Following a similar program in Europe, two Massachusetts lawmakers have filed a bill this week to create a two-year pilot program for a four-day workweek.
[...] The pilot program would run for two years and would be overseen by the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. To participate, employers must agree to transition at least 15 workers to a shortened workweek.
While the bill was just filed this week, a number of businesses have already reached out to ask how they can participate, according to Cutler.
"I think this is really the perfect time for this kind of pilot program, given the changes we've seen in hybrid work as a result of the pandemic and the need to look for creative solutions to our current labor market challenges," Cutler said in an email response to Computerworld.
If the legislation passes, employers who participate in the pilot would agree to reduce the hours of all or some of their employees without reducing overall pay, status, or benefits. Businesses will also be eligible for a tax credit for their participation in the study and necessary data collection, Cutler said.
While the pilot program is designed to run for two years, individual businesses are not required to participate the entire time. The proposal is aimed at discovering the feasibility and benefits of a four-day work week.
"We chose this amount of time because we wanted to ensure a robust response and data availability. I have seen a variety of different lengths. In Maryland, there is a bill proposing a five-year pilot, for example. In this case, we felt two years struck a good balance," Cutler said. (The Maryland proposal was withdrawn earlier this year.)
The Massachusetts legislation doesn't call for participating organizations to adopt a strict 32-hour work week; instead, it states employees must receive "a meaningful reduction in actual work hours."
Transitioning from the traditional five-day, 40-hour work week to a four-day week has the potential to reduce burnout and boost performance among workers without negatively affecting employer productivity, according to Cutler. "They could also bring a competitive edge for employers who are able to attract and retain talent," he said.
Gartner is seeing "a high amount of interest" in four-day workweeks from its clients, according to Emily Rose McRae, a senior director with the research firm's HR practice.
"Many organizations, and their HR leaders, see a four-day workweek as the next step in their flexibility offerings for employees — offering flexibility on when and how much people work, in addition to where," she said. "For organizations that haven't been able to successfully implement remote or hybrid work, or that fundamentally can't for at least part of their workforce, a four-day workweek offers an opportunity to remain competitive in a still very tight talent market by offering a different kind of flexibility."
In general, four-day work week pilots have shown that productivity increases with reduced hours, so reducing pay may not be necessary — but it is an option for organizations that have regulatory or legal limits on reducing hours without reducing pay, McRae said.
In February, the world's largest trial of a four-day workweek completed its run, and 92% of the UK-based companies that participated said they plan to continue with the truncated work schedule because the benefits are so clear.
[...] Other findings from the UK study included:
- 71% of employees had reduced levels of burnout by the end of the trial.
- 39% were less stressed.
- 43% felt an improvement in mental health.
- 54% said they felt a reduction in negative emotions.
- 37% of employees saw improvements in physical health.
- 46% reported a reduction in fatigue.
- 40% saw a reduction in sleep difficulties.
While both men and women benefit from the UK's four-day week, women's experience is generally better, the study said.
"This is the case for burnout, life and job satisfaction, mental health, and reduced commuting time," Dale Whelehan, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and CEO of 4 Day Week Global, said in an earlier interview. "Encouragingly, the burden of non-work duties appears to be balancing out, with more men taking on a greater share of housework and childcare."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14, @11:25PM (19 children)
Given US companies' hostility towards their employees, I see this going no-where fast. A country founded by religious nutcases that were kicked out by other religious nutcases because they were too crazy and fundamentalist even for them, on the basis that "you must suffer because that brings you closer to god" is not going to adopt this at all. Especially not if this reduces said suffering.
I can already imagine the convos in the boardroom of the shortsighted:
"What? Give them more headspace so that they can think for themselves? Give them time to relax? They are stealing my time, goddammit. I own these fucker! Give them a day they can use to find a new job elsewhere than my hellhole? Get them back in here and turn up the heat. Let's show them what a sweatshop really looks like! From now on, 60hrs/week...!"
