The 4 day week

The whole world is protesting against racism in the wake of the death of George Floyd. You may think from my last post, that I am skirting around the subject and you are probably right. I empathise completely and I deplore violence and racism. But as my son points out, I have almost definitely said things that could be construed as racist in my life. For that I am sorry.

But this blog is always about action and moving forward. Its about finding solutions and taking small steps and promoting big ones. I know that I don’t have any of the answers. I see the protests and I don’t know where the solutions lie and how the change can come about. I am hoping to get a guest post from someone I trust to deal with this subject better than I can.

In the meanwhile I saw part of an interview with Russell Brand and Professor Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. They were saying that part of the underlying problem is that there is a surplus of workers.

The idea was always that manual work would be automated and robots would become the cheap labour of the future, in order to make life easier for people. For example if machines can do the hard part of mining, then less people need to risk life and limb underground. It sounds like a good idea.

The intention was that people would then need to work less, would have more leisure time and could do more creative roles, but this is where it has all fallen down. Automation has been used to reduce the need for manual labour and the resulting surplus of workers has decreased wages for low skilled jobs. This has just led to widespread poverty. As the interview above has pointed out, this disproportionately affects Black and Minority communities the most.

We need a 4 day week. I am not the first to think or say this by a long shot. Apparently British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted back in the 1930s that a century later the average work week would be just 15 hours (Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes, 1930).

There is a lot to be said for a 4 day week, not least that it should create 25% more jobs. The video below highlights more of the benefits, such as less illness and more family time.

The benefits of a 4 day week don’t really materialise until the change is made by the majority. It also has to come hand in hand with a rise in the minimum wage. It seems to me like the highest earners in society are holding the purse strings too tightly to allow that to happen without a fair bit of persuasion.

Reading further through Keynes predictions, he sees a time when the pursuit of wealth over everything else will end. (I have included another extract from the same source below) I hope in this aspect he is right and that within the next 10 years (100 years since his prediction) it becomes a reality. Then at least we may have a more level playing field to deal with the issues of racial equality.  

There are changes in other spheres too which we must expect to come. When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession – as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life – will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard. Of course there will still be many people with intense, unsatisfied purposiveness who will blindly pursue wealth – unless they can find some plausible substitute. But the rest of us will no longer be under any obligation to applaud and encourage them. For we shall inquire more curiously than is safe to-day into the true character of this “purposiveness” with which in varying degrees Nature has endowed almost all of us. For purposiveness means that we are more concerned with the remote future results of our actions than with their own quality or their immediate effects on our own environment.

Women in Engineering - A new start?

The company I work for is being shut down, and I am waiting to hear whether there is a position available for me within the parent company, or if I will be made redundant. There will be plenty of you out there who have experienced or are experiencing the same situation right now.

I am grateful, because it was a lovely company to work for and they were very good to me. I felt able to express my views and enjoyed working with the rest of the team. It had a good balance of trust and respect, even though we were frequently under pressure to deliver projects. However the journey of life continues onward to new opportunities and experiences.

I am announcing my news to everyone quickly because the standard response is “Oh I’m sorry you are redundant”, “How dreadful”, “That’s tough because it will be impossible to find a job right now”. All these negative responses I have put in a box and sealed shut, so they can’t poison my thoughts or decisions. Will I ever meet anyone who says “Wow that’s exciting!”, “You are free to discover a new adventure”, “There are so many options, what will you choose to do next?”

Hmmm….what will I choose to do next?

I have spent the last 2 months on Furlough, which means being paid 80% of my wages to stay at home and not work. If it wasn’t for the current circumstances this would have been bliss. I have enjoyed getting the garden and house back in order after a year of it being virtually untouched. Having time to meditate, cycle and enjoy the sunshine and my family. I have even had time to watch some interesting series like Chernobyl, The Durrells and Afterlife. Life has been rather full on, so time to breathe and reflect has been very welcome.

My garden is coming along nicely

Even so, I know that this is not an option that I am happy doing long term. I get bored easily and am always happier with a challenge or mental stimulation. I need to find that balance where I can do some mentally intense work but still have time for gardening and family in between. Working from home cuts out hours of commute a week and really facilitates getting a good work life balance, so will be something I wish to continue. Having managed so well on 80% of my income, I am also wondering whether a 4 day week may be a viable option. It is slightly tempting to sell up and live somewhere by the coast or travel in a campervan, but my youngest daughter still has one more year at school, so those dreams will have to wait for now. Which means I am looking for a new job locally.

I am an engineer and a woman. The UK has one of the worst rates in Europe for employing women engineers. Women make up 51% of the population, yet less than 10% of engineering professionals are women according to the Statistics on Women In Engineering (WES, Jan 2018) as shown in their graph below. This is the lowest in Europe, whereas Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus lead with nearly 30%.

