Strikes these days, are always for very complicated causes and even more complicated concessions… I mentioned this strike, though, with a rare burst of confidence, because the [Electrician’s Union] grievance was very simple.
They were not complaining about fringe benefits… They want higher wages and fewer hours. They wanted the current pittance raised to three guineas an hour.
I said an hour. And they want to bring in now what a labour philosopher maintains is going to be a bedrock necessity of the nuclear age: they want a 20-hour week, a four-hour day. It’s what we are all aiming at, of course, but most of us have been taught that the key to prosperity is productivity. This turns out to be a capitalist racket. In no time flat, computers are going to be doing the overtime, and when that happens it will be criminal repetition to have human beings build buildings, drive buses, and, so they say, write poetry. When the machines take over, we will only get in the way by doing anything so old-fashioned and incompetent as living by the sweat of our brow. Four hours a day will be plenty.
”