Page 1547 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 18 May 1993
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That was the doom and gloom. Now for some sunrise. Let us start with one of those trite statements that nonetheless point the way. There are about 10 million people employed in Australia. If each person gave up just one day each fortnight, there would be one million years of employment opportunities. If each unemployed person took up these opportunities, there would be no unemployment - none, zip. Whilst there would be practical problems with this concept, it does indicate that there is a way of substantially reducing unemployment by sharing the available work. Most of our memories extend only to a time in which the standard working week was five days, or 10 working days per fortnight. However, there was a time before World War II, I am told, when a standard working week was 48 hours and many people used to work half a day on Saturday. Before that, people worked six and even seven days per week. Annual leave was two weeks per year and long service leave was an unheard of concept.
Is it time to take advantage of increased productivity and work fewer days per week? This is the essence of the work-share initiative. How could it work to the advantage of all? Who are the stakeholders in the proposal? Consider these: The presently employed, the enterprises offering employment, the unemployed and, last but not least, the Government. Suppose I said to you, or to anyone, "Have I got a deal for you! How would you like to have a three-day weekend every second week? You will receive 90 per cent of all your present pay and entitlements, but for taxation purposes you will pay tax on only 80 per cent of your current pay. Similarly, if you take a three-day weekend each week, you will receive 80 per cent of your present pay and entitlements but pay tax at the rate of 70 per cent of your full pay. The only limitation is that you can hold down only one paid job". My betting is that a quite large number of Australians from a diverse range of situations would give up one or more days per fortnight. One group could be young two-income families where the parents share the child-care responsibility by part-time work. Another could be older executives who are comfortably off but who are feeling stressed and in need of more leisure time. Middle managers whose jobs are presently under scrutiny could choose to concentrate their work into fewer days of employment, increasing their productivity and hence their value to their employers.
If an enterprise found savings in a number of employees giving up work, it could add more part-time workers directly involved with production of its products. When goods are involved, this means greater enterprise productivity as overheads are reduced. For service industries, for example, customers receive a better deal as more people are available to meet their needs. The deal could be that some of the time given up would not be replaced, reducing overhead costs and increasing profitability. The rest would be offered as part-time employment opportunities for the presently unemployed. The Government could sweeten the deal by offering the enterprise a bonus of $500 per year, for example, for each year of new employment offered, this grant being offset by the higher administrative cost of part-time employment.
What is in it for the unemployed? Obviously, part-time jobs which would provide exposure to the process of working, plus, in most cases, more income than unemployment benefits.
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