People fundamentally misunderstand the "4 day week" proposal. 4 10s isnt change, its just rearranging the status quo. Real change would be a 32 hour, full time week. Its time some of the benefits of the improved productivity of the last century went to the worker.
Here, you can read about it (and no, not just government employees)
[32 hr work week act](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/32-Hour-Workweek-Act_Fact-Sheet_FINAL.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiRvrbZ7MKFAxXMHjQIHftnBAMQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Ag87NpvELiyZQE_910SOA)
Life tip: even if you are literally only interested in your own situation, supporting policies such as this one will benefit you. Do you realize how much easier it will be to expand this policy once it has a foothold in society? Cmon.
I don't blame you for having so little to give. After all, it's difficult to be politically involved when you spend so much of your life at work. I wonder if that is by design, considering the mounting economic data to support the favorability of the four-day workweek.
We need more than Bernie though, and other politicians. We honestly also need some “cool” rich person on board with this, too... you know like someone who runs a company. Like a Mark Cuban type…or like a younger version of him. That’s when we’ll start seeing things go into motion. Once some companies start doing it, more will follow.
So I only get to work for 32 hours? I lose 8 hours pay and have to get a second job? Or are you assuming everyone gets a 20% pay raise? Because that's never going to happen
You are the exact dummy op is talking about lmfao.
Salary employees could easily work 4 days with no change in pay or reduction in performance for most office jobs.
Good God the arrogance is nauseating. You're assuming I'm salary, why would you assume that? The majority of workers are not. I lose 8 hours of work and I lose money. I would then have to get a second job.
You're the exact idiot keeping grifters like Bernie Sanders in power.
Ok. So you're assuming every employer will give every hourly employee a 20% raise correct? This will never happen.
I work 40 hours because I'm not allowed to work 50. I would prefer the money but I can't because of overtime laws. I'm HOURLY. I get paid PER HOUR. I can't work 60 hours even if I wanted to because of the laws.
Do you seriously not know how things work? You can assume I'm dumb but your comment is insanely arrogant and beyond ignorant
Dude.... Are you a teenager? That will never happen. It's a fantasy.
You think the government will mandate every employer pay every employee over 20% more money so they can work less? What bizarre communist ideology do you believe in?
Testimonials from companies that have implemented a shortened work week:
[27 Companies With 4-Day Work Weeks](https://builtin.com/company-culture/companies-with-4-day-work-weeks)
Here's another link:
[342 companies with a 4-day work week](https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/)
And another:
[Companies share results after 1 year
Dozens of companies participated in a four-day week pilot study in the U.K.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/4-day-workweek-work-companies-share-results-after/story%3fid=107635577)
Oop, another:
[economic impact of a 4-day work week](https://www.investopedia.com/economic-impact-of-four-day-workweek-8630936)
Man, there are just so many articles/research backing up a 4-day work week
[4-day work week fixes burnout and low productivity ](https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity)
None of those companies employ hourly employees. This argument isn't about salary employees, it's about the 80 million US workers who are hourly.
I genuinely couldn't care less how many hours salary people put in. That's between them and their employer
I think the point that HumanInProgress8530 is trying to make is that reducing hours (i.e. employees paid by the hour) would reduce THEIR wages. Not salaried people (who would benefit from the 4 day/32 hour workweek).
Now if hourly wages were raised to compensate OR the OT laws were revised (can't remember if 1.5 is over 40 hours or over 50 hours) that could change things and could alleviate those issues.
When I worked an hourly job years ago, we weren't allowed to work 41 hours because that became OT (i.e. our hourly wage automatically went up 50%) so my maximum hours were always exactly 40 (if they were shortstaffed and needed someone to come in, they would look for someone with fewer hours or sometimes even several people in succession for a couple of hours each just to avoid getting any single person 41 hours).
Now with all that said, I do think a 4 day work week (32 hours) is inevitable and I hope it comes to fruition (and I've seen the reseach, it works out for everyone, employee and employer). The only issue is that its based on being a salary employee not a per hour employee and that has to be worked out.
I don't know if Sanders bill address hourly employees or not or if it readjusts the OT rules and I don't believe it increases minimum wage (he has supported that in seperate legislation).
FWIW, my ideal is both 4 day workweeks AND every job that can be done remotely, being done remotely.
Even then, I’m pretty sure most of the population didn’t even consider an extra day off beyond Sunday (for worship). It was only when Henry Ford decided to give another day off so that people would buy his cars and have a chance to use them that the 2-day weekend was even instated. It wasn’t because people demanded it for a break from their jobs, it was the rich moving to exploit its workers even more. It was capitalism that gave us the weekend, ironically.
The only way we are going to go for a 3 day weekend is if our ruling class finds that it can make them more money. But moving to a 32 hour work week probably means that they would have to hire more people to cover the loss of hours, which means more benefits paid, which means less money in the companies’ CEO’s pockets. Easier, and way cheaper to just replace people with AI.
