Teachers Death Sentence

A DEATH SENTENCE!

By Stephen Wilson

 

     A new Global report by the World Health Organisation and International Labor Organisation has found that a staggering figure of 745,000 people died from from stroke and heart disease due to working long hours in 2016 alone. {The Report was issued in May 2021}

 

 

Working long hours amounting to 55 hours or more significantly increases the likelihood of premature deaths from heart attacks or strokes stated a major report by the W.H.O. and I.L.O! Although those findings might not seem news to many people what makes the findings novel is that it marks the first time such a survey was done on a Global basis. It is therefore an unprecedented study! The study represents an overview and analysis of data collected from 194 countries and 2300 surveys The research found that doing long hours was killing hundreds of thousands of middle aged and older men and women and that the pandemic may have intensified rather than lessened this trend. The study covered the period between 2000 and 2016.

 

The findings are alarming. As many as 745,000 people died from stroke and heart disease by working long hours in 2016. There had been a 29% increase in deaths from 2000 to 2016. During the same period the number of deaths from heart diseases rose by 42% and those from strokes, by 19%. Those who work 55 hours or more a week have a 35% higher risk of having a stroke and a 17% higher risk dying from ischemic heart disease compared to people who work a 40 hour week.

 

The report found that most of the vulnerable people tended to be middle-aged or older men and more likely in live in the South East Asia and the Western Pacific region. This area encompasses China, Japan and Australia.

 

Many of the deaths appear to be a culminated effect of working long hours over a long period. What is clear is that many victims are under pressure to overwork by cultural influences where they feel a tortured sense of guilt unless they work long hours. For instance, in Japan they even have a word for dying from overwork called 'Karoshi' while in America or Scotland the ghostly imprint of the Protestant work ethic continues to haunt the workplace. Unless workers do long hours they feel they are committing a cardinal sin. Ruthless employers who impose such harsh work schedules on their employees don't seem to feel such reservations. For them, failing to expand and boost profits represents the ultimate sin. 

The researchers suggest that working long hours leads to declining health because of not only stress at having to meet tight dead lines, but less free time to obtain sufficient sleep, do exercise and adopt a healthy diet. And to cut the stress they can over smoke or drink. As Leonid Perlov, of the Union Teacher, once put it, "If a teacher works not enough hours she can't afford to eat, but if she works long hours she can't find time to eat". 

School teachers are among the most vulnerable professions when it comes to working long hours. One of the reasons for increasing hours during the pandemic has been the increased blurring of boundaries between home and work. Your work stalks you everywhere through your mobile phone. This, and the fact that information technology renders teachers more accessible to parents or headteachers, often means teachers don't have a single day off. Doctor Patrick Roach, a representative of the Scottish Teacher Union, stated that teachers had been under pressure to provide a 24 hour service to pupils over E-Mail. Parents of pupils have often been over demanding by  bombarding teachers with endless requests and demands. Dr. Roach, while emphasizing the importance of parents in education, stresses that 'Contact between parents and schools must be appropriate, proportionate and respectful, both of the fact that teachers need a work/life balance and of teachers' pedagogical knowledge, experience and skills." The Russian school teacher Pavel Astapov recalled how he was bemused to find how a school girl expressed astonishment when she observed him visiting a cinema. It was as if they thought teachers should stay at home or in school checking homework or doing work duties all the time. Doing longer hours in schools has been compounded by the process of optimization, making teachers redundant, low pay forcing teachers to do extra hours and the never ending rise in paperwork not to mention testing.  

 

Unfortunately the response of employers to complaints about doing long hours is often met with indifference or reproach. When teachers complain to some headmasters, they are merely told to 'get on with your job' . It is not even an issue. In Russia Marina Lysenko, a manager who works in public relations, states: "Employers are often indifferent to the hours their employees do. There are also a lot of myths connected to free lance work. People think that doing free lance work is like paradise, but this is not the case. Free lance workers often overwork ... I don't agree with the stereotype of 'the lazy Russian worker'. I know many people in Moscow who work hard. People also say that in warm countries such as Italy and Spain the workers are lazy, but they forget that workers have to take a siesta for biological reasons because the climate is so hot".  However, Lysenko points out that one of the compensations of the impact of the pandemic is that working at home saves her and other employees from wasting so much time travelling from work. It can take some commuters two hours to reach their workplaces in Moscow.

 

What can be done to protect people from the dangers of overwork? All too often someone tells a person to either give up their job or work less ignoring the specific difficulties a person finds him or herself in. This advice seems to blame the victim assuming his working conditions are freely chosen! In many situations it is impossible for employees to give up their job because they would be immediately evicted and rendered homeless! The authors of this report recommend more effective government intervention and regulation of the workplace, more dialogue between employers and employees to discuss a plan of action and for trade unions to take stronger measures to protect their members. In this respect it is worth noting that doing longer hours can damage rather than improve productivity. There is a lot of research in this area and some employers in Denmark even advocate as well as allow a four-day week. The problem with such a proposal is: Would it entail a major wage cut hitting hard the income of workers?