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday April 14, @11:53PM (15 children)
Well, the point of society already is that we cooperate together so that we suffer less. When I read stuff like the above, I have to ask the obvious question: why aren't you just doing it right now to make that world happen rather than making whiny demands of the rest of us?
For it's not going to happen by magic: TANSTAAFL.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday April 15, @11:07AM (14 children)
So let's say, for the sake of argument, that the economy really works the way you think it does: 20% fewer hours worked means exactly 20% fewer things produced, measured perfectly in dollars. The current GDP per capita of Massachusetts is approximately $100K. So with this change, it would drop to around $80K. Rents in MA are about $25K a year, taxes are probably an additional $30K, so that leaves $25K for food, transportation, consumer goods, etc. That seems pretty manageable. And as a tradeoff to that, you get an extra day off from work to do whatever you damn well please. Including working a side hustle if that's what you choose to do in addition to whatever your salaried job is.
I don't think that's a terrible deal, but as far as I'm concerned it's up to the good people of MA (which includes a couple of relatives of mine) to decide whether they want to take it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @01:26PM (3 children)
The problem is then that employers can merely move out of the state to get a better deal. Meanwhile, now you have to work two jobs to get by. It's one of the reasons I'm enthusiastic about gig work. It fits well as a second job around a shrinking full time primary job.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday April 15, @02:32PM (1 child)
Employers already could do that: For example, programmers are a lot cheaper in Bangalore than Boston. But they don't, and I have to figure there are reasons other than salaries, tax rates, and regulations that they choose to stay in Massachusetts.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:29PM
Reasons aren't infinite value. Keep throwing obstacles in the way and you'll lose whatever those advantages are - assuming that hasn't happened already.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @05:50PM
Then the extra day off will come in useful.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 16, @05:36AM (9 children)
Also, I find it interesting how you casually just rhetorically throw away a huge amount of wealth creation because living costs aren't that high. I guess we just didn't need that better life anyway?
Working a side hustle will negate any alleged productivity gain, right?
Because you aren't an employer in Massachusetts. Just because something would be good for you if you were involved, doesn't mean it's good for us collectively.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday April 16, @09:43AM (8 children)
I depends how you judge your quality of life. Some people value their family, friends, leisure time, hobbies etc more that having a big bank balance.
The current 5 day week working long hours isn't giving anybody a better life - so why not try an alternative?
Did someone pee on your cornflakes recently? Have you ever tried being positive once in your life?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 17, @05:19AM (7 children)
Better by your standard is not better by your standard?
None of which is helped by just reducing everyone's wealth creation potential by 20% or more.
Where did that come from? I can think of plenty of people, hundreds of millions just in the US. We all benefit when people who want to work long, highly productive hours then do so. Sure, I wouldn't mind getting compensated with high value wealth for doing little or no work. But I recognize that my interests aren't the only interests in the world.
Here, just because the 5 day work week with "long hours" isn't allegedly giving you a better life doesn't mean that holds for everyone else.
Yes, the short work week people did. I'm fine with people choosing to work little or even not at all. And I'm fine with consequences such as not having as much wages as someone who works a lot.
I really wouldn't lose any sleep, if my employer (at a national park) for hypothetical example, started to employ people for 32 hours per week. But I'd say a firm majority of employees do want the hours with the rest being there more for the park and recreation opportunities than money.
These elaborate studies aren't about rationally exploring alternate work schemes (because why only one such alternative?). They're about pushing an agenda of economic suicide.
We don't know what the businesses are, but we do know that the processes of picking participants selects for businesses that can handle 32 hour work weeks (or even prefer them). The businesses already had some idea of the cost/benefit of the scheme. And getting tax credits for it sealed the deal.
