On Labor Day, Some Pro-People Policies

Maybe, on a holiday intended to honor "the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws, and well-being of the country," it's time to do something to actually help working people in the U.S. Unfortunately, things seem to be moving in the wrong direction. The Trump administration "has proposed a 40 percent cut for the government agency that conducts research into workplace hazards," has weakened the enforcement of employment laws, sought to eliminate a program that helps unions and nonprofits educate workers on avoiding injury and illness, and in a case before the Supreme Court, has taken the position that employers can compel employees to forfeit their rights to bring class-action lawsuits. Meanwhile more workers that ever work in precarious arrangements--in gigs rather than jobs--and fewer people have access to pension benefits (remember what those were?) or even employer-provided health insurance. And of course wage stagnation has been much discussed.

It seems clear that U.S. workers need help. The recently-released RAND report on working conditions found that two-thirds of Americans frequently worked at high speeds or under tight deadlines. That same report noted that more than one-third of respondents had no control over their work schedules, one-half did work in their free time to meet job demands, almost a third were unable to adjust their work schedules to accommodate personal matters, and jobs interfered with family and social commitments outside of work.

Unlike any other advanced economy, the U.S. does not guarantee paid vacation and almost one-quarter of U.S. workers had no paid holidays. A Staples survey found that 90 percent of workers came to work when they were ill and knowingly contagious, and another survey co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation reported that at least half of people working in public settings such as hospitals and restaurants where they might infect others nonetheless reported going to work with a cold or the flu. People who work sick are not at their best, a phenomenon called "presenteeism," with the estimates indicating literally hundreds of billions of dollars in productivity lost to people who are ostensibly at the job but not really fully there.

American workers are stressed, and workplace stress causes unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, overeating, and drug and alcohol abuse and psychological and physical illness, including cardiovascular disease. The American Psychological Association's 2015 survey of stress reported that work was one of the top two sources of stress. The aptly-named American Institute of Stress noted that almost two-thirds of workers said that stress had caused difficulties and 29 percent of employees felt quite a bit or extremely stressed at work.

If we truly wanted to honor labor, if we were serious about improving the well-being of American workers, and wanted to get beyond the nice words so seldom accompanied by any action, here's what we need to do--which, by the way, would only bring the U.S. to the standards of other industrialized countries:

• Provide paid time off, including sick days and vacations, for everyone in the work force. Making people choose between taking care of themselves (and not contaminating others) and earning a living seems singularly unfair.
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has done a fabulous job of reducing on-the-job deaths and injuries from sources such as accidents and chemical exposures. Instead of trying to cut OSHA's budget and curtailing its activities, expand OSHA's mandate to measure and then reduce work-related stress and its associated health toll and costs. OSHA already has a healthy workplace initiative and has both the epidemiological knowledge and skills and the interest in reducing psychosocial workplace risks.
• Expand working hours regulations so that people feel less pressure to work 24/7 and always be connected. Although one study noted that almost 60 percent of people used mobile devices to do work after normal business hours, "checking email constantly can lead to burnout and health problems."
• And yes, on Labor Day, honor the working men and women who do make America great by raising the minimum wage. Higher incomes increase people's health (thereby reducing health care costs), and higher incomes permit people to live better lives.

I have no illusions as to how unlikely adoption of these recommendations are. Even though they are consistent with much epidemiological evidence on the connections between workplace conditions and health, and and even though they merely represent what other countries do, in the U.S., we seemingly prefer to honor our working people--our labor--by empty words rather than deeds embodied in organizational and public policy. As our President likes to say, "sad." And it truly is sad, both for the workers themselves and for the society that pays many of the costs from overwork and stress.