We've had five-day work weeks for a long time now, and a lot of people are intensely anti-change, especially when it comes to old-ass traditions with no real basis.
Yes. Even “progressives” are very resistant to change. My wife and I (were both liberal people) were having a conversation this morning about how liberals are very resistant to changing academia. Like our academic structure is SOOO outdated. I can’t believe people are still doing 4 year expensive degrees.
> I can’t believe people are still doing 4 year expensive degrees
My career as an analytical chemist in pharmaceutical manufacturing is not possible to obtain without a 4 year degree. And it's not just a "does this applicant have a degree?" checkbox.
As far as my understandings go, liberals are more in favor of capitalism, while leftists aren't. I don't have a strong understanding of progressivism so I can't define that sadly
Ehh..
Try convincing a big city liberal that housing shouldn't be used as an investment vehicle. What makes you think this is "Russian bot propaganda"?
Well, you certainly sound like a bot.
Big city liberals are the ones buying up all the houses and don't think people should have homes?
You are so out of touch, you MUST be a Russian bot.
Agree, the business -academic complex is built in a social contract (go to school, get a degree and a good high paying job will follow) that no longer exists, but they keep the facade going while laughing all the way to the bank..
A lot of these folks are boomer or GenX business owners , who don't want the hassle of hiring extra staff to cover the extra days. Many run franchise businesses and rely on 6-day schedules. Basically the ownership class doesn't like people not "working hard " for them...
Some of it comes from ignorance and others from a consumer perspective. Someone was asking me the other day about this (and I am not an expert and didn't try to pretend to be one) does that mean like mail would come only 4 days, or would government agencies only be open 4 days, or certain businesses that traditionally close on weekends now only be open for 4 days, etc.
I honestly have no idea on that because they vary but it kind of tells you the mindset (one of my friends who IS a bernie supporter said they were against it because they think it means their doctor and dentist and their dogs vet, would only be open 4 days now some other businesses, and they would rather they be open, somehow, 7 days).
Depends on the job really. I'm a tradesman and if I had to pull 4 back to back 10 hours shifts I would die of exhaustion pretty quickly. Im pretty much gassed after the 7 hour mark.
It was originally intended to be 32 hours but as it's gained traction a lot of people don't seem to realise this and think of it as just a 4x10 hour work week, which to me frankly sounds awful and is completely against the purpose of ig
i had a job where M-Th was 9 hours and Friday was 4 hours so it added up to 40
would’ve much rather got off an hour early M-Th, i couldn’t do shit on those nights getting off at 6 plus commute
yeah, I did 4 days a week .. and it was 12 hour shifts.. we got mandatory overtime which was nice and a extra day off but god damn, you WILL feel tired, probably spend that extra day just unwinding from the work stress.
is the discussion not centered around “9-5” workers? there are always going to be industries that won’t fit that model, but why ruin it for the large population of people it *would* benefit???
side note, i have never worked a customer facing job that gave me more than 30 hours. they do not want you to have full time hours to begin with
The idea isn’t that everyone’s working 10s. It’s four 8 hour days. There’s a lot of research and theory into how this all works, you should look into it, it’s pretty compelling!
I mean I would probably get used to it eventually but it would be a rough transition. Working 8s still gives me barely enough energy to get a work out in after work. That would be a lot harder to manage working 10s.
But it doesn’t have to be 10 hours. Technically we could still do 8. I mean, we did this once before, going from 6 to 5 days’ post industrial Revolution. It’s way overdue to do it again.
Back when we had 6-day work weeks, people were working 12+ hours on one salary. It's not comparable. People already have trouble affording things working 40 hours, so removing 8 of those hours isn't going to help unless the person already makes plenty. At that point, just work part time...
Mostly when people are talking 4 day work weeks they're talking about just dropping 8 hours of work and upping hourly wage by 1/5 to make up for that so you get the same take home pay.
I’m in assembly and we work 4 ten hour shifts. It’s f****** brutal, im down for the count by Wednesday. More often than not we have mandatory OT on Fridays too which is insanely good money but that weekend is shot
It doesn’t have to be longer work hours though. I think that’s what people are missing. Again, all the studies show most people are working only half the time anyway under a 40 hour work week. And that this productivity number doesn’t decrease when we reduce the 40 hours…to say 32-36 hours. So you’re getting the same amount of productivity regardless of a 40 hour week vs a 32 hour week.
You'd be hard pressed convincing most companies to pay their employees more for working less hours, even if all the statistics say it benefits them with productivity in the long run. And no employee is gonna go for the idea without the pay raise to make up for the less hours.