Finally, there is no consideration of typical business needs here. There are several big problems missed. We've already covered the loss of productivity. Sorry, I don't buy that less hours worked means the business eked out more work from the employee than if the employee worked those extra hours. Instead, it was probably something like getting legit buy-in from the high level executives to greatly reduce meetings in the business. 40 hours of work with 20 hours of meetings reduced to 32 hours of work with 10 hours of meetings is actually more work hours per employee. They should have compared the results to businesses that received the same support and didn't reduce work week hours. That didn't happen and I think the bogus comparison between an assisted business versus unassisted business is what explains the productivity differences. Needless to say, I don't buy that for most work, 32 hours per week can be more productive than 40 hours per week.
Another need here is the ante for employing a person. There are significant costs per employee such as training/equipment costs and bureaucratic entropy that are constant or even grow per employee. If an employee works more, then those costs are spread out over more work, and would in some cases even decrease, when fewer employees are needed overall.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday April 17, @07:02AM (5 children)
You are simply refusing to accept what other businesses have already found in practice.
You simply argued against each of those because you choose, without any evidence to support your assertions, that the businesses were lying about the findings and that this is all part of a gigantic Government scam. You can keep your own business running anyway you choose. Nobody is forcing this upon you. But don't complain when another company eats your lunch.
You don't seem to like the idea of people having a life outside of the workplace.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 17, @12:14PM (4 children)
My take is you should refuse to accept too! Consider this hypothetical example. I pay a bunch of people to participate in a study with the following characteristics. First, they have to embrace the religion of Khallowism which involves setting up personal shrines to bits of paper used as mediums of exchange. Second, they're paid a stipend of $1000 per month for their troubles. And finally, they receive extensive training on what to do about personal finances.
The study concludes that Khallowism creates substantial improvement in a person's finances as would be expected. Participants give glowing recommendations for following the tenants of Khallowism and advocate that the study and that $1000 per month stipend continue so that we can learn more about the positive effects of Khallowism on our lives. The media is afire with discussion of how useful Khallowism is.
Alas, the founder of Khallowism is a cheapskate and defunds the study, now that it has achieved the desired propaganda goals. Some people may continue with the shrines, perhaps it looks nice with the living room decor or they are lonely, but most quietly drop religion now that they aren't getting paid. The extensive training on personal finances continues to have some modest benefit for this population - it sticks to some degree. But nobody cares because there's no study for that.
In other words, the whole exercise was a fraud. There was no valid study because the initial group was not compared to a control group that received everything but the Khallowism. But instead to the general population who received neither the stipend or financial training.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 19, @12:10AM (3 children)
Of course, Khallowism would be a scam. It would just be a rebranding of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. You seem to have a particular fixation with rule #211: "Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them." Your Khallowism scam is defined by rule #181: "Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit."
Historically, people worked six days per week, 12 hours per day, for a total of 72 hours. Even after 12 hour days were reduced to eight hours, people still worked six days per week, or 48 hours per week. At one time, the 40 hour work week was a progressive idea, based on the premise that workers didn't generate much additional productivity if they worked 72 or 48 hours in a week. This was based on empirical evidence, not unlike the studies that you're quickly dismissing.
It's easy to see that your arguments are bullshit. Your arguments aren't based on empirical evidence, and they could be applied to dismiss any reduction in the work week. You've made no case that 40 hours is inherently the correct work week and that 32 hours is not. The origins of the 40 hour work week are also in a time where many more people worked in factories doing manual labor. The nature of labor has changed in the decades since then. Many of those assembly line jobs have been automated, so employees who would have once performed those jobs have now found different work. Just because a 40 hour work week was appropriate then does not mean it is still appropriate. You've made no argument that 40 hours is actually optimal, and your reactionary arguments could be used just as easily to insist that employees work 48 or 72 hours per week.
You suggested that the reduction in the work week involved eliminating parts of the jobs that didn't contribute to productivity, giving employees more time to do actual work. In your example, the time spent in meetings could be reduced, and implied that those meetings were unproductive to begin with. But somehow you think it's a problem that employees aren't spending as much time at work because they're not in unnecessary meetings and not reading or replying to as many unnecessary emails. Not wasting employees' time probably improves focus, morale, and efficiency.
