Sinking while working around the clock

Do you think that living with a chronic illness makes you unemployable —  because you can’t possibly work the long hours that are expected in America’s workplace?

Not long ago, I blogged on this topic on my other blog, Keep Working Girlfriend.  It got some interesting responses.  One reader was motivated to research this topic. I think this is a really complex topic – and I’m not publishing it to endorse her suggestion but to spark conversation.

Note: I edited her comment slightly for this post but you can read it her full response here)

“Too many CI friends and acquaintances are struggling with this issue of how many hours they’re being asked to work – the intimation being, if you can’t work the long hours, you can’t do the job, bye-bye!

{Imagine if} in every job description they put down that — ‘the company can’t survive unless the employees can all work super long hours at the company’s will’. {With that} they could undermine the ADA even more than it’s already threatened.

So, under the assumption that in a country where some legislative bodies {passed legislation allowing homosexual marriages} surely there has to be a law saying that no one can be required to work over a certain number of hours per week. Maybe it would say 50 or 60, not 40, but there would be SOME limit…

Imagine my dismay to go to http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/hrg.htm and find out that the FSLA (Federal Labor Standards Act) does not limit the number of hours an employee can be required to work!   In fact, they don’t even mandate meal and other breaks, leaving that up to the corporation. Hourly employees have to get OT for hours over 40 per week, but if the employer decided it was to their benefit to cough up OT v. hiring more workers, there’s nothing saying that the employer can’t literally tell employees they have to work 24/7.

What do you think?

• If all CI er’s consider a massive letter writing, phone calling, and emailing campaign, even if their state is one of the few that does limit hours, and push their respective lawmakers for a federal law that limits the number of hours employees can be required to work to something reasonable, with limited exceptions for emergency situations?
  

We can’t afford large amounts of people out of work and on disability; we need to keep people working when they want to do so. And that’s not going to happen if we exhaust everyone and there’s no law on the books to stop it. Medical errors took a dive when regulatory agencies and lawmakers put laws on the books to force people to do the right thing. It’s a shame it takes a law for people to do the right thing, but that’s the way it is. ”   Note:  this comment was written by Anne Clouse.

On another note:   July’s How to cope with pain blog  carnival is up.  See what the bloggers have submitted this month.

Rosalind aka cicoach.com