Local workers here at the aluminium smelter work 12 hour shifts, but only for 3 days a week. (36 hour union week... and 4 days to sleep it off)... AND they get paid meal breaks! We refer to them as 'veges', because they look like zombies after 3 days...
Poor sods... and to think when I was younger, we worked 12 hours 7 days rotating shiftwork, and were expected to do overtime 2 days /month when we were rostered off?
Early 70's working on offshore oil rigs we worked 12 on, 12 off for 9 weeks, then had a 5 day break and back into it again for another 9 weeks then had a two week break.