In economics, there's the law of diminishing returns. An employee who doesn't do a particular job often probably lacks knowledge or practice of how to do the job, so to a point, increasing hours should add productivity. Beyond that point, productivity will plateau and diminish. At some point, the productivity might well even become negative, as an employee might lose focus and mistakes that actually cost money. This is even true for jobs where shift work is necessary. A doctor who has been working too long is more likely to make errors that harm patients. A cashier who has been working too long might make errors scanning items and not charge customers the right amount.
The extra eight hours you're throwing a temper tantrum about are almost certainly not going to be as productive as the first 32 hours. Your comment about working long hours and being highly productive is a fantasy that demonstrates a complete ignorance of basic economic principles like the law of diminishing returns. Don't worry, you can keep living in your Ferengi fantasy world. However, here in the real world, businesses that reduce hours will almost certainly see improvements in productivity by 1) eliminating unnecessary distractions, 2) improving employee well-being and morale, and 3) attracting good employees who are enticed by better working hours.
Oh, and if reducing employee working hours was so detrimental to businesses, Ford Motor Company would have gone bankrupt decades ago. Henry Ford was a piece of shit who was pretty much an actual Nazi. Even so, he was intelligent enough to recognize that 48 hour work weeks or longer did not increase productivity, and reduced work hours. Ford Motor Company did just fine and has been incredibly successful for over a century, despite nonsensical ramblings from people like you.
I'll pass on Khallowism. I don't need rules like "Greed is eternal," "Exploitation begins at home," and "A wise man can hear profit in the wind" to be successful and turn a profit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 19, @12:40AM (2 children)
I appreciate how we get this history lesson, but there's no empirical evidence to support the key assertions like "based on the premise that workers didn't generate much additional productivity if they worked 72 or 48 hours in a week". Doing something for a reason doesn't prove the reason is true.
Dismiss any reduction in the work week which uses the same unscientific, bad faith scheme that this one did. There's an obvious way out of the dilemma: compare the reduced workweek against a non-reduced work week with all other conditions equal: that is, test the new scheme against a genuine control. And I can't help but notice that your arguments aren't based on empirical evidence for real and could be used to dismiss my arguments no matter what the actual evidence is.
The obvious approach here is that one physically can't work more than 168 hours. And due to the need for sleep and time outside of work, we won't get anywhere near 168 hours before workers tap out due to serious health problems. That's sufficient proof of diminishing returns. The thing you neglect here is that an argument for some point of diminishing returns doesn't mean it'll happen at 32 or 48 hours even. You need empirical evidence for that. And then we get to my observation about the poor quality of the alleged evidence.
So what? My take is that from observation of myself and many others who work, 32 hours is nowhere near peak work (the number of hours hypothetically where the worker gets the most done) for most jobs. The main exceptions are fixed amounts of work that don't require more than 32 hours to perform, and intellectual work where 32 hours a week can be well above peak work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 19, @04:17AM (1 child)
Here's your standard for acceptable evidence:
Let's carry on, applying that standard...
I would expect this to be followed up by actual evidence that satisfies your own standard and supports longer work weeks. Let's get to the actual "evidence" that you provide:
This is anecdotal, at best. At worst, it's complete fiction. Either way, it doesn't come close to satisfying your own standard for evidence. You haven't tested this against a "genuine control" to determine how much work a person can do before their production declines. You've provided zero evidence that supports your position and also satisfies your own standard. Since you have no evidence, your arguments can and should be ignored.
Also, like I said, there is real evidence for longer work weeks not making people more productive. Henry Ford observed this with his own employees, which is why he supported a shorter work week at Ford Motor Company. This wasn't some study that you can conveniently dismiss as "bad faith." This is Henry Ford making this decision for his own company on the basis of what he observed from his own workers. Although the work day had already been fixed at a maximum of eight hours, Ford Motor Company reduced the work week from 48 hours to 40 hours on the basis of this observation.
