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The day is dawning on a four-day work week:
A true four-day workweek entails full-timers clocking about 30 hours instead of 40. There are many reasons why this is appealing today: families are struggling to cover child care in the absence of daycares and schools; workplaces are trying to reduce the number of employees congregating in offices each day; and millions of people have lost their jobs.
A shorter work week could allow parents to cobble together child care, allow workplaces to stagger attendance and, theoretically, allow the available work to be divided among more people who need employment.
The most progressive shorter work week entails no salary reductions. This sounds crazy, but it rests on peer-reviewed research into shorter work weeks, which finds workers can be as productive in 30 hours as they are in 40, because they waste less time and are better-rested.
30 hours is for pikers. The !Kung work about 20.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday June 05 2020, @09:23PM (4 children)
No, it most definitely wasn't, at least in the USA, and the fact that you thought it was is showing you how little you were taught about the history of labor and working people.
The 40 hour work week was the result of labor unions, often operating illegally, fighting cops and hired company thugs and "scabs" and getting arrested and sometimes killed. Socialists, communists, and anarchists like Helen Keller, Eugene Debs, "Big Bill" Haywood, Emma Goldman, and Mary "Mother" Jones were the closest thing they had to national-scale leaders (and if you don't know who any of those people are, or didn't know about their involvement in this stuff, your history classes were either lousy or politically slanted). It was not that uncommon for strikes and other labor protests to shut down entire cities and industries.
It was an ugly, messy, process, and basically every law protecting the rights of employees, including the alleged 40-hour work week, is written in blood. It had absolutely jack squat to do with enlightened or benevolent employers, and everything to do with the willingness and ability of ordinary people to risk their life to make business impossible to get those rights.
Not that those battles are over, though: For example, it's legal to work salaried computer programmers overtime for no extra pay because of a side provision included in a mid-1990's minimum wage increase, even though computer programmers meet none of the other criteria of jobs where you're normally allowed to do that (e.g. most don't have management authority), and that little provision is the reason why so many programmers suffer through basically "continuous crunch time".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:55AM (3 children)
Actually I do know somewhat of these things, enough to know that history class did gloss over things a bit. It's not that the research really convinced them. A slave driver is nigh impossible to convince that more man hours no matter how they're gotten, does not mean more production, and production that matters. If losing the Civil War can't convince them, what could? It's more like they used the research as cover, so they would not have to admit that they made concessions to unions. You know, like all these fines that financial organizations pay for their crimes, but without admitting to any wrongdoing. Some are really stuck on that. Refuse to admit to or apologize for anything ever, because that looks weak.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @01:02AM
Given the hyper-litigious business environment, and how politics and law make weakness a fatal error, it's not surprising they never admit anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @03:33AM (1 child)
And yet everyone knows both sides of the equation.
When someone blows smoke up your ass and cheaps out on what they promised you, how do you behave? Like a motivated employee? Please.
So why do they still do it? They must truly believe they're convincing you that shit sandwich is a Trump steak.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 10 2020, @07:03PM
Well, to be fair, my understanding is that those who have eaten Trump steaks have concluded it's hard to tell the difference between those two.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.