* burnout (many fields, but worst in traumatic or high-hour ones) ** Police get a gold star because most stations have a policy of rotating officers out of the most stressful departments, like Homicide, after a certain time to avoid burnout.
* sleep debt and/or disturbances (many fields, but worst in swing-shift and high-hour ones)
* driving while distracted and/or exhausted (many fields, but worst in swing-shift or high-hour ones and people splicing multiple part-time jobs)
This will not stop until we impress upon employers that they may not murder employees for the sake of making a buck. Some of these problems are going to get rapidly worse due to environmental or social changes.
Frex, we're coming to the end of when it's safe to make people work long hours in the heat of the sun. The hotter the planet gets, the faster that will kill people.
Another crushing situation is that medical training often racks up massive debt, but the job can be soul-destroying. People are then left with the choice between continuing to torture themselves in the field, quitting and being poor forever because nothing else will pay the debt, or dying; and increasingly they are choosing to die.
I do not feel that society has a right to torture or break people, and they are totally entitled to say "fuck you" and leave. But they should not have to die just to avoid torment. People have a right to a decent life. The whole point of civilization is to make life more fair. Right now, local-America is failing spectacularly. If society wants people to live, it must offer them a livable life.
Universal basic income would give people the ability to say 'f-u' to killer jobs. At the moment, a lot of people have the choice of being worked to death or starve.
I suspect, were UBI to be introduced, a lot of those killer jobs would revise their conditions and/or wages simply because no-one would want to work at them. [at least, not for long.]
That's the point. Capitalism relies on terrorism at its base: obey or die, be useful or die. This is not a sane way to run a society.
It's also rapidly running out of time. It can't sustain itself past a certain point of technology. It also can't sustain itself past a certain point of abuse: no matter how much you cook the books, you cannot run 80% of the economy on 20% of the wealth.
Given those parameters, people will have to find some other approach than the current one in the foreseeable future. Either Universal Basic Income, or some other means of supporting people's survival needs. Employment only works as long as there are enough paid jobs to around and they pay enough to live on. We're already seeing a rise in shadow economies because the available jobs don't pay enough. And it's not a shortage of work that needs doing, it's that the work isn't work people want to pay for. 0_o
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-14 04:09 am (UTC)Well ...
Date: 2020-11-14 04:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-14 04:37 am (UTC)https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160912-is-there-such-thing-as-death-from-overwork
Plus, things like stress, low sleep and illness all interact.
Yes ...
Date: 2020-11-14 05:49 am (UTC)* suicide (lawyers, medics)
* stress-related conditions (information techs, lawyers, doctors, executives)
* metabolic issues caused by working long hours at sedentary jobs (office workers)
* physical breakdown (Amazon destroys workers' bodies, farm work in high heat kills kidneys)
* burnout (many fields, but worst in traumatic or high-hour ones)
** Police get a gold star because most stations have a policy of rotating officers out of the most stressful departments, like Homicide, after a certain time to avoid burnout.
* sleep debt and/or disturbances (many fields, but worst in swing-shift and high-hour ones)
* driving while distracted and/or exhausted (many fields, but worst in swing-shift or high-hour ones and people splicing multiple part-time jobs)
This will not stop until we impress upon employers that they may not murder employees for the sake of making a buck. Some of these problems are going to get rapidly worse due to environmental or social changes.
Frex, we're coming to the end of when it's safe to make people work long hours in the heat of the sun. The hotter the planet gets, the faster that will kill people.
Another crushing situation is that medical training often racks up massive debt, but the job can be soul-destroying. People are then left with the choice between continuing to torture themselves in the field, quitting and being poor forever because nothing else will pay the debt, or dying; and increasingly they are choosing to die.
I do not feel that society has a right to torture or break people, and they are totally entitled to say "fuck you" and leave. But they should not have to die just to avoid torment. People have a right to a decent life. The whole point of civilization is to make life more fair. Right now, local-America is failing spectacularly. If society wants people to live, it must offer them a livable life.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2020-11-14 10:37 am (UTC)Universal basic income would give people the ability to say 'f-u' to killer jobs. At the moment, a lot of people have the choice of being worked to death or starve.
I suspect, were UBI to be introduced, a lot of those killer jobs would revise their conditions and/or wages simply because no-one would want to work at them. [at least, not for long.]
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2020-11-14 10:49 am (UTC)It's also rapidly running out of time. It can't sustain itself past a certain point of technology. It also can't sustain itself past a certain point of abuse: no matter how much you cook the books, you cannot run 80% of the economy on 20% of the wealth.
Given those parameters, people will have to find some other approach than the current one in the foreseeable future. Either Universal Basic Income, or some other means of supporting people's survival needs. Employment only works as long as there are enough paid jobs to around and they pay enough to live on. We're already seeing a rise in shadow economies because the available jobs don't pay enough. And it's not a shortage of work that needs doing, it's that the work isn't work people want to pay for. 0_o
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-14 12:38 pm (UTC)