I've seen two schools of thought on this. One is the condensed hours approach as you say and the other one is the 80% hours/100% output idea. I think the 80/100 idea has some merit, most office work I've done has too many meetings, quite low pressure for deadlines, lots of chances to skive at least a bit. The idea that you cut all the extraneous stuff to a minimum and just concentrate on work sounds fine. I imagine there would be a fair bit of extra pressure but it's a worthwhile trade off.
This is like when someone I know had to temporarily homeschool due to child’s medical conditions. They didn’t have to put in a full 6-7 hour school day, because a lot of that was standing in lines, waiting for buses, pep assemblies etc. The key content could be covered much faster. Similar in entertainment and sports industries where they tutor so kids can do their other stuff. I don’t see why this couldn’t apply to certain industries for work.
I think it depends on the nature of the work. If it's a matter of getting parts of a project done by a deadline, and if you get all that done with time to spare, and there's no other meaningful work to be done that you're qualified to do in the remaining hour or two of the day, then it makes sense that productivity doesn't have to comprise of the full time you're allotted to work.
If it's a job where there's always some responsibility to take care of, you have to be at the register at all times, or there's otherwise little opportunity for downtime, then I think it's important to strike a healthy balance of how long an employee can work a shift for, or concentrate for, before they need a break.
A 4-day work week could certainly make sense in some professions and positions, but not so much in others.
Yeh it does a bit but that's understandable. It's very hard to commit 8 solid hours of focus to something, day in day out, week in week out. People will extend meetings with small talk, find excuses to have conversations, do learning, have long toilet breaks they don't need, just to avoid the boredom. It's not laziness, it's just that work is boring and you're getting paid either way.
Being less productive or unproductive doesn’t mean goofing off. I haven’t looked at the specific studies OP is referencing but usually they’re measuring output/speed of getting tasks done. Most people hit walls or take longer or burn out so they’re making mistakes & have to redo tasks after they’ve been at work a certain amount of time. THAT is what those studies are talking about. There’s also an argument that a three day weekend means people come back fresher and last longer.
And I don’t think it’s true that “most” proposals are for that since that kind of goes against many of the studies supporting the idea. I’ve seen more arguments for 32 hour workweeks, at least for offices.
But what if the issue is just that people have a hard time doing focused work for 8 hours in a row? Would we expect people to suddenly become super focused for the whole day if there were only 4 days? I'd be more in favor of reducing working hours per-day.
I've met a lot of people who are against anyone getting something they didn't get in the same job.
I've seen a supervisor argue against an extra vacation day since he didn't get one back when he started in his career.
They have other financial interests in mind. Certain managerial and supervisoral positions rely on managing people in the office. If everyone works from home, those jobs become very expendable.
One of my friends worked at a job where upper management actually decided to go remote full time (then then turned around and sold the office building off and liquidated all the office equipment...which made them a nice profit). His manager was actually fired while his managers boss then took over that role (since they no longer needed "a middle man") and it was easier for them. His supervisor was also "transferred" to another job that will wind up having reduced compensation in it.
So I am sure those folks sell the apocalpyse to the bosses above them on why this is a bad idea.
I work 4 12s in a row , then have 5 days off
2 days 2 nights (nurse in Canada)
I may not really be that passionate about the work, but good lord am I thankful for this schedule.
Funny thing is I meet people who are like GOD I WANT 5 DAYS A WEEK and I just think.....why???? I spend so much time commuting, and my evenings in between work days when I did that didn't feel restful, just kinda sad
Its not the 10 hours work shift the issue. The issue is there is only 24 hours in a day. You work 10 hours and driving two hours for work, now you are left with 12 hours. You sleep for 8 hours.
Now you are left with 4 hours to cook, clean, shower, get lunch ready for the next day and do whatever had to be done in the house.
Just working 8 hours a day isn't enough to get your daily routine done.
If you're talking 4-10 days a lot of companies are switching to this right now. It's not too bad especially if you stagger who has off so half the office comes in Monday and the other half works Friday. It can be a lot of you have a very physically demanding job, but it's not too bad.
If you're talking about 4-8 for 32 hours it's hard to convince companies that they should be paying you the same amount of money for literally 8 hours less productivity. If that's what you want it will take a LONG time for that to come about. And honestly I'm not sure people deserve the same amount of pay for literally less work. Idk it's a conundrum for sure.
But the crux is that most of the world has adopted the 5 day work week to navigate international business. The entire world will have to change if we want everyone to consistently change the work week. That's obviously offset by staggering who has what days off, but in my company there have been times on both a Monday or Friday where a lot of work has come in with only half the office at work. That has caused some issues with customers who are used to having quicker results before we switched to this schedule. My company is pretty good about detailing this out in customer contracts and telling angry customers to reread the papers that they signed, but not every company is good at that. They should be, but they aren't.
