Long hours and risks to worker and public safety and health
Long hours can detrimentally affect workers, their co-workers, their families, consumers, and the public.
Indeed, there is evidence that, despite the short-term benefits that make overtime attractive to employers
(Easton and Rossin 1997), it may in the longer term create offsetting harm to an organization by decreasing
quality, increasing mistakes (Babbar and Aspelin 1998; Hirschman 2000), and reducing productivity
(Shepard and Clifton 2000). A study on the effects of overtime work on autoworkers found that overtime
resulted in impaired performance in attention and executive functions. Workers also reported feeling more
fatigued and depressed after working more than eight hours a day (Proctor et al. 1996). It is not surprising,
then, that accident rates increase during overtime hours (Kogi 1991). For example, researchers have
identified overtime as a factor contributing to safety incidents at nuclear power plants (Baker et al. 1994),
confirming what researchers had previously found at manufacturing plants (Schuster 1985) and among
anesthetists (Gander et al. 2000). Workers who work overtime face a greater risk of injury and illness
(Aakerstedt 1994; Duchon et al. 1994; Rosa 1995; Smith 1996). For a typical example, a German study
found that, after nine hours at work, the accident rate begins to rise; in the 12th hour the accident rate was
twice as high as the rate for the first nine hours (Hanecke et al. 1998). Long work hours also multiply
repetitive motions and exposure to harmful chemicals.
Further, frequent overtime and compressed work schedules that produce long workdays can be a
major cause of the stress and chronic fatigue reported by many workers, as well as the ensuing occupational
burnout or serious health conditions (Sparks et al. 1997; Spurgeon et al. 1997; Martens et al. 1999;
Barnett et al. 1999; Shields 1999; Fenwick and Tausig 2001). Stress can result in increased blood pressure
and cardiovascular diseases, which in some cases can have fatal consequences. The Japanese, known for
long work hours, even have a word – karoshi – to describe death from overwork (Hayashi et al. 1996; and
Sokejima and Kagamimori 1998).
In the U.S., job stress is estimated to cost industry $150 billion per year in absenteeism, health
insurance premiums, diminished productivity, compensation claims, and direct medical costs (Donatelle
and Hawkins 1989). Longer work hours can only contribute further to this drain. A study by Northwestern
National Life (1991), which investigated employee burnout, found that seven out of 10 employees experiencing
job stress said they frequently suffered health ailments. Frequent mandatory overtime was one of
the leading five factors that caused increased stress. Employees who worked overtime on a regular basis
were twice as likely (62% vs. 34%) to report that they found their jobs to be highly stressful.