Expectations

Reality

Average Hours per Week and Weeks per Year Worked (1967-2016)

Annual Hours per Worker
(1870-1998)

Annual Hours per Worker (1950–2017)

Persons at Work by Hours of Work (October 2018)

Overwork

What is it?

Defining Overwork

• A standard (40 hours per week)
• Outcomes?
  • Karoshi
  • It's possible to overwork
    within 40 hours per week.

Who does overwork affect?

Sabbath In Response

Sabbath is rooted in creation

Sabbath has universal application

Sabbath represents a radical disengagement from the producer-consumer rat race of the empire.

Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance, 54–55

YHWH’s lordship of the land (Lev 25:23) and, indeed, creation (Gen 2:3) lies behind Sabbath legislation and so Sabbath keeping is related to YHWH’s provision for his people (cf. Lev 25:20–21).

[Sabbath] is designed primarily for the benefit of the poor, who … are forced to [work] because of their status as slaves.

D. L. Baker, Tight Fists or Open Hands?, 294

Some practical Steps

Legislation

• Limits to overtime

• Mandated annual leave

• Redefinition of overwork

Some practical Steps

Managerial

• Pay living wages

• Don't exploit workers

• Address status signalling

Some practical Steps

Desperately poor