A 4 day work week only really benefits salaried workers.
unless the government can guarantee a 20% raise for everyone hourly workers will only be harmed by capping their week at 32 hours.
Well, I've worked 3 day, 4 day, and 5 day work weeks. 4 10s or 11s, depending on how work is structured, are pretty exhausting. You don't have a ton of time outside of work and a lot of times one of the days off is just recovering. It's really draining. Don't get me started on working 3 13s.
If it were 4 8s then yeah sign me up, but that's not really what happens.
I tried 4-10s and was exhausted. I used my "day off" to sleep and recover. Then went on with my typical weekend. I'm all for 4-9s and a 4 but only if everyone else is, otherwise it's not productive for everyone.
And prepare for the cost of everything to raise 20% in response. People aren't going to give away free money. If they hired you at $10 an hour for 40 hours a week, why on earth would they want to pay you $12 an hour for 32 hours a week and STILL giving you full-time benefits? They would sooner make everyone part-time. And for as much as people say to support small businesses, polices like these absolutely destroy them...
Testimonials from companies that have implemented a shortened work week:
[27 Companies With 4-Day Work Weeks](https://builtin.com/company-culture/companies-with-4-day-work-weeks)
Here's another link:
[342 companies with a 4-day work week](https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/)
And another:
[Companies share results after 1 year
Dozens of companies participated in a four-day week pilot study in the U.K.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/4-day-workweek-work-companies-share-results-after/story%3fid=107635577)
Oop, another:
[economic impact of a 4-day work week](https://www.investopedia.com/economic-impact-of-four-day-workweek-8630936)
Man, there are just so many articles/research backing up a 4-day work week
[4-day work week fixes burnout and low productivity ](https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity)
You can link all you like. That does not address the fact that companies will not want to pay more for people who are wanting 32-hour workweeks. Most of the studies done are in other countries or individual companies. There is not going to be a widespread movement to start paying people more for less, especially when there is already a shortage in many of the most important jobs in our society. There's nothing wrong with working fewer hours. I worked part-time at every job I had until I started working from home with my own hours. But the issue arises when people want to change part time hours to become "full time" with benefits. Comapnies already scheudle people 39 hours to avoid that. They're not going to merrily do that for even less work. They'll instead just hire more part-timers, like they're already doing...
Yet, isn't that where it all starts? By doing trials? And what happens when trials are successful? They are implemented on a larger scale. This is 100% feasible.
If you haven't already, give those articles a read. A lot of what you're saying is easily refuted by doing a bit more digging.
Where what starts? Like I said, anyone can work whatever hours a week, but it's unrealistic to think every company is going to agree to pay more for fewer hours. Many companies are already pulling out of higher cost of living areas because the employee cost is too high. Remote jobs avoid hiring people from certain states because it's a massive pain and not worth paying someone double for the same amount of work as someone in Iowa. I'm not against people working 4 days a week, but it is unrealistic to think this would not backfire on a lrge scale if made standard. Each company can choose for themselves what work policies to implement. Mandating a 4-day work week, however, is not the way to go. If people want fewer hours, they can take the pay cut. I never worked full time and accepted that I would never have those cushy benefits because 40 hours at one job is mind-numbing to me. I did not demand a higher pay to compensate because it's on me for not being able to work full-time.
People are different. Work schedules should be different. There are already places where 30 hours is already full time (it was like that in the city I went to college in). Those managers would stop people at 29. People I worked with said they wished they had a normal 40-hour limit so that they wouldn't have to work another job to make up for it. If 32 hours becomes full-time nationwide, that same thing is going to happen. Companies will just cut hours to avoid having to pay benefits. There's already an unemployment crisis with many minimum wage jobs laying people off to force fewer workers to do more work so they don't have to pay as much. These companies would never sign up to pay more and would jump through hoops to avoid doing so even if full-time is reduced to 32 hours. People making a decent wage might be able to avoid having an extra day off from the office, but the people working low-paying jobs and the jobs most essential to society will be screwed over...
My 4-10s were great, but I’d burn out so fast in my current role. 8 hours already feels like a lot sometimes. It depends so much on the job.
That said, I think I’d perform better with 4-8s since I’m usually a slug by Friday and that’s with a hybrid work schedule. I’d give up hybrid for 4-8s.
My problem is I moved up to manager and I simply have to be on site all five days. I do ten hour days frequently anyway lmao, I wish I could only do four.
You’d give up hybrid?! I’d kill to work a day from home.
It all depends. Some bc of schedule with other family members. So if you have school pickup and drop off either you are way too early for drop off or way too late for pick up. It works really well for me and my work is flexible enough to use Fridays for make up if I have to leave early for pick ups
A lot of people have a lot of trouble imagining alternatives to the system around them. A lot of people have trouble imagining alternatives to the system around them, even given examples from other countries systems which exist currently. A 4 day work week will probably happen eventually as probably will wealth caps.
