WAGE SLAVERY IN THE USA

The Washington Post writer Brian Fung has recently come up with some interesting statistics about work in the USA."Welcome to the future of work: a world where everything moves faster, the hours are longer and steady jobs are harder to find. Work has always been central to our lives -- in the United States, the 40-hour workweek stretches back at least a century -- but now, technology and the pressure of competing in a global economy is threatening to turn back the clock, making our toil an all-consuming affair once again. Studies show that we're more productive than ever. American output has tripled since 1947, according to the U.S. Census Bureau." (The Atlantic, 11 April) Workers in the USA are three times more productive than they were sixty five years ago but now find they have to work harder and longer with less security of tenure. No wonder the owning class of America is getting richer and richer. RD