Was Henry Ford also implementing some "unscientific, bad faith scheme" by reducing the work hours in his own company?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 19, @06:11PM
We already established that too many hours and your workers will shut down from health problems alone. That is not in question. You ignore the context here. The labor market for Ford grew increasingly competitive over this period. 48 hours may have been more productive per worker, but a two day weekend was a huge draw and lowered turnover (as did other policies/benefits like cheap company housing). The huge difference between then and now is that the fixed costs per employee were much lower. What five people did before, six people did now. If the costs of that sixth person were low, then it's not a significant disadvantage to a shorter work week. That was part of Ford's calculation - that he could hire that extra 20% without a significant penalty to the bottom line.
Needless to say, that's not the case now for a lot of businesses. For example, I used to work for a couple of years for Hewlett-Packard back in the dotcom bubble. By word of mouth, I heard that it cost in the neighborhood of $200k in dollars of the day to set up an employee for my kind of work (applications development and trouble-shooting). We generally worked around 50 hours a week (salary), some more some less. So that high initial cost was spread over a lot more labor.
Presently, I work in Yellowstone National Park for a concessionaire and work pretty close to 40 hours a week (still salary), managing a small office. I suppose I could get most of my work done in 32 hours a week, but we'd have to hire one more person to cover the office's work, and emergencies would routinely knock me over 32 hours a week. Fatigue can slow me down a great deal, I've noticed a slow down as much as 50% (that is, it can take me about twice as long to do the daily stuff when I'm heavily tired), but I normally don't get that tired during the tail end of a 40 hour shift. There just isn't the drop off in productivity that is alleged in these studies.
Further, the "fixed costs" of additional workers in Yellowstone are not fixed! The problem here is that in Yellowstone (and any similar resort, including cruise ships) housing is very restricted. There simply is not room for the 25% more staff we would need (sometimes we run so hard against this limit that every scrap of housing is used). Additional housing could be built in some places at a premium (the park has restricted new construction to be on the site of previous construction with almost no exceptions, and due to the remoteness it is always more expensive). And when there is such housing, it's because the location is understaffed (and paying overtime to get everything covered).
We have both solid evidence that employing people for longer gets more done - I'd say for the grunt jobs that have the most problems with overtime, 50 hours per week (averaged over the employees) is where you start seeing declines in productivity and worker happiness to the point where you need to bring more employees in or you won't keep enough staff to run the place. Productivity isn't the problem here with a longer work week, it's work-life balance. Employees don't come to Yellowstone to make gobs of money. They often need to work the 40 hours per week in order to get enough for their needs/wants, but past that, we quickly move into "My job is getting in the way of my geyser gazing."
Sure, a number of employees would be fine with working 32 hours a week, but the business has severely limited resources like housing. They can't afford to employ people for that short a time span and still fully open the resorts they operate. That's the huge problem with all these short work week arguments. They don't take into account the needs of the employers. Some can do 32 hour work weeks, but for most it'd be a significant cost. It's all one-sided, one-size-fits-all.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday April 19, @02:10AM
People on production lines, which is where physical products come from, don't spend 20 hours a week in meetings; 1 hour a month would be a high estimate. 20% reduction in production line time means 20% reduction in production, worse if the line has startup/shutdown requirements. Overhead remains constant, so it's a greater amount per widget.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 15, @03:25AM (2 children)
How did I fuckin' know it'd be Hallow who modded you down? Have a +1 from me, and just ignore him, he's well-known to be a sociopath.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:12AM (1 child)
Ignorance is strength. I did no such modding, but your narrative isn't based on what I do or don't.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 15, @02:32PM
So that's how you got so strong...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Informative) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @12:08AM (18 children)
In other words, the state of Massachusetts will pay a few employers to have less productive workers. Corporate welfare to make society less useful to us and squander public funds in the process.