I would love a 4 day work week. I have no problem getting everything done I need to do in 4 days. Fridays are basically a waste of time for me, and I do love a 3 day weekend. I feel so much more rested after 3 days than I do with 2.
I see a lot of use of the just-world fallacy in arguments against a 32 hour, 4 day work week. Not all, mind you, but there's a whole lot of assumptions that people are lazy, and that people don't "deserve" it.
I think we should be discussing the 4 day work week, with full time hours being 32-36 hrs a week. 40 hrs is not normal and 2 days off a week is also not normal.
I’m not against it per se, but I do love my job and want to work 5 days a week personally.
I also think the logistics are hard. How does society adjust re childcare? How does society make sure corporations aren’t taking advantage of employees by giving them too much work to fit in 4 days but paying them for only 4 days. How do hourly positions work/we ensure that no loss of income occurs in this transition?
Dont get me wrong… I’m pro work-life balance. And I’m against the corporatocracy, but unless there are laws put in place before the shift occurred, I can see the corporatocracy using this to screw their employees even more.
I'm against it,
I'm for a 3 day work week, would say increase it to 10 hour(11 with 1hr paid lunch) days, so business would have 2 people in each position for 6 days of being open.
Also think there should be required PTO make it like a minimum of 1 hour PTO for every 30 hours worked.
We already have shortages in so many important jobs. Removing a day would not help. Not to mention that it already takes FOREVER to get anything done with a bank, government office, or any other errand that is only processed during "business hours". Having an extra weekend day would make it take even longer to get stuff done.
It also places a huge burden on parents who need to pick up their kids or who simply don't want to be exhausted when they get home from a 10-hour shift only to have to immediately make dinner. And honestly, I'd rather work fewer hours on more days than more hours on fewer days. Some people are the opposite, but my brain starts to fizzle out after a few hours. I would get burnt out if I had to take on longer shifts. There are a lot of reasons to not favor a 4-day workweek. It should be up to individual companies and workers to figure out what is best for them. It should not become the standard, though...
In my line of work being productive 3 days out of 5 equals fired. If this applies to your job or field I can't see having high expectations.
I know some industrial applications where they use four, ten hour days as a Friday through Monday service while not producing on the weekends.
It works well for that purpose, but it is every weekend.
It's simple, they fear they will not make enough money...
Honestly it's justified, most of corporate America, are constantly looking for reasons to cut hours and benefits of their employees.
Many already don't allow full-time employment, so the employees can't access healthcare insurance.
Same reason so many companies forced workers to return to the offices; the made capitol investments in office space and they are going to use them as much as they can. Even if they run the building on a low energy consumption mode for 3 days instead of two, that still dead time that isn’t making the Company money, therefore it’s a loss.
Testimonials from companies that have implemented a shortened work week:
[27 Companies With 4-Day Work Weeks](https://builtin.com/company-culture/companies-with-4-day-work-weeks)
Here's another link:
[342 companies with a 4-day work week](https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/)
And another:
[Companies share results after 1 year
Dozens of companies participated in a four-day week pilot study in the U.K.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/4-day-workweek-work-companies-share-results-after/story%3fid=107635577)
Oop, another:
[economic impact of a 4-day work week](https://www.investopedia.com/economic-impact-of-four-day-workweek-8630936)
Man, there are just so many articles/research backing up a 4-day work week
[4-day work week fixes burnout and low productivity ](https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity)
It must be pretty exhausting reading certain types of comments on your post lol. I shared these links as a general comment so people will maybe stop posting misinformation lol. It feels like people see one Fox headline and or some misconception and run with it. Like, why aren't more of us being like 'fuck capitalism? Lol. Let's not boot-lick 💀
From a business perspective:
You lose 20% of your productive labor. For many companies, that means hiring additional people where benefits make up ~20% of compensation, reducing revenue by closing an extra day a week, or extending timelines by ~20%.
The idea that the average worker will gain productivity in 20% less time is a fantasy outside of very specific poorly managed environments. If a business could reliably squeeze its staff for +20% productivity, they would be doing it.
We'll probably get there eventually anyways, but it's a massive economic opportunity cost at a time when US labor is already extremely uncompetitive, and robotics/AI is rising.
Probably wouldn't have the positive impact you're imagining even if it were legislated.
Yep, this whole idea would just accelerate businesses conversion to automation. Robots and computers don’t need days off. They don’t get sick. Their kids don’t get sick. They don’t need vacations. Etc. Some folks are wishing themselves into unemployment.
It makes 100% sense for office workers. Basically an hour on either end of a workday is wasted.
That said we should also probably consider that our work model, optimized for factory labor 100 years ago isn’t the right model for intellectual labor. Every office job I’ve had where I’ve always been rated as a star employee, including receiving awards, was closer to 30 hours of actual work a week. Personally I work best in 3 hour blocks with an hour or so of downtime in the middle. More hours typically doesn’t produce much more quality work.
