Business: 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...