The 36-hour work week/3-day weekend

[TGN]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

 

[Toro]

It didn't work in France. It won't work in America.

 

[norwegen]

Why do we even have a 40-hour work week? Whatever happened to the idea that employers and employees can draft the terms of a two-party contract?

 

[Missourian]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

How about your employer simply automating your job...then you can have the whole week off. It's win/win!

 

[Mr Natural]

The last thing the poor, put upon American businessman needs is to pay workers more for less time on the job.

I mean don't they already do more than enough for us as it is?

 

[Smashy]

I would love to have a 40 hour work week instead of my usual 50.

 

[ScienceRocks]

This should be put on corporations making more than 10 billion/year in profit. The smaller businesses should get a break as we want competition.

 

[alanbmx123]

What is stopping Google from doing this on its own? Cut top executive salaries, boost the lower level employees and cut back to 20-30 hours a week and see. Or do they not practice what they preach


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[Jughead]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

All this sounds great, so does a nice siesta in the afternoon, but that isn't about to happen anytime soon either.

 

[TGN]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

How about your employer simply automating your job...then you can have the whole week off. It's win/win!

Throw in Unconditional Basic Income and then it is a win-win.

 

[Missourian]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

How about your employer simply automating your job...then you can have the whole week off. It's win/win!

Throw in Unconditional Basic Income and then it is a win-win.

IOW, "The Dole".

 

[jwoodie]

On a serious note, we do not have enough real jobs for everyone. I don't know if it is better to create make-work jobs or pay people to stay home, but the gap between productive and nonproductive people is widening every day.

 

[sameech]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

You are wrong about why we have a 40 hour work week. It is because productivity studies showed at the time that was the number that made employees most productive. Working longer than that tends to make workers, on average, less productive. The labor movement did not have any success until major companies themselves like Ford Motors had already adopted that model.

A 32 hour work week--4 eight hour days--with the potential for a weekend shift of 3 12 hour days would work well and absorb some of the unemployed, but wages would need not rise so that hourly workers are treated like salaried employees with a guaranteed income as if they worked 40 hours. Likewise, people would just have to get used to having fewer businesses opened when it is most convenient to them.

 

[Mathbud1]

We've officially had the 40-hour week since the early part of the 20th century thanks to courageous and determined efforts of the labor movement during that era.

Advances in productivity haven't led to a substantial increase in wages nor reduction in hours worked for the average employee. An increase in wages in proportion with productivity should help boost an argument for reducing the work week from the now standard 5-day week/8-hour day to 4-day week/9-hour day. Or we could just make Fridays a half-day. Or turn Thursdays and Fridays into 6-hour days with an adjusted wage increase.

People keep talking about how much more productive workers are than they used to be and saying they should earn higher wages because of the increased productivity.

But why are they more productive? Are workers working harder? Are they more skilled than they used to be?

No.

In fact they usually work less hard and are less skilled than they were because their jobs have been simplified by technology and investments made by the company.

So now you want companies to not only invest money in technologies and work models to increase productivity, but also pay more for the labor from workers who are probably doing less actual work?

Next post: "but... but... but... evil profits!"

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

You want a four day work week? Work four tens.
I loved it!! Three day weekends every four days is kick ass!!

 

[M14 Shooter]

Wait... there are people that only 40 hours in a week?
Slackers.

 

[anotherlife]

The French have a 30 hour work week, and their economy is better than the USA. Proof is that with those few hours their GDP is equal to the USA, plus all their quality statistics, such as average individual happiness is 10 times better than the USA.

But I think that employment is a relic of a by-gone industrial age. Now that everything is automated, even robotic trucks are forecasted to enter the highways in 10 years, a workweek and employment is just wishful thinking.

The general problem with any employment anyways is that it is not like a contract. It is a take-it-or-leave it, has no room for negotiations. That's why unions used to be important, to balance this. But unions are usually controlled by organized crime to control the industry, so there is really no future in any employment.

Without employment then we have millions of wannabe contractors biting up each others' foot for a dime. I think the workweek problem therefore is a much larger problem, a national currency management problem, and international trade balance problem, and mainly the problem about the national governments' priorities between government insiders and average citizens.

 

[Mathbud1]

The French have a 30 hour work week, and their economy is better than the USA. Proof is that with those few hours their GDP is equal to the USA, plus all their quality statistics, such as average individual happiness is 10 times better than the USA.

But I think that employment is a relic of a by-gone industrial age. Now that everything is automated, even robotic trucks are forecasted to enter the highways in 10 years, a workweek and employment is just wishful thinking.

The general problem with any employment anyways is that it is not like a contract. It is a take-it-or-leave it, has no room for negotiations. That's why unions used to be important, to balance this. But unions are usually controlled by organized crime to control the industry, so there is really no future in any employment.

Without employment then we have millions of wannabe contractors biting up each others' foot for a dime. I think the workweek problem therefore is a much larger problem, a national currency management problem, and international trade balance problem, and mainly the problem about the national governments' priorities between government insiders and average citizens.

And who builds and maintains all these robots? Automation just shifts jobs. It doesn't destroy them. As long as there is money to be made, people will always create more jobs out of this evil greed we always hear about. If you want to kill jobs, make hiring people too expensive. If you can't make a profit, why create a job?

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

The French have a 30 hour work week, and their economy is better than the USA. Proof is that with those few hours their GDP is equal to the USA, plus all their quality statistics, such as average individual happiness is 10 times better than the USA.

But I think that employment is a relic of a by-gone industrial age. Now that everything is automated, even robotic trucks are forecasted to enter the highways in 10 years, a workweek and employment is just wishful thinking.

The general problem with any employment anyways is that it is not like a contract. It is a take-it-or-leave it, has no room for negotiations. That's why unions used to be important, to balance this. But unions are usually controlled by organized crime to control the industry, so there is really no future in any employment.

Without employment then we have millions of wannabe contractors biting up each others' foot for a dime. I think the workweek problem therefore is a much larger problem, a national currency management problem, and international trade balance problem, and mainly the problem about the national governments' priorities between government insiders and average citizens.

The GDP of france is nowhere close to the United states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

 

[BlueGin]

You want a four day work week? Work four tens.
I loved it!! Three day weekends every four days is kick ass!!

Yep...or 4 nines and get off early on Friday. Go in early 6:00am...and get off at 2:30pm every day. A lot of employers don't hold you to a 8 to 5 time frame any more.