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| Time for Some Time Off? | |||||||
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When I was working my way through college, I spent several summers in canneries. It was not uncommon at the end of a shift for the foreman to announce, "We need to finish this run. You are all staying tonight." Our union secured good wages for us but we could be asked to put in 50 or 60 or more hours, without even having a chance to call home to say that we'd be late. During the past two decades, the number of hours worked each week by the average American has increased more than 20%, and the average amount of time commuting to work has also gone up. As a result, our free time has decreased by a third. As Yale psychologist Edward Ziegler observed, "We're at the breaking point as far as family is concerned." Many of us spend so much time working and commuting that only recreation we can imagine is shopping or watching TV, both which tend to makes us feel like we need more money to survive. Many take second and third jobs to make ends meet. Instead of hiring additional workers, many employers push their employees harder, causing errors, accidents, injuries, and decreased productivity. Half of the workforce has no paid sick days, so we end up working sick as well as tired. The accident that shut down our assembly line and nearly killed four of us happened at just such a time when everyone was putting in overtime and managers did not want to stop the forklifts to check their brakes. The Massachusetts Council of Churches recently gathered some distressing statistics about how stressed out we are: • We are the only industrialized nation without a law guaranteeing paid vacation time, and we end up getting less vacation than anyone else. • 26% of Americans take no vacation at all. • 62% of women and 80% of men put in more than 40 hours a week on the job. • We now work longer hours than medieval peasants did. This lack of leisure takes a terrible toll on us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Is it any wonder that so many people are too tired to get the kids to religious education? Or that crawling out of bed early enough to get to worship seems impossible? Or that it is so hard these days to find people who have time enough to sing in the choir? As Msgr. Donald Beckmann noted once at an LICC Annual Meeting, "We used to argue among ourselves as to when people should worship, but now we face a common struggle to preserve any time at all for worship." The U.S. Department of Justice has had to create a new Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination to ensure, among other things, that employers make "reasonable accommodation" to workers Sabbath observance. Judaism has traditionally taught that we should free up at least one day a week from work and shopping. Roman Catholic clergy discovered long ago that a balanced inner life requires "an hour a day, a day a month, and a week a year" devoted to nothing but spiritual renewal-but who has the time for this much prayer, devotional reading, and contemplation anymore? The Massachusetts Council of Churches has joined with the Lord's Day Alliance and Take Back Your Time in a campaign that urges people to spend four days between Labor Day and October 24 (Take Back Your Time Day) relaxing, enjoying family and friends, and renewing their relationship with God rather than working or shopping. A national movement called Time Out is urging us as a country to • Make Election Day a national holiday. • Make paid family and medical leave part of the Family and Medical Leave Act. • Give all workers at least three weeks off each year. • Limit mandatory overtime, so that workers need not choose between working more than 48 hours a week or losing their jobs. These are issues that should unite conservatives who care about preserving families and liberals who support workers rights, both union leaders and religious leaders. Indeed, the Long Island Labor-Religion Coalition has begun talking about just such an effort. Don't you deserve a break today? Don't we all? Shalom/Salaam/Shanti/Pax, |
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