Every Day Is Sunday

Absenteeism--staying away from the job--is a spreading plague in most industrial nations, including the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and especially the Soviet Union. Labor leaders concede that the workingman often grabs every opportunity to get away from the numbing boredom of the production line, but they add that attendance records are high in industries like shipbuilding, where workers put together large segments of a product and thus can take satisfaction in their work. Some sociologists say that widespread absenteeism is a sign of progress, an indication that people no longer want to labor in great factories because they expect more out of life. Lately this problem has hit one of the world's fastest-growing industrial countries, Italy.

Three years ago, an average 7% of the country's work force was out on any given day. This rose to 10% last year; on most Mondays, fully 14% of Italian workers played hooky. Absences also run high on days of bannerline sports events and before or after the 17 national holidays. At Fiat, which employs 185,000 people, an average 20,000 workers stay home daily, a number roughly equal to the entire work force of the huge automaker's smaller rival, Alfa Romeo. Assembly-line workers argue that they need time off now and then because the job diminishes their sexual prowess and induces a nervous tic they call the "Charlie Chaplin twitch."

By retarding the output of industrial exports, absenteeism was a primary cause of Italy's $1.7 billion trade deficit last year. Managers trace the upsurge in absenteeism to a law, passed last June, forbidding company representatives from checking up at the home of employees who take off because of "illness." To collect his sick pay, which in the auto industry averages 50% of normal wages, a worker must now present only a doctor's certification that he has been ill. In a spot check on about 1,000 workers who had acquired certificates, the national health-insurance agency found that only 219 were really sick, 386 were completely well and 353 were uncheckable because they were away from home--possibly tending to their sex lives. The Turin Physicians' Association recently sent a letter to its members warning them against issuing fake certificates, "especially when the 'patient' is visiting in another city or spending time in jail."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.