The days grow longer

The unpaid working time we give to our bosses .

Socialist economics is based upon the Labour Theory of Value which is the Marxian explanation of our exploitation . Unpaid labour is the source of all surplus value. Normally , this takes place in the work-shop or office from 8 to 5 but more and more the time of the working day is growing in ways that we are not immediately aware of giving to the employers . When capitalists buy a worker’s labour they buy the worker’s capacity to work for a full day . Nowadays , with factories seldom at your doorstep , workers are forced to travel to and fro their workplaces . This travelling time we also give free to the bosses .

The amount of time that workers spend commuting between home and their workplace has rocketed in the past 10 years, with millions of workers now taking at least an hour to get to the office, new research shows. TUC research found the number of people who travel for more than an hour to get to work has risen by as much as 40% and that around 145,000 people in Scotland are now setting off for work earlier and getting home later than they did 10 years ago and has increased by 1.5 million to 5.5 million across Britain. Not-for-profit group Work Wise UK said Britons face the second longest commutes in Europe, behind the Netherlands, averaging 8.7 miles a day. One-in-ten commuters has a daily journey in excess of two hours, and 3 per cent of employees are "extreme commuters" averaging three hours a day.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "We work some of the longest hours in Europe, and on top of this have to endure the second-longest daily commute in Europe - on average 54 minutes per day."