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Poster promoting awareness of Time Day issues created by graphic design students at the University of Minnesota Duluth, working under Assistant Professor of Art and Design, Joellyn Rock.
Photo by Joellyn Rock

by Cathleen Sullivan
Living Well Session
John De Graaf, co-author of Affluenza; Joanna Zetterberg, Sierra Club

I was overwhelmed by a sense of irony as I dashed into the session on overwork and systemic time poverty 20 minutes late. I double-booked myself. I was excited to attend and write about this session because I constantly feel like I am running around like a crazy person and never fitting everything in.

As soon as I arrived I realized I was not alone. There were people spilling into the hall, every seat was taken and the walls were lined with people standing or sitting in rapt attention.

The session focused on our society’s disease of “affluenza,” a systemic cycle of overwork and “time poverty” driven by a desire for fast and large economic growth. The lead speaker, John de Graaf, emphasized the need to start a dialogue on what we are missing out on as we work our lives away. He cited many cases of other countries that work less, have slower but more stable growth rates with healthier and more economically secure citizenries.

The time-day policy agenda de Graaf articulated includes six main points:

1. Guarantee paid family leave. (Only 40 percent of parents in the United States take leave when they have a child)

2. Guarantee 1 week of paid sick time.

3. Guarantee 3 weeks of annual paid vacation. (A country cannot join the European Union unless it guarantees 4 weeks vacation after 1 year on the job)

4. Impose limits on compulsory overtime. (The only state that does this is Maine which requires no more than 80 hours of overtime every 2 weeks!!!)

5.  Make it easier to choose part time work. (Such as a part-time parity law or non-employer based health care, in the Netherlands, where 40 percent of the workforce works part time)

6.  Make Election Day a holiday (a symbolic gesture to emphasize the importance of civic and political engagement)

For more info, visit www.timeday.org for 50 suggestions on how to create more time in your life, to engage in a dialogue of how to jumpstart this nascent movement

-- 09/09/2005 Fri
1pm