How about a similar incentive program that isn't stupid? A tax credit per employee with caps. No need for anyone to feign buying into an anti-progressive agenda.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @12:37AM (3 children)
Zero evidence: check
Dubious assertions: check
Political zingers: check
Checks out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @04:59AM (2 children)
Evidence:
Not much point to the rest of your post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @07:06PM (1 child)
Double down on zero evidence: check
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 17, @06:26AM
Instead of being another idiot on the internet, how about you consider what evidence means? Evidence means that one can distinguish between hypotheses. In my post, there are effectively two potential hypotheses: the claim I made and the null hypothesis, which simply is that my hypothesis is wrong. So what was my hypothesis?
The evidence as already given is that the story showed there is payment for participation in the program. I suppose we could argue over the other two aspects "few employers" and "less productive workers". But the former is pretty obvious. They state it is a "pilot program" that indicates small scale to the program. As to the latter, seems pretty obvious that 32 hours of work is less work than 40 hours of work. Not everything is measured by someone's time, but there's a lot of work that is.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Tork on Saturday April 15, @02:18AM (7 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @04:54AM (6 children)
The problem here is that when they stop "lowering the risk", then the businesses involved will likely stop giving it a try. It's a cliche that businesses will chase any moral/ethical fad or signal any virtue, if there's profit involved.
I see two problems here. First, it's not very productive to bribe people to pretend to care. Second, the behavior only continues as long as the bribes do. The funders have painted themselves into a corner.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 15, @08:27AM (5 children)
If they find it pays out, they won't stop doing it. Guess what: Humans are not machines, the work output generally isn't proportional to the working time.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @12:46PM (4 children)
The problem here is that you're paying them with money that could go to other uses like roads or fire fighters, or not get taxed in the first place.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 15, @04:13PM (3 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:27PM (2 children)
Neither. It is true that my counter-suggestion is a tax-based incentive as well. My point to that was to provide a superior alternative. Superior because it actually does something positive, incentivizing employment rather than deliberately create grotesque economic inefficiencies.
The superior approach would be to build a healthy economy that generates high value for everyone. Then nobody has to care whether you're working 0 hours or 80 hours.
My take is that the real problem here is not-even-wrong rationalizing that spends more time vilifying positive economic approaches and history than it does thinking about what it even wants.
For example, modern economies didn't spring out of Zeus's forehead fully formed. They came from worse, more polluting systems with greatly more poverty. We didn't make those systems better by turning the knobs to the right settings either. We made them better by building better infrastructure, technology, and knowledge. Democratic capitalism, which remains best of breed for societies, came out of that.
But to hear it, we're just a breath away from a return to the bad old days. Only shorter work weeks and sticking it to the rich people, both via public policy and regulation, keeps us away from those dark days. My take is that governance based on greed and envy isn't going to fare or end well.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday April 15, @07:30PM (1 child)
Ok. So why exactly would a tax credit for individuals incentivize a business to shorten their hours for the same pay? I don't understand fully what you are pitching.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @07:42PM
It's a tax credit for the employer in both the Massachusetts and my schemes. And the tax credit for the Massachusetts system would be to incentivize shorter work weeks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday April 15, @03:30AM (5 children)
Must have been successful in increasing productivity!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:05AM (4 children)
Why? Is there evidence in there somewhere? The missing thing here is that France, just like the Massachusetts proposal, bribes some businesses to pay people for less work. Those involved businesses profit from the scheme - else they wouldn't have bothered in the first place. Now, the businesses want the profitable situation to continue? Who knew?
Needless to say, when "the benefits are so clear", it helps to understand the conditions under which those benefits continue to be so clear. One key condition would be going along with the theater, else they would lose those benefits and have to become normal businesses again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday April 15, @12:17PM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @12:34PM (2 children)
Sorry, thought it was in France. Misread something in the story. It merely changes who is paying the companies.