In my current workplace 4 out of 9 technical staff are women and it made for a good mix. In other engineering roles I was always the only one. The chances of finding new work for a company with any other female engineers is fairly slim. That red band at the bottom of the graph above is spread rather thinly. What is the problem with that?

What this large blue expanse translates to in the workplace is that you don’t fit in. You have to fight to get your views heard, and you are last on the list to be asked what you think about any issue. You will be overlooked for key projects where there is an opportunity to shine, even when you are the only volunteer stepping forward. And if you can’t shine it’s a hard slog to progress up the ladder. You will never be the “blue-eyed boy” on a fast track for promotion. It is far more likely that you will earn less than your colleagues for doing the same work and be regularly overlooked despite your competence.

20 years ago as the only female engineering manager in a team of 70 engineers that was me. The most memorable incident was in a meeting with the Operations Manager, Principal Engineer, and all the other engineering managers. Earlier in the day, I had inducted some contractors that were working for Pat the Site Services Manager, because he was busy. Now they had finished their work and needed their permits signing off before they could leave. I saw them through the glass walled meeting room as they walked past a few times trying to find Pat. Pat was often in the bowels of the factory where no phone signal would ever find him. I ducked down in my seat to try and avoid being seen, but they spotted me. They tapped on the door and then stuck a head round. The Operations Manager stopped mid-flow. “We just need Pat’s secretary to sign off our permits please”. The rest of the room cracked up with hysterical laughter, as I jumped up and tried to escape whilst glowering my worst scowl at these bloody contractors. Only the Operations Manager wasn't laughing. “She is not a secretary, she is one of our engineering managers!”, he managed to get out before I had reached the door, grabbed the contractors and marched off down the corridor. As if a secretary would be able to sign off safety permits! Duh! But to them it was a natural assumption that any woman was there to do admin, as they had never met a female engineer before.

And it is from these little assumptions, casual remarks and minor actions that inequality grows into a problem. It is parents that tell their friends that their daughter is a scientist because it sounds better than an engineer. It is the apprentices who are taught and influenced by male engineers, so any prejudices are perpetuated. It is the free calendars of half-naked women, sent as a ‘perk’ from the supplier, that hang in the engineering stores and engineers workshop – because only engineers aka men ever enter these areas. There is nothing that makes your position more uncomfortable than standing in front of the storeman to discuss delivery dates for essential parts, with the engineers behind discussing their favourite features from the latest pinup. (Well apart from a boss who stares at your breasts while he talks to you.) Why would this be fit for any workplace when your mind should be on work? It does not build respect for the female workforce. And for that matter it doesn’t build respect for male engineers either.

20 years later and you would hope the situation has changed, but really it hasn’t. Progress is as flat as the red band in the above graph. There is an equal opportunities policy now, but it just states the obvious – that you shouldn’t treat people differently because of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation etc. In my view it does little to stop discrimination, especially as most discrimination is subtle, underlying or hidden.

For instance how do women engineers know what the equivalent male engineer is earning? It’s not general knowledge and I have asked male colleagues previously and none of them will reveal their salary. So statistically we know men are being paid more but on an individual basis how do you prove it? If it is kept hidden then how will it ever be addressed? Maybe all women engineers should raise a grievance about their pay without any evidence, because pure probability says they would have a case? It may not be very palatable but what are the options to resolve this without some transparency?

Even the sexy calendars – if there are no women engineers in the workshop to see and question this practice will anyone else make a fuss? Apparently not, because I know in some places this still goes on.

And if you feel like you have been overlooked for a project, or you get given all the less technical jobs, such as going to the Continuous Improvement meetings, investigating grievances, or overseeing the work experience kids, then it is really hard to pinpoint that as discrimination. These little things then get you side-lined – it looks like you are not really technical, not a real engineer because you never do any of the technical stuff. Can you see how this leads down a slippery slope that means you get overlooked for promotion?

If engineering courses are all taught by men, classes are full of boys and you would be the only girl, you have to have a lot of determination and confidence to continue with engineering. And very few girls have the role model of a mum, aunt or grandmother engineer. Very little has changed in 20 years and the only way it will is with gender quotas or specific schemes aimed at bringing women into the industry. Retaining them with equal pay, good promotion opportunities, flexible hours, respect, and valuing their contribution needs to happen now.

The Fawcett Society produced the Sex and Power Index which reveals that men dominate in every sector in the UK, not just engineering.

