but match your life to
the speed of the machine.

40	Co-operation between workers and management cannot survive unless
management effectively guarantees job security.

41	The monetarization of work and needs draws attention away from the
crucial question: how much is enough?

42	Although voluntary reductions in work time may be worthwhile, it would be
economically unsound to impose change through legislation or collective
bargaining.

43	The strength of our economy depends in a large measure on our ability to
overcome the economic illiteracy that fosters something-for-nothing schemes.
Proponents of work sharing simply don't understand how the economy works.

44	A 32-hour workweek would create a million new jobs in Canada and increase
productivity by five percent.

45	The 30-hour workweek will come as soon as the productivity of the average
worker reaches the point that they want to take that much more of their time
in leisure rather than work.

46	Voluntary and market-based job-sharing is already quite common; one sign
of this is the growing number of people who choose to work part time.

47	If the government would pick up some portion of a company's payroll taxes
in exchange for hiring more people, the net gain would trickle back in the
form of lower unemployment costs and higher total tax revenues.

48	The popularity of arguments in favor of reducing work hours on health or
family grounds may reflect an unwillingness to acknowledge the economic cost
to the worker of hours reduction.

49	If the work one does is esteemed enough by others to provide one with
self-esteem, there will be a demand for it and no need to provide it as of
right.

50	There are few economic problems that cause as much suffering as unemployment.

51	Working long hours is a protective shell. It allows people to hide from
the responsibility of taking charge of their own lives.

52	Most union members would share their work week hours if it would generate
employment for their family members, friends and community.

53	In the interest of the greatest progress in raising the standard of
living of all, economic forces must be the guideposts for decisions about
working time.

54	When people are free to decide their own level of need and their own
level of effort,  they tend to spontaneously limit their needs in order to
be able to limit their efforts.

55	Despite whatever good intentions are presumed, when government shifts the
focus away from creating wealth and toward creating jobs, it inevitably
engenders a lower aggregate standard of living.

56	Greater inequality produced by unemployment is the regrettable but
necessary price to pay for controlling inflation and improving economic
efficiency in the long run.

Regards,

Tom Walker
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knoW Ware Communications
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
knowware@xxxxxxxx
(604) 688-8296
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