Experiments with a shorter workweek have shown that shown that working fewer hours improves worker well-being and productivity. But we can’t expect employers to implement this transformative change of their own volition.
In this political environment we’re more likely to wind up with the elimination of the 40hr work week
No it isn’t. NO IT ISN’T. The overwhelming majority of people do not work salaried jobs.
In the industry I work in, I would end up on the street if I only worked four days a week.
Entire trades such as appliance repair, construction, and especially manufacturing would struggle under a four-day work week.
Every time I see this argument, it boils my blood.
What about teachers? Are students only supposed to attend school four days a week? There are not enough teachers to run multiple overlapping schedules throughout the week.
What about competition? Are we going to prohibit companies from operating five days a week? If one company switches to four days, another will simply step in and say, “We’ll work five.”
As long as our economy remains based on scarcity, there will be no universal four-day work week.
Now go ahead and downvote me and tell me how great socialism is.
Are we going to prohibit companies from operating five days a week
The number of days an individual employee is working doesn’t necessarily dictate the number of days the business can operate.
Let’s call it 30 for 40 hrs at same pay. Instead of dictating the number of days…30 hrs is full time.
Corporate monkey’s paw curls a finger: everyone now works 4*24 hr days per week, with 18hr of off time between days, and wages now being handled as overtime exempt salary positions paying on a weekly basis what you were paid on average per normal week.
God… after the 3 day weekend last weekend this is exactly what I thought.
We should have a 20 hour workweek, the same pay, and hire more people and train them. More time to be human.
Capitalism isn’t built for that. It’s built to burn you dry so someone else lives in luxury because they already had a bunch of capital and want to make more.
I made a compelling argument to a die-hard Republican for UBI, by pointing out enormous job losses on the horizon due to automation. Basically, I said that there will only be so many labor hours available, so either huge numbers of people on unemployment, or less hours worked by each person. So if everyone had a baseline food/shelter/medical, and worked based on anything beyond that they want, there would be enough labor hours available for everyone. And you tax the shit out of automation to pay for it.
Automation should benefit society, not just a handful of people.
When population shrink is well underway, it’s going to be a big fight between workers with more leverage, employers trying to squeeze more and trying to get more immigrants while politics wants no immigrants.
Give me the same pay for 4 days as for 5 and I agree.
Cut my pay 20%? Yeah, fuck everything about that.
I dunno what to tell you. It’s not like you’re getting the fruits of your labor in the first place. They’re already paying you as little as they can get away with. How it shakes out depends on what economic frame you’re going with, but the idea is at least the lowest wage 4 day week is a living one. I don’t think getting into the weeds with inflation and such is worth it for this. Just accepting that you’re already not getting a realistic “piece of the pie” in any measurable sense should be enough.
My point is, if someone has a 4 day a week job and needs a second job to make up the difference, that defeats the purpose of a 4 day a week job. 😉
If rent, mortgage, bills, etc. also see a 20% decrease, then cool, cool. No worries, we’re all good.
/saying this as someone contemplating starting their own business and is expecting to work all hours, all days, to get it running.
Yeah I mean that goes hand in hand with the living wage argument. Where that goes and who absorbs the cost is in the weeds. Ex: landlords extract based on expected potential profit margins of the renter for commercial real estate so theoretically if margins drop everywhere all at once because of increased labor costs then rents drop to pay for that labor because unutilized real estate loses money. Unfortunately landlords are financed by banks and their mortgages create sticky price points that are very resistant to those drops. This isn’t taking into account general political resistance to property devaluation (which is huge). So telling you who is going to pay for it beyond saying “eventually it’ll get paid” is kinda impossible. Could be the worker, could be the consumer who is the worker, could be the capitalist, could be finance. Generally it’s a little of all. But you need strong unions to protect what little you got.
Unfortunate picture. At my hospital nurses work 3 12s. That’s how we look after a run of 4. 36 hours treated as full time. Don’t really know how that would relate to a proposed 4 day workweek for normies.
Is there anything like a rational explanation for why an area where focus and accuracy are most critical insists on working people long past their ability to function efficiently? In a sane world, there would be shorter shifts for this, not longer. (And there would be more people doing them, instead of the absolutely minimum necessary to avoid disaster.)
Because one of the biggest obstacles of continuity of care is handing over the patient. We try to write accurate notes and try to give complete report but there’s always stuff lost. You hope whoever you hand off to gets a chance to actually read progress notes but that’s not realistically going to happen. That’s why we don’t tend to do three shifts. Report easily takes 15 to 30 minutes of just talking and we still miss stuff.
Now you can set it up so this isn’t an issue but that requires staffing for clean documentation. I’d also like a pony.
Thank you for explaining that!
Youd do 29 hours, not 36. So like 2.75 days or whatever.
The only disadvantage to a four-day week is that people who can work hard but not smart will lose the only argument they’ve ever been able to win. A lot of this charade falls apart really quick after that.
There are people in the workforce that put in loads of hours to show up, but get nothing done, or at least very little, but they look busy and reliable. Then there are people who work smarter, get the tasks done and look like they slack off because they can manage proper minutes of downtime here and there
“Why aren’t you as stressed about this deadline as I am?”
“Because I’m actually good at my job, bud.”
Can you explain?
A lot of fields have people in them that will judge your worth by how early you show up and how late you stay and not by how good the work is. It’s more visible, and we too often equate have a shitty time with doing good work, as if having a good time at your job means it must not be as deserving of pay.
They will also refuse to learn new things, citing “not enough time for that” and you can watch them struggling when they really don’t need to. I spent a lot of time at my last job trying to make monthly, 1hr meetings happen among all the drafters and yet they couldn’t even find time for that.
Ultimately it comes down to an idea that a lot of people find uncomfortable: Salary should pay related to the value of work you produce, not the amount of time you spent on it. If you can produce a lot of value very quickly then you should be allowed to go the fuck home. I once did everything asked of me in half the time, and even asked for more work which I never got, so I would spend hours in my office just watching Youtube. The very conservative, “hard work” manager would even tell me I was working hard because all he could really see were my results.
Some companies may offer a 4-day work day at 80% pay, but because that system is actually better they end up with a 20% discount on the same value created. They’ll even act like they’re doing you a favour.
Hmm… I don’t know where you worked, but your experience seems to have sucked.
Nowadays I feel that it’s not so much about how late you stay in the office. Most professional jobs now are hybrid. Part time in the office, part time work from home. Managers don’t see how much time you spend on work at home. So this mindset has changed quite a bit since the pandemic.
Regarding learning new things, you’re asking them to sacrifice a whole hour. Even in a 40h work week that’s a lot of precious time and it’s difficult to get everyone together at the same time to do a learning session. Maybe let them learn in their own time by providing a video or documentation on the topic instead.
Finally, you wouldn’t believe how much time I spend on chores during my work hours. I still get my work done on time. Which proves a 32h 4 day work week is totally doable for professionals working 9-5 office jobs. Of course for other fields it might have a greater impact, like construction. But they can plan around that and allow more time to finish their projects.
