Our media partner Huffington Post has this story — something to mull over if you are one of the many Hawaii folks who don’t have today (Monday, Sept. 2) off. Excerpt:

For more than a hundred years, workers successfully pushed for shorter and shorter hours as productivity kept increasing. In the early 1900s, progress appeared unstoppable. Soon, it seemed, people would hardly have to work at all. …

Yet the movement for shorter hours has fizzled. Since the passage of the landmark Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which established the minimum wage and the 40-hour workweek, the idea that shorter hours could reduce unemployment and lessen misery has been largely forgotten.

Today, two-thirds of American workers are on the job at least 40 hours per week, with 25 percent working longer and nearly 7 percent putting in more than 60 hours, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The entrepreneurial spirit is our holiest ghost, and slacking is downright un-American. And whereas technology was supposed to make work easier and give everyone more free time, for some people, bedside smartphones have made work relentless. Studies have shown that overwork leads to excessive stress and devastating health problems. …

Photo: United We Stand sign from a Hawaii state government workers’ rally. (Flickr: wertheim)

—Chad Blair