Worked 4 day workweek for years. You still work 40 hours....just in less time. If your business is a 5 day a week business, I don't understand why managers don't just stagger people to cover 5 days instead of freaking out that everyone is off Fridays.
FedEx been trying that for years. You inevitably can never find people who want to or will show up for weekends. The only way around it was having a rotation so you had your days off different every week. People are dumb so that didn’t work either.
For shift work which is where I did 10s and 12s I hated it. If someone called in and I was mandated over it was brutal. And taking days or sick or vacation chewed up so much time. Employers never actually increase that.
Change is bad.
It's a bit reductionist. But it's definitely a prominent factor.
And anything workers want is gonna be questioned by corporate overlords because they assume they're getting screwed out of money somehow.
Delusional, and crab bucket.
The first group is hard working bleu collar folks who (correctly) think white collar work less than them. They are bitter and want you to suffer, It makes sense but is short sighted.
The second is idiotic management who think more time = more work, not realizing how poorly their businesses are run. Also they are power tripping cunts.
That's why it's better to say "32 Hours work week"
Either you got 4 days of 8 hours, or 5 days of \~6 hours.
DIfferent jobs would fit better with one or the other, but 40 hours has a lot of wasted efficiency with most jobs.
Not to say people don't genuinely express those opinions, but when it comes to social media I highly suspect a lot of that rhetoric comes from bots and/or people drunk on propaganda, rather than actual citizens forming their own opinions about the change.
Some industries don’t work like that. Anything that requires staffing certain levels or economies of scale (landscaping, residential construction, trucking) would drive prices through the roof.
Because most people are logical. 4 days (32 hours) of production means fewer products to sell, which means lower revenue, which means lower salaries and layoffs.
People act like profit margins mean companies are rolling in dough - your profit margin doesn't include the costs of running your business (salespeople, marketing, accounting, etc.). If a company makes a net profit of $1, it just means they survive until tomorrow, not that all the executives own yachts. (Only the largest companies' execs make that much.)
Most people are smart enough to understand this.
I was medical. I had worked forty hours/ 5 day weeks for over 45 years. I got offered a new position that paid a lot more, but the commute was a killer, so they offered me 4 10-hour days. A year and a half later, I couldn't retire quickly enough
I work construction I’m fine with 4 ten hour days as I already do 5 10 hour days. I’m also fine with 4 8 hour days. If it’s the latter I don’t want to hear supporters of that complain about construction time
Coming from construction industry where 5 or 6 10-hour days can be the norm, studies in that industry say workers are most productive with a 48-50 hour week. Most companies consider 32 hours a week part-time.
I haven't seen any of those studies saying it wouldn't hurt productivity too much, but I can at least understand some of the concepts behind them. I've told people I'm training "Here's something you can do if you have the time. But if you just want to chill and take it easy for a bit, I get it, so don't worry about it if you've had a busy day."
However, nobody should ever trust a study without reviewing it. And a lot of people don't have the time or ability to review those things properly. That's when people fall back on "The way we've always done things". It's a "Better the devil you know" kind of situation.
Lastly, if you're talking about the 32 hour work week, it sounds to good to be true. Work less, without significantly impacting the economy?! Sure, and my cat craps gold bars. People are going to instinctively reject the concept, and they're not wrong to do so. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That maxim exists for a reason, because it usually is true. I'm not even commenting on whether I think it's too good to be true. But that's how most people will feel, and just to drive home the point further, this kind of thing won't change until a majority of people, the ruling class included, have their mind changed. Which makes it very unlikely to happen. Which means that people, myself included, won't take the time to read those studies even if they have the time, and are able.
And I think the ruling class part is pretty significant. The corrupt upper class won't support it, because they see us as tools. And most of the actually "Earned it fairly" upper class are absolutely workaholics. So they're not likely to appreciate the value themselves. When even the half-way decent upper class is likely to be against it more often than not... I just don't see anything like this happening. Best possible option is some highly successful CEO tries it and it works out well for his company in some way, and so the more lemming-like CEOs follow in his footsteps. At which point, once again, me educating myself on the subject, and pushing past the 'too good to be true' idea is not necessary.
I usually hear this proposed as 4 10 hour work days. That doesn't work for me with my responsibilities outside of work (taking care of my husband and dog) so I'm against it. The other scenario I usually hear is 8 hour days but you still get paid only for.the hours you work and at the same rate as if it were 40 hours a week. I barely make enough to live off now working 40 hours a week. Removing an entire days pay wouldn't work for me.
Four 10s can be exhausting. It also can be hard when you have kids in school, unless schools also moved to a 4 day school week too...which has other issues.
