Time to reclaim 40 hour working week

A task force should be established to investigate the economic and social effects of a 35 hour working week, the Green Party says.

On Monday, New Zealand will celebrate Labour Day. Despite the successful campaign for a 40 hour working week over a century ago, many New Zealanders are now working much longer than that and being kept away from their families, their friends and communities.

The Green Party wants to reverse the trend of New Zealand’s long hard working hours and honour the campaign by working people for a 40 hour working week.

“Workers are often tacitly required to work long hours just to complete their workload. The culture of goodwill that many businesses benefit from disguises the fact that workers are often doing more than one person’s job. This is often not reflected in their pay-packet,” says Industrial Relations Spokesperson, Sue Bradford.

Nineteen percent of New Zealand workers work more than 50 hours a week and 39 percent work extra hours in their own time every week to get their job done, according to last year's Work Life Balance report by the Department of Labour.

Employers need to work with unions to introduce a new culture of work life balance that recognises that workers should be able to do the job they are paid for in the time they are paid to do it. Unpaid work, long stretches of over time and unused annual leave hurts workers and their children.