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It's time to implement a 4-day workweek
In May, Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur and former Democratic presidential candidate, floated the idea of implementing a four-day workweek to better accommodate working Americans in a time of uncertainty, saying a shorter workweek could have mental-health benefits for employees.
There's not one overarching definition of a four-day workweek. "There are different models for the shortened week, some of which envision the same output condensed into fewer hours while others simply imagine longer hours spread over fewer days," a Washington Post report said.
Some involve a three-day weekend, while others mean a day off midweek.
[...] "It would help get us off of this hamster wheel that we're on right now, where we're all sort of racing against the clock in service of this giant capital-efficiency machine," Yang said. "And the race is driving us all crazy."
In a Harris poll conducted in late May, 82% of employed US respondents said they would prefer to have a shorter workweek, even if it meant longer workdays.
The idea of a shorter workweek has become so popular in Finland that Prime Minister Sanna Marin has called for employers to allow employees to work only six hours a day, four days a week. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern proposed the policy as part of a coronavirus economic recovery effort.
Andrew Barnes, the CEO of Perpetual Guardian, introduced a four-day workweek at his company in New Zealand in 2018.
Barnes, a cofounder of the nonprofit platform 4 Day Week Global and the author of "The 4 Day Week," said he found that "stress levels drop, creativity goes up, team cohesion goes up" under such a policy.[...] Microsoft experimented with a four-day workweek last year at a subsidiary in Japan as part of its "Work-Life Choice Challenge." The subsidiary closed every Friday in August and said it saw productivity jump by 40% compared with the previous year.
I'm somehow attracted to the idea, be it only for the reason the weekends are the most productive time for me, with no meeting interruptions (large grin)
(Score: 4, Touché) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:07PM (29 children)
What we'll get is the same amount of workload with just 4 days of it being paid. How many unpaid and never to be paid overtime hours do you have clocked already?
(Score: 3, Funny) by nostyle on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:42PM (3 children)
...and what do you do when the demand for telephone sanitizers suddenly skyrockets?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:17PM
By the time they rocket into the sky, it'll already be too late.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:19PM (1 child)
I call the red guy downstairs and ask him whether I can sell him a few electric blankets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2020, @03:13AM
He don't speak English.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bussdriver on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:55PM (22 children)
People had arguments against 5 day weeks in the past; one can research how that went over and apply most of it to current times.
Technology is making productivity rise so it's possible and we need to increase the number of jobs and stop blaming those who are left out... plus the idea we can invent endless pointless jobs forever should be dying as we reach the physical limitations of earth... climate change being just 1 result.
F**k management and productivity! We don't need arguments about better performance to sell the idea; unless your masters are corporations... It's better for humans to work less days and if it is LAW then corps will just do what they always do within the new system... it won't break everything just like going to 5 days did not break everything. Increased productivity can be shifted towards humans until eventually people just chat with the robot AI a few hours per week and play office politics after pressing the START button... like George Jetson.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:24PM (13 children)
That sounds okay, but without increases in productivity, how are we going to get more wages?
Here, just look at a graph of productivity versus wages over the last 40 years and you'll see... oh dear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:54PM (4 children)
Money is a human creation. We've already had decades of increased production with stagnant or relatively decreasing wages, so your question is moot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 12 2020, @07:07PM (1 child)
I always hate when I'm too subtle.
That's the joke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @08:28PM
I shoulda realized, hadn't had my caffeine yet.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @10:25PM (1 child)
It's simple supply and demand. As long as women keep popping out new workers, wages are going to fall. The period after the Black Death was a very good time for the remaining workers,
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday August 13 2020, @04:55AM
Yes and no. That was when wage laws were first introduced in the form of a maximum wage rather then minimum wage. It also led to a series of peasant revolts of which pretty well every one of which failed, usually in a way that was not pleasant for the peasants.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bmimatt on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:22PM
Here's one of said graphs: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ [epi.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:46AM (6 children)
Wages and benefits. If you're looking at wages alone, you miss that wages and benefits track productivity pretty well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2020, @01:23AM (5 children)
The study that everyone cites for this, including the sibling post by bmimatt, already factored that in.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 14 2020, @03:07AM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2020, @07:54AM (3 children)
It does factor that in, otherwise they'd get a negative growth just as your own source points out and even makes a pretty Chart 3 of it. Instead, your source attempts to change deflators in order to claim a different rate of change and tries some other tricks to artificially boost the numbers. Even the pro-business BLS, Minn. Fed. and other conservative groups disagree with some of Heritage's tactics as also comparing apples and oranges and being a bit too obvious.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 14 2020, @02:30PM (2 children)
Over the span of time studied: 1973 to 2012, productivity was claimed to have gone up 100% and wages and benefits went up 77% - these are adjusted for inflation via an "implicit price deflator". So what negative growth?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2020, @04:08AM (1 child)
You didn't even read your source or the exact citation I gave within it. Bravo.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 16 2020, @11:36PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:38PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:56PM (1 child)
Your cluelessness about Ayn Rand is total, starting with the word "force".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 12 2020, @10:20PM
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:59PM (4 children)
Thank you for admitting so quickly that you know nothing of the history of technology.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 12 2020, @10:23PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @06:36AM (1 child)
Have you guys been living under a rock for the past two decades? We are already hitting and exceeding the physical limitations of Earth. Sure there's probably a bunch of metals and oil still in the ground to be dug up. No problems there. But our current energy usage and resulting output of greenhouse gases is causing serious damage to the climate system on a very short timescale. We can try to mitigate that by shifting to renewables or nuclear en-masse, but that takes a lot of time and cost that a lot of people seem to be unwilling to pay.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:09PM
Well, that's the problem right there. We are in some ways and not even close in others. But we've already adapted over centuries to the limitations such as they were.
And? We can change our behavior when that becomes a real problem rather than merely "serious damage".
At present. You have to show a reason to switch first.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Sunday September 06 2020, @09:56PM
If you need a religion, I suggest you look outside of technology to meet those needs.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:03PM (1 child)
A very few when I was very young and unexperienced... in the last 30 years, none.
If your employer is demanding unpaid overtime and you are supplying it to them, you are employeeing wrong.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @08:24PM
Turn them in for wage theft. Many states and countries will require them to pay the employees more money to make up for the the TVM and some will even give the whistleblower a percentage of any fines as an extra incentive.