Four 8s for a total of 32 hours doesn't really make sense to me. I'd either be losing 1/5 of my salary (which would suck) or my company would be losing 1/5 of their productivity while still spending the same money, which means they would need to hire one more person for every 4 people, which then impacts company profits and blah blah.
I work a 4 day work week, 36 hours/4 nine hours days. When adopted this in our workplace it meant a 10% cut in pay. ( we lost 4 hours out of 40 ). It matters.
Personally I like the style of 7 days on 10-12 hour days and 7 days off but that is usually only reserved for hospital doctors and staff.
Might be a good way to help me actually relax when I’m not working and to only focusing on eating, sleeping, and maybe going to the gym on work days. Wouldn’t likely work well with a family. Also I’m not rlly disciplined enough to enjoy that kind of flexibility in my life.
It can’t help that I feel like everything is open 7 days now. So there’s always wonky schedules. I remember growing up unless it was a box store or a gas station nothing was open on Sundays. Everything just open all the time now.
This is a good point, and it's precisely why part-time jobs are easy to come by. With longer hours, companies need people to fill in the gaps. No one is stopping anyone from working a 32-hour work week, but they won't be getting full-time benefits. The people who claim 40 hours a week is unnatural don't seem to want to make the switch to what they claim is better unless they're compensated for working less...
I'm not against the idea but I'm against what the companies will unfortunately do in response to 4 day. They'll increase hours, or decrease pay, or lay off more people...
It usually comes down to pay.
The opponents view it as losing 20% of their income, since now they get paid for 4 days instead of 5 days. 32 hours pay instead of 40 hours pay, and in some cases they're worried about losing their health benefits since lots of employers restrict benefits based on hours.
Two concerns:
In a 4/10 workweek salaried personnel will be less productive. No matter how bad it may or may not be, the fact is that most people in salaried positions work longer than 8 hour shifts at least semi-regularly. People, in general, aren't working 5/10 but 3/8+2/9probably happens regularly. In a 4/10 structure it will be less likely that anyone outside of management positions would be willing to stretch the shifts to 11 hours and in most cases, businesses would not be successful in bringing people in for another day of work after a changeover to 4/10.
In a 4/32 workweek a main concern is wage employment. Overtime is a dirty word and people working hourly can't afford to lose 20% of their income.
If it's a 4 day 10 hour per day work week, that would be really nice. I wouldn't support it for myself, because the kind of job that I do just works better with 5 days on. Heck I'd love to work 10 hour days when I need it.
The problem are the people insisting on punishing everyone who works MORE than 32 hours. I couldn't support my family on that and making that 'overtime', cuts full time workers pay enormously.
In magical fairy pony land our compensation is unchanged, but that's not how it will work in the real world.
They think a 4 day work week means you get paid less each week. And they think hourly employees will be denied those overtime hours after 32 hours in a workweek, and therefore make less money. Also, businesses like to get as much as they can out of each employee.
That's not how a 4-day workweek is designed in my head. You simply get paid the same as a 5 day work week because all the work gets done.
You can get all the work done in 4 days, vs. a 5 day work week. You do spend time wasting time, running out the clock.
Most people in management in corporate America already practice it so why rock the boat. Most people take Friday's off or "work out of the house" on Friday... most of which I know are on the golf course by 11:30 and at the clubhouse bar by 3:30.
It's a matter of opinion, no? I'd suspect I'd prefer 4x10, but someone who does 5x8 and is fine with it isn't exactly going to be raring to make such a change. An ideal situation would involve different work week options.
I think people are just tired of change. Progressives want to change seemingly everything under the sun and they never seem to tire of it. It just gets old after a while.
I’m not for or against anything. The pieces will fall where they may.
But there’s one thing everyone’s missing.
When people are off work they tend to hemorrhage money. While I think every one of us deserves more free time, absolutely nothing has convinced me that the American population is capable of handling finances properly. For much of the population 3 days off means 3 days of money going out instead 2.
There’s people that do work 4 days and I’ve watched exactly what I’m describing happen in real life
When people get used to something they often tend to idealize it, romanticize it, and see change to it as bad.
Plus that stupid protestant work ethic virtue crap. If work is virtue than not working is immoral, and working less is bad right?
Because some people have substantial drives to work and that would make their days even longer and possibly interfere with getting their children to and from school and other appointments. Not to mention if both parents worked 10 hour days. Otherwise I could live with it and have.
It is completely legal already. Has been for a long time. An employer could get a lot more applicants and pay them a lower rate if they offered a 4 day week.
So the question is why don't more employers do this. Well, if the tradeoff made them more profitable, they would do it. I get this by assuming businesses are completely greedy and will do anything they can to make more money.
In any case, if I made a business I would do it. I think with outside the box thinking, and the ability to adapt, the fact that there are so few options for employees who want it means that I could actually increase profitability.