     The Index reveals that women make up just:  

       ·         6% of FTSE 100 CEOs
·         16.7% Supreme Court Justices
·         17.6% of national newspaper editors
·         26% of cabinet ministers
·         32% of MPs

If the positions of power are dominated by men then you would think it would be up to them to change things. That’s not how change normally comes about though, because they are fairly happy or even oblivious to the status quo. Its women who need to re-write the script, by being aware and challenging situations. Its women who need to shine a light on their experiences. It’s the men they work with who can become more alert to the issues and support women in engineering roles. Sometimes it is hard for people to see that it is all the little things – like calling you “love”, that add to the full picture. By raising awareness in a non-confrontational way when something is unacceptable we can hopefully change attitudes. What do you think?

It is tiresome still facing the same prejudices 20 years down the road. I am asking myself if I can be bothered with working as an engineer still. But then if not me, with the experience to work through these issues and the strength to try and change them, then who? The new generation have a high expectation of being treated fairly, and being recruited and promoted on their merit, as they should. Let’s not let them down.

Women make up 51% of the UK population - we are the majority! If we can't be a loud enough voice for equality and change for women, then how much harder is it for minority groups to be heard?

Land stewards

This post was written back in February 2017 as a follow on to Next Stop ... Prime Minister, but remained in my drafts as I couldn't find the last few photos I wanted to include. It followed a theme of providing alternative options to deal with some of the problems we face. Even though so much has changed since then with Brexit and now Covid-19, I think it is still relevant now. Let me know what you think.

The remarkable beauty of an old slate quarry

After my 4th child was born, I made the commitment that I didn't want to work long hours in a stressful career anymore, for a company that just churned out products as cheaply as possible. I wanted to have an interesting, fulfilling and meaningful career, which was completely flexible around my family and allowed me to spend more quality time with them, when I chose to. Securing a future for all our children, by acting to prevent catastrophic climate change, felt like a worthwhile goal, so I signed onto a masters course, to arm me with the knowledge to go out into the world and battle greenhouse gas emissions.

The University of East London (UEL) had teamed up with the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) to provide the perfect hands on course for me. For each module you spent a week living at CAT, having lectures and practicals all day, often until late in the evening, then the rest of the month was spent at home preparing essays and presentations before the next module.

Old stone building with a green sedum roof and sunken garden at CAT.

At this point I need to describe CAT. It started out life with a small community transforming an old slate quarry on a very wet hillside into a beautiful, organic, sustainable, off-grid home. 30 years on the focus had shifted to being an educational facility promoting a low impact lifestyle, powered by micro-hydro turbines, wind turbines, solar panels and biomass. The award winning cafe on site served vegetarian food, a lot of which was grown intensively on site, and included an abundance of seasonal vegetables, herbs and flowers. The traditional thick stone-walled buildings, that had served the quarry many years before, were renovated to make them more efficient, but also opened up to bring in lots of natural daylight, improving the feel of the indoor spaces. Additional buildings demonstrated different techniques of timber and straw bale construction, but my favourite was the shop. The beautiful rammed earth walls, with their striated texture felt so warm and grounded, and designed with natural light flooding through the rooflights, it was a peaceful and calming space. Even more so because it was packed with hundreds of amazing and inspiring books that you wouldn't see anywhere else! (CAT publish their own books) The weeks were always so full that there barely seemed enough time for really enjoying this space.

Rammed earth walls and large roof lights for natural light in CAT's shop

With no mobile signal and very poor internet, we spent the week cut off from the outside world. I remember the shock of many arriving to find themselves with quite basic shared accommodation, completely cut off without news, TV, processed food or meat, in the constant downpour of cold, deepest, darkest Wales. A few jumped back in their cars and drove straight back home. But there was delicious hot food waiting for us and as we all sat on long benches full of strangers, from the most varied backgrounds you could imagine, aged from 18 to 70. Yet it was noisier than a playground full of primary school children. Everyone was immediately drawn into deep conversations with their neighbours, because suddenly you were surrounded by people who share your passion and dreams for a better world and are eager to learn more, yet have a lot they can teach you. These conversations only stopped whilst we listened attentively to the absorbing lectures, or when overcome by sleep in the early hours of the morning.

The strawbale lecture theatre, surrounded by welcoming open spaces.

After just one week I was filled with the confidence that we can do so much.... I can do so much. The negativity of climate change was blown away, by the knowledge that so much has already been demonstrated and achieved. I felt it wasn't good enough to just try and save energy as a job, but I needed to try and incorporate sustainability into every aspect of my life. Its funny that it all seemed such a big challenge then, like how could I ever grow my own food with a small garden and 4 young kids, yet I started growing just a few tomatoes in pots, then some peas and beans, and now I have an allotment full of vegetables.

