Sweatshop Hours


Your editorial on the death of Matthew Courtney was disgraceful (see [2007] Gazette, 22 February, 15).



One presumes that by acknowledging the trauma Mr Courtney's death will have caused to his 'family, friends and colleagues', you were perhaps offering some sort sympathy, but this was wholly negated by the remainder of the editorial. The inference to be drawn from your remarks is that those who have the stamina to work 16-hour days, seven days a week ad infinitum will eventually be 'rewarded' by some telephone-number salary, elevating them to a different earnings and social strata from Joe Public, an altogether lesser human being. En route to this legal Utopia, they will have to make the substantial sacrifice known as a quality of life, becoming further isolated from people who truly matter, such as family and real friends.



Why do you call this a 'reward'? How much money is really necessary to be comfortable and happy? Why should anyone be on permanent call to some corporate big shot in a different hemisphere, irrevocably steeped in the mire of corporate greed with probably little in the way of a life himself?



There is something fundamentally flawed about organisations that allow their staff to work 16-hour days, seven days a week. Either it has too much work (if so, it should have more employees), its existing employees are incompetent (if so, management has to review why) or - as I suspect is the case with the huge magic circle firms - it is a sick form of initiation designed to separate the wheat from the chaff.



You would have gained much more respect had you acknowledged that such sweatshop hours are not acceptable in a profession that is supposed to be just and fair, rather than cruelly implying that, if he had worked such hours, it was a deficiency in Matthew Courtney that he simply could not cope.



Elainne M Lawrie, Chester