Work Life Balance

We often hear the jargon about "work-life balance" yet when we hear the statistics we find that Canadians tend to work harder than ever.  I recall my grade 8 teacher telling the class that by the time we students were out in the workforce we would likely have a 4 day work week.  Some 45 years later I’m still waiting for that work week.  The truth is that there are multiple factors at play but the biggest factor is our instable global economy.  An unscientific study of economic growth shows that from the end of World War II up to the mid 1970’s the economy in the western world was growing at a moderate rate.  From the mid 70’s to the early 80’s the economy grew rapidly, to such an extent that we saw record interest rates of almost 30%.  The mid 1980’s saw a moderate recession, and by the mid 1990’s we saw a full blown recession.  The early 21^st century saw a sudden boom followed by the infamous crash of 2007.  Many place the crash in 2008 but in 2007 we saw the crash of some of the biggest bank mutual funds crash because foreign banks were already taking the hit.  America was just better at covering up the defaults.

       What does this mean?  The average individual takes the biggest hit because they are vulnerable in income, savings, job security, mortgage rates and consumer buying power.  A number of factors that once protected the individual had been removed.  Examples include allowing pharmaceutical companies extended patent rights which have caused prescription drug prices to skyrocket.  Labour Standard Boards no longer protect the employee; instead they bully the employee with comments such as “be happy you have a job”.  Large retail chains are allowed to employ workers at minimal hours for minimum wages so that they don’t have to pay benefits or their fair share of taxes.           Banks have been allowed to self-govern and we know where that has got America. 

       The political will seems to have strayed very far from the idealistic concept of democracy which allows the population to be equal or access to the same opportunities.  It’s very difficult to be equal when everyone is not on the same playing field.  In a nutshell, the world is not fair and it seems to be getting worse, rather than better.  So much for what my teacher foresaw!