WORKING OVERTIME IS NOT JUST ABOUT MONEY

Working overtime is not just about money

ANI
The Times of India
Sunday, August 24, 2003
 
Washington - Working overtime isn't all about money after
all for blue-collar workers, says a University of
Michigan study. 

"Aside  from the material rewards, working overtime is a 
way of showing  that  you belong and can work as hard as 
anyone," said Elizabeth Rudd, a sociologist at the U-M
Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world's largest
academic survey and research organization. 

"It's also a way of improving your social status. As one
worker told us, there's a stigma about doing factory
work, but if you work a lot of overtime, you make enough
money to shrug it off." 

So far, the researchers have interviewed 53 hourly and
salaried workers,  attended union meetings and social
functions and  spent time working on the line.  

Many workers would not be able to make ends meet without
overtime pay,  Rudd said. But even for workers who do not
need the extra pay to get by, Rudd identified significant
social pressures to work overtime. Working overtime
allows blue-collar workers to consume the same
commodities as secure and successful white-collar
professionals.

As a result, second homes, boats, SUVs and other high-
ticket accoutrements of higher social status have a value
to blue-collar workers that is more than merely monetary.


"The physical exhaustion, erosion of family relations and
loss of personal life  caused by working overtime all
detract from the financial gains and acquisition of
white-collar lifestyles that working overtime also
produces," said Rudd. 

She added: "Yet when given a choice, many workers choose
to work overtime. Besides the money, it provides a
vehicle for workers to cultivate  social belonging and
dignity by demonstrating their ability to measure up to
the demands of the  workplace and to attain higher-status
lifestyles outside the factory."

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