The eco-cabins at CAT

I was really inspired to leave our cramped, 1980's "noddy house", devoid of character and not designed to support a sustainable lifestyle. I wanted to design and build a home for ourselves. Not just a home, but a lifelong home, designed to be flexible to our needs at every stage of ours and our children's lives, whatever changes befell us. Internal walls would not be structural and would be constructed in panels to allow the spaces to be re-arranged as easily as changing the decor. The doors would be wide and spaces would be clean and flowing to enable wheelchairs or baby walkers to access all areas. Walls would be super-insulated and glazing would maximise solar gain in winter, so it could keep us warm and sheltered even in the event of severe poverty. There would be a garden to give freedom for children to play, and that was sufficient to produce food when times were hard. Materials would be local and sustainable, so that maintenance involved digging up some clay to patch up the walls or replacing timbers. And when the world moved on and our home no longer met the needs of future generations, then the roof could be removed and the house would be washed away by rain or slowly decompose, so that a few years later little more than a weedy mound would show where our home had once stood.

The eco-cabins at CAT

It would be nice to place all the blame for not achieving this dream on the planning system, one that allows low impact buildings when they are intended to be used as holiday homes, but makes it extremely difficult to build something similar as a home to be lived in. Or place blame on the predominance of large house builders, who buy up the land and smother it with ugly developments of roads, drives and brick buildings, that concrete over nature and just leave handkerchief-sized lawns, with no space for trees or wildlife or craftsmanship and beauty. But if I am honest, and I do try to be, it is scary to step out of the comfort, security and conformity of that noddy house, and into unfamiliar territory filled with self-doubt, with a family in tow. So here I remain stuck until my courage and resolve return.

And so, in a very long-winded way, I come to addressing the comment from Rory on my last post regarding the lack of affordable housing in the UK, and the first step of my solution would be Land Stewards.

The Native American people have a belief system that we don't and can't own the land. In the millions of years that the earth has heaved and turned, we are but a passing whim. How can we own the land when our time here is so short and who owned it before us to say that we are now the owners? The earth had no borders before we evolved and will not after us, these are figments of our own invention, rules and constrictions that we have made for ourselves that form our own chains. 

Ownership has allowed the rentier class to develop. Most people earn a living working each day, providing goods or services, such as nurses, plumbers and factory workers. The money they earn is constricted by the hours they have available to work. The rentier class earn money by owning things, whether land or property or money, their income comes from loaning them out and charging a fee for it. So we pay them to live in their property or for the use of their money, not for the work that they do. Their earnings are not relative to the work they put in, but are more dependent on how desperately people need a place to live.

I would like councils to be able to apportion 1 acre plots of land to people who wish to be Land Stewards. As a Land Steward you are responsible for looking after that land in a sustainable manner and are entitled to use of the land for as long as you continue to do so, but you do not own the land. When you die your partner or children can apply to be the Land Steward in your place, or the land can be returned to the council to be re-allocated to another person. You would be entitled to build one dwelling and outhouses on the land as long as they are low impact, so that they can either be wheeled away or left to melt back into the landscape when you leave, with no long term damage to the land. No concrete would be allowed, not even for foundations, so drives would need to be gravel or wood chip or just tracks. Do you see where I am going with this?

If you offered a homeless person, or anyone, the right to their own piece of land, there is the potential that with support and hard work that they could make a life for themselves. Land gives people the opportunity to grow or raise some food for themselves and to build a shelter, but also the opportunity to learn new skills in the process. It encourages creativity and craftsmanship and re-skilling. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but that's fine. If all people get a basic income as discussed here and there are more flats and properties becoming available in the cities due to the surge in working from home, then there will already be a boost to city accommodation and reduction in demand should help affordability too. Then a shift for some people back to the countryside, and becoming self-builders or using local tradesmen, would enable a boost to rural communities. 

In addition the housing that Land Stewards build could not be tied to a mortgage, a loan of money from the rentier class, because there is no land ownership as a security to back it. This would mean that most stewards would have to build truly 'affordable' homes, using local materials or recycling. It would give people a chance to have shelter without the need to be on the property ladder. If people can build something special for themselves, then the demand for noddy houses would diminish.

Individual beach house

If you are wondering what this kind of affordable house building would look like, then walk along many of the beach roads in the UK. There are wooden beach houses, temporary holiday dwellings, often unique and individual and beautiful, even if sometimes in a shabby rundown sort of way. Or walk along the river bank and there are similar properties.

Another beach house in Norfolk

The landscapes that were painted by Constable showed small cottages dotting the landscape made of local materials with their thatched roofs. It is the surviving quirky, individual dwellings that we love, that makes a scene picturesque, something that our housing estates will never be. Let us give people back the opportunity to build beautiful homes and celebrate the diversity that will come from it. Lets do something that reduces peoples burden to the rentier class. Lets promote living sustainably from the land without damaging it for future generations