Because they're being paid to say that! Remove that and what's their incentive to agree to the above?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday April 15, @02:27PM (1 child)
Because the trial is over, they are no longer being paid, and they have chosen to do this themselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:31PM
Talk isn't choosing. I grant that there may well be businesses out there where high paying 32 hour work weeks make sense. I just don't buy that there are many such businesses.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @12:08AM (6 children)
No one is forcing you to stay at a job. If the terms are unacceptable to you, then quit. If the business can easily find a replacement for you, then you have too high an opinion of your worth.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @12:45AM (5 children)
This is a very simplistic assertion. Most people don't have the freedom to walk away from a source of income - as you well know, so stop with the bad faith. The world is heavily biased toward those that inherited capital. If we want kids to have equal opportunity - or even just a little ability to exercise choice - then there has to be the option to walk away. It seems that wealthy people really want to cramp this option - why would that be?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:07AM (4 children)
Close to everyone has that freedom. The few who couldn't either can't walk or are in prison presently.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday April 15, @02:44PM (3 children)
The freedom to leave your job can be measured by how long your household will be able to cover your basic expenses without your paycheck coming in. A multimillionaire invested halfway decently could not work at all for the rest of their life and not get into trouble financially, so they have total freedom to leave. I'd be totally fine for many years right now, so I have lots of freedom to leave with high confidence I could find a new job and/or focus on a business before the savings ran out. By contrast, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of all Americans might last 2 weeks maximum, so they have a lot less freedom to leave.
Also, leaving is only as good as your other options. If I leave a dangerous job with low pay, and my only other potential employers are dangerous jobs with low pay, then regardless of if I stay or go I'm going to have a dangerous job with low pay. And if you say "start your own business then", that only works if your customer base is sufficient to make that profitable, and again there's the problem of how long you can afford to keep it running unprofitably.
It's not surprising that, given those options, a lot of people opt to stay in bad jobs as their least-bad option.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @05:32PM
No it's based on your ability to find new work.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @11:20PM (1 child)
Please break up your posts. It is evident that khallow can only reply to one sentence at a time.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 17, @05:22AM
The rest of your post needs to say something for that concern to be relevant. Too often the wheels come off a post in a single sentence.
(Score: 2) by jb on Saturday April 15, @06:29AM (2 children)
Frankly, I'd much rather work 40 hours in 4 x 10 hour shifts (instead of the usual 5 x 8h): still get just as much work done (so demonstrate just as much value to the employer), but get a 3 day weekend every week.
Reducing total hours worked by 20% strikes me as something that will simply get used by employers as an excuse for deferring any further pay rises for several years...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday April 15, @11:10AM
That's no matter: We wouldn't want to tax the boss's imagination coming up with those excuses.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday April 19, @02:23AM
Harman Industries tried 4X10 for a while circa 1989. State law required that after a trial period, a majority of employees must agree by vote to continue the schedule. It was voted down. The claim I heard was that people with children found it impractical to deal with childcare for the extra hours the parents were at work.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday April 15, @10:35AM (4 children)
From the linked article (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3688948/as-four-day-workweek-trial-ends-most-companies-stick-with-the-change.html):
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday April 15, @10:38AM
Shit: too tired.
This should have been a reply to @khallow at https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=54854&page=1&cid=1301524#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @12:45PM
Where's the control group with the same characteristics and the same benefits? How fast did they grow? Reading a little further, there's this howler:
Keep in mind that they're working 20% less for the same pay. There's a considerable weight in money for workers in this.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday April 19, @02:33AM (1 child)
Revenue is not profit. Without more detail, we can't know if there was a production shortfall that had to be compensated for by putting on a second shift. We don't know the nature of the businesses involved. There is simply not enough information available for the soylent reader to judge if the idea was successful.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday April 19, @03:20PM
But it tells when 92% have decided to continue with it: companies don't do that without there being a benefit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Saturday April 15, @01:46PM (1 child)
Yes, the very best employees might produce as much in four days as they do in five. Many of them are working more hours than required now and would continue to do so. The problem is, the average employee who does just enough to get by, will do even less. Just because someone does a study in which they ask people a bunch of questions about their feelings, it doesn't mean there is any justification for doing this. The government subsidizing such a thing is lunacy.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15, @11:27PM
No, the majority of employees do just enough to get their job done. If you cut their work time without cutting their pay then they will get it done in less time. There will just be less time spent talking about football and other bullshit.