flyer 杀G小组 argument 132 by sailingmind

sailingmindUID: 2846687

132 The following appeared in an editorial in the local newspaperof Workville.
"Workers should be allowedto reduce their workload from 40 to 25 or even 20 hours per week because it isclear that people who work part-time(8) instead of full-time have better healthand improved morale(1). One store(3) in Workville, which began allowing itsemployees to work part-time last year, reports that fewer(4) days of sickleave(2) were taken last year than in previous years. In contrast, the factoryin Workville(3), which does not allow any of its employees to work part-time,had a slight increase(4) in the number of days of sick leave taken lastyear(5,6). In addition, a recent survey reports that most of the storeemployees stated that they are satisfied with their jobs, while many of thefactory employees stated that they are dissatisfied with their jobs(7)."




Inthis argument, the speaker draws a conclusion that workers should be reducedtheir work hours from 40 to 25 hours per week . This conclusion is based on thespeaker` s  assumption which isthat people working part-time rather than full-time have better health andimproved morale.  To justify thisstatement, the speaker first provides a contrast evidence in which one storeallowing its employees to work part-time reports fewer sick leave days whileone factory not allowing to do so had a slight increase sick leave days. Then,the speaker cites a survey which reports that most of the store employee aresatisfied with their jobs, while many of the factory employees are dissatisfiedwith their jobs. This argument is unpersuasive  in several critical respects.


Tobegin with, the speaker` s comparative analysis apparently suffers from twostatistical problems, neither of which supports the speaker` s judgment . First,the speaker fails to provide accurate information of the sample size. Only onestore and one factory are chosen as samples and the participants number areunknown. If the sample is not big enough, then the result of the survey will beinvalid. Second, even if the sample size is unproblematic, the speaker makes afalse contrast analysis by using different subjects, one from store while theother from factory. The inconsistency of subjects leads to false result.


Inaddition, the argument rests on the unreasonable assumption that the differentresult of work satisfaction between the store employees and the factoryemployees is due to whether or not part-time working is allowed. The contrastresult of work satisfaction could be entirely irrelevant with reduction ofworkload. The speaker fails to consider and rule out other factors that mayaccount for work satisfaction, such as salary, working environment, workingintensity, benefits and so on. Thus, the survey lends no support to theconclusion.


Finally,there is no data provided to support the speaker` s assumption that people whowork part-time instead of full-time have better health and improved morale. Ofcourse, this unproved reason is unable to make a causal relationship with thespeaker` s conclusion. Furthermore, even if this causal relationship isverified, the speaker` s claim that reducing workload from 40 to 25 or even 20hours per week could make worker healthier and improve morale is unwarranted.The argument fails to equate reduction of work time with reduction of workload.There is one important factor ignored, which is work intensity. If workintensity becomes higher, even though work time becomes less, it may harmworker` s health and work morale.


Inconclusion, the argument is indefensible as it stands. To lend credibility toit the speaker should provide evidence to prove that reduction of work hoursbring about worker health and work morale improvement. The speaker should alsoexpand the sample coverage of workers, not just from singe store and factory.In order to better evaluate the argument, I need to know more information aboutthe number of subjects in the survey and also whether the subjects chosen arerepresentative to make a general conclusion for the workers in Workville.