Why I'm Running for the Work Less Party

WHY I'M RUNNING FOR THE WORK LESS PARTY

For fifty years now, rapid economic growth has been the politicians'
cure-all. Again and again, we have been told that growth is the key to full
employment and prosperity. Over the past half-century, and particularly in
the past decade, Canada's economy has experienced many years of solid
growth. What has been the result?

The False Promises of Growth

Unemployment today is now double what it was 50 years ago. Fifty years ago,
one breadwinner working 40 hours per week could support a family and save
money; today's typical family has two breadwinners working a total of 90 or
more hours each week, and saves almost nothing.

This doubling of the family employment load is particularly vexing when you
consider that today's worker produces twice as much per hour as their 1950s
counterpart. What kind of prosperity is this, when our reward for producing
twice as much per hour is that we have to work LONGER?

In January, Statistics Canada reported that the hourly wages of Canadian
workers have only barely kept pace with inflation over the past 25 years.
During that period, the productivity of Canadian workers rose by about 40%,
but none of that extra prosperity has gone to the people who produced it.

The idea that rapid growth is an engine of job creation also fails the
comparison test. Over the past ten years, Canada's economy has grown by more
than three percent a year, yet our unemployment rate has never fallen very
far below 8%. Switzerland, on the other hand, saw almost no economic growth
during those years -- less than one half of one percent per year -- yet it's
unemployment rate has remained at an enviably low 4%.

Again and again the pro-growth politicians have tried to explain away the
failure of growth to create either prosperity or full employment with
excuses that we just haven't had ENOUGH growth or the RIGHT KIND of growth.
There's a more elegant answer: growth is a make-believe solution that was
never intended to succeed.

When unemployment is very low, workers' bargaining power increases, and
wages rise in step with productivity. Moderately high unemployment makes it
much easier for corporations to hold wages down, and to bully workers into
unpaid overtime. High unemployment converts workers' increasing productivity
directly into rising corporate profits.

The BC Liberal Party receives 70% of it's income from corporate sources
precisely because the party serves the interests of big corporations AT THE
EXPENSE of ordinary British Columbians.

The Human Cost of the Rat-race

Seeking the holy grail of rapid growth, we've had five decades now of
stubbornly high unemployment. High unemployment has pushed up taxes and
pushed down wages, but growth's failure does not end there. Pollsters also
tell us that Canadians consistently self-report being LESS happy than we
were a half-century ago. How do we explain that?

Psychologist Tim Kasser, in his book THE HIGH PRICE OF MATERIALISM, marshals
a large body of scientific research which indicates that purchases of
material goods result in surprisingly small -- and fleeting -- increases in
personal happiness. Enduring and significant increases in happiness tend to
come from four areas: friends, family, community, and service to others. The
greatest sources of life satisfaction are the very things the modern
rat-race doesn't leave you time for.

The Cost to the Environment

Our obsession with growth has also been hard on the planet: Canada's per
capita use of energy and resources has doubled over the past 50 years. What
was once just a bad bargain between time and money has now become a threat
to our children's future.

Last month, in a report to the G8 summit, a task force of British, American,
and Australian climatologists gave this grim assessment: If we do not
radically change course, in just ten years global warming on a catastrophic
scale will become inevitable and unstoppable. If we continue on the course
we are now on, by the time your children are your age, life on this planet
will be difficult and scary. By the time your grandchildren are your age,
their lives will take place against the backdrop of a real-life disaster
movie.

What Can We Do?

What is to be done? No one country - or Province - can solve the problem of
global warming on it's own. What we can do, here in BC, is offer North
America a new model for creating full employment - and a higher quality of
life - in an economy that is stable or gracefully shrinking.

We have come to a fork in the road. Either we embrace now that Age of
Leisure the futurists have so long talked about, or we have no future. We in
the Work Less Party invite you to help us make the rat-race HISTORY:

1) WE WILL ENACT A 32-HOUR WORKWEEK STANDARD. Experience from other
jurisdictions indicates that roughly one-third of the cost of a shorter
workweek will be offset by higher productivity, and one-third will be offset
by the tax savings that result from reduced unemployment, so the financial
cost of going four-day workweek will be a 6% drop in your take-home pay.

2) Canadian corporations steal 175 million dollars in unpaid overtime from
their employees every week. WE WILL OUTLAW THAT THEFT.

3) At the same time Canada has more than a million unemployed, several
million Canadians are working more than they want to. The reason lies in our
current system of payroll taxes, which rewards employers who overwork their
employees and punishes employers who offer reduced and flexible working
times. WE WILL REVERSE THAT PERVERSE REWARD STRUCTURE.

These three bold measures will create full employment in BC, and thus ensure
that increases in our productivity are reflected in higher wages. They will
strengthen our families, and strengthen our communities. They will make us
happier, and the planet healthier. We could inspire the world with our
example.

You could have a life again. You could have time, finally, for the things
that really matter. Your kids could have a future.

Or you can stick with the old parties, and ride the rat-race straight into
GLOBAL WARMING Hell.

Bruce O’Hara