In the US, where productivity is everything, there is less and less slack.
Real wages have been declining (for people other than CEOs, that is) for some
years, and many workers need to work more than one full-time job to make ends
meet; workers typically get only one week of leave a year (as opposed to the
four in Australia), and now,
the
lunch break is on its way out, replaced with hastily eaten lunches at one's
desk. Given that Australia is a few years behind the US, and there is
immense pressure from multinational corporations to globalise working
conditions and override those quaint, archaic, inefficient cultural
differences, how long until Australians are as overworked and underpaid as
Americans? (link via rebeccablood.net)