The title ‘thirty seven hours’ is based upon The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average per person working hours per week for its member countries.

In researching the best language to communicate my artwork [shown above] I thought it a good idea to see what is generally accepted in modern societies as regards the number of working hours per week per adult person.

Throughout my research I found a disparagingly obvious difference between poor countries and technologically developed nations in terms of how many hours their citizens work per week in comparison.

My artwork is designed to communicate a reasonable working week to the world, through fairer employment conditions and fair trade.

Here we have the black and white version:

By fading out the words ‘BAD boss’ and ‘BAN CHILD labour’ the black and white version alludes to eradicating unethical commercial practices in a succinct way.

If you could see the streets of London at the turn of the 20th Century you would see similar working conditions to those we see in poorer countries today.

Progress in pay is relative.

Why?

We need to envisage that some technologically developed nations (TDN systems) are taking advantage of a poorer nations labour workforce. Obviously, I am not against the use of cheaper labour. Cheaper labour occurs as a result of national economic differences in ‘the cost of things’.

Singapore is considered more expensive (to reside in) than the UK, the UK is more expensive (to reside in) than Ghana. Utilising cheaper labour markets actually provides nations with valuable work.

The problem arises whenever TDN systems do not oversee/monitor (or blatantly overlook) FAIR pay structures for the workers of those nations considered poorer in terms of labour market cost. Based on the hypothesis that the TDN makes more profit.

This is clearly ethical morality for TDN companies to consider.

Fair trade encompasses a wide array of criteria. Workers pay, hours, holidays etc.

The term black and white version does have an ethnic element to this, in this instance. Undoubtedly a vast swathe of black and asian majorities are being exploited across multiple nations.

Here are the further versions including the Original shown immediately below:

”thirty seven hours – RED Writing Original version“ is made to be particularly vibrant to hold the attention.

”thirty seven hours – Green with Black Signs“ shows a red wall of greed. This is not intended whatsoever as a political message against red political parties (should anyone ever think so).

It is though intended to mean the blood cost of sweat and tears for workers facing the harsh reality of innumerable, unfair working hours, lack of holidays, fun time and fair conditions.

It should be noted that most all my working rights artistic messages centre strongly upon poorer nations rather than TDN’s.

My artwork ”thirty seven hours – National Borders, Weekly Hours“ definitely has the idea of national boundaries. Commonly we see terrible differences between working rights from country to country with regards to working conditions and hours per week.

I hope my artworks inspire businesses, employers, nations and individuals to view the economic landscape much more fairly.

Thank you dear Readers.