Race Against Time: Extended Hours in Australia

By David Peetz, Keith Townsend, Bob Russell, Chris Houghton and Cameron Allan

A report on some of the causes and effects of extended working hours.

Extended hours were mostly employer-driven, where workplace regulation of hours was weak so that employees were not compensated for extra hours worked, though in a minority of instances they were jointly driven by employers and employees who benefited from overtime pay. Workplace culture was important in shaping extended hours. Employees internalised pressure to work long hours, so that without adequate say on their workload, those with higher say in their working hours tended to work longer hours. Yet many full-time employees were working more hours than they wanted, and there was strong support for an upper limit on hours.

(Australian Bulletin of Labour. vol. 29, no. 2, June 2003)