'Hard yakka' taking all the fun out of beach life

SYDNEY - Golden beaches, clear blue skies, beer chilling in the icebox and sausages sizzling on the barbie - Australia has long attracted immigrants in search of a relaxed outdoor lifestyle.

But the reality is somewhat different for a growing army of Aussies for whom long hours of hard work, colloquially known as "hard yakka", are becoming a norm.

In fact, the country has some of the longest working hours in the world and unions say new labour laws will accelerate the trend by giving employers more power to exploit their workers.

OECD data shows Australia stands eighth among member states in terms of average hours worked a year, roughly on a par with the United States and well ahead of other economic giants such as Germany, Britain, France and Japan.

If part-time workers are stripped out, Australia climbs even higher in the long-hours league table.

"We have the highest proportion of any OECD country working in excess of 50 hours a week," said Richard Marles, assistant secretary at the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

"Australian managers' response to an increasingly competitive global market has been to get people to work longer and harder."

The pressure to toil ever longer hours is felt most acutely in the cities, where employees strive to climb the corporate ladder and firms look to extract their pound of flesh.

Matt, an executive with a global IT firm in Sydney, said: "An average day for me can be flexible, but there tends to be quite a lot of early-morning and late-night stuff.

"Because I'm part of a global team, I need to be in regular contact with people in the US and UK. I may have to be in for a conference call with the US at 7am or late at night to be in contact with Europe, so the days can be quite long."

Irregular work patterns, with short bouts of intense work, are also common in big-city law firms.

"I probably have about two or three spells a year, each lasting a couple of weeks, where I am regularly putting in 15 hours in the office," said one law firm employee, adding that the odd 3am finish was not unheard of.

As in other countries, technology has helped to ingrain a long-hours culture by making workers available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Faced with an almost constant barrage of work-related information and a seemingly bottomless in-tray, it's little wonder many Australian workers are feeling the strain.

"The prevalence of job insecurity and job demands are increasing in Australia and in developed countries. We have found a strong relationship between working conditions and mental and physical health," said Rennie D'Souza, of the Australian National University in Canberra.

For some, the strain of a high-pressure job and a punishing schedule simply becomes too much.

Employees lower down the ladder are also increasingly expected to put in extra time, often for no more cash.

Marles says about 60 per cent of overtime work in Australia is unpaid and warns that the new industrial relations laws will only worsen the situation.

The laws aim to weaken the powers of unions by encouraging workers to sign individual contracts with employers, rather than work under umbrella awards, and stop people launching unfair dismissal claims against small businesses.

"It's low-road economics. If you give employers the ability to exploit their workforce, if you encourage them to go down that path, they will do," said Marles.

"Forty to 50 hours is the productive limit of the average person on a week-in, week-out basis.

"You can do the occasional 60-hour week, but if you do that over a longer period it's questionable whether you're actually being of any benefit to your employer."

- REUTERS