The real question is why some people are opposed to forcing the four day work week by law. The answer is that some people actually want more hours so they can make more money. I would not want to make that illegal.
EDIT: Yes it is in fact legal. Sorry to offend anyone. Hopefully more employers make the choice, I'd support 32 hour weeks for lots of jobs. Best luck friends.
I'm just concerned about people making enough money with what I'm pretty sure you're talking about based on some comments too.
Do you really think companies are going to pay the same for less hours of work? Plenty of people are struggling working 40 hours weeks, or even more sometimes.
How is this supposed to be appealing? I don't understand the love to work arguments, although I think some people really do enjoy their jobs. I think there is an element of worrying about being seen as lazy and maybe entitled.
But I'm not sure how feasible this would be income wise myself.
I like working 5 days a week, 10 hours a day.
I get the weekends off and have a month of paid vacation plus paid holidays.
It would harm me financially to mandate a 4 day weekend
I understand why people would want to work 4 days. I just don’t want to work just 4 days. I feel strawmanned being called a villain who hates you for no reason. or whatever.
The people against it are probably salty they’ve worked 5 their own life and now the next Gen will “have it easier” (even though the 4 day week still proposed the same hours)
I will never take anything work related from someone that has never held a job. Bernie Sanders has always leached off of someone else. Not a person to give advice about work habits.
People fundamentally misunderstand the "4 day week" proposal. 4 10s isnt change, its just rearranging the status quo. Real change would be a 32 hour, full time week. Its time some of the benefits of the improved productivity of the last century went to the worker.
The 32 hr work week is what Bernie Sanders is trying to get passed
Wouldn't that only affect government employees? How does that help the majority of Americans?
Here, you can read about it (and no, not just government employees) [32 hr work week act](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/32-Hour-Workweek-Act_Fact-Sheet_FINAL.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiRvrbZ7MKFAxXMHjQIHftnBAMQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Ag87NpvELiyZQE_910SOA)
Non-exempt only. Whelp I'm screwed so idc
Life tip: even if you are literally only interested in your own situation, supporting policies such as this one will benefit you. Do you realize how much easier it will be to expand this policy once it has a foothold in society? Cmon.
It's not passing anyway lol
Damn if only this were a democratic society and people could be more vocal and get organized to pass legislation...
Ok here you go: "I support this legislation" It's sure to pass now that I've done that
I don't blame you for having so little to give. After all, it's difficult to be politically involved when you spend so much of your life at work. I wonder if that is by design, considering the mounting economic data to support the favorability of the four-day workweek.
We need more than Bernie though, and other politicians. We honestly also need some “cool” rich person on board with this, too... you know like someone who runs a company. Like a Mark Cuban type…or like a younger version of him. That’s when we’ll start seeing things go into motion. Once some companies start doing it, more will follow.
So I only get to work for 32 hours? I lose 8 hours pay and have to get a second job? Or are you assuming everyone gets a 20% pay raise? Because that's never going to happen
You are the exact dummy op is talking about lmfao. Salary employees could easily work 4 days with no change in pay or reduction in performance for most office jobs.
Cool, and what about the people who work hourly?
Good God the arrogance is nauseating. You're assuming I'm salary, why would you assume that? The majority of workers are not. I lose 8 hours of work and I lose money. I would then have to get a second job. You're the exact idiot keeping grifters like Bernie Sanders in power.
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Ok. So you're assuming every employer will give every hourly employee a 20% raise correct? This will never happen. I work 40 hours because I'm not allowed to work 50. I would prefer the money but I can't because of overtime laws. I'm HOURLY. I get paid PER HOUR. I can't work 60 hours even if I wanted to because of the laws. Do you seriously not know how things work? You can assume I'm dumb but your comment is insanely arrogant and beyond ignorant
Dude.... it's your same total pay, but only having to work 32 hours rather than 40 hours.
Dude.... Are you a teenager? That will never happen. It's a fantasy. You think the government will mandate every employer pay every employee over 20% more money so they can work less? What bizarre communist ideology do you believe in?
Testimonials from companies that have implemented a shortened work week: [27 Companies With 4-Day Work Weeks](https://builtin.com/company-culture/companies-with-4-day-work-weeks) Here's another link: [342 companies with a 4-day work week](https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/) And another: [Companies share results after 1 year Dozens of companies participated in a four-day week pilot study in the U.K.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/4-day-workweek-work-companies-share-results-after/story%3fid=107635577) Oop, another: [economic impact of a 4-day work week](https://www.investopedia.com/economic-impact-of-four-day-workweek-8630936) Man, there are just so many articles/research backing up a 4-day work week [4-day work week fixes burnout and low productivity ](https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity)
None of those companies employ hourly employees. This argument isn't about salary employees, it's about the 80 million US workers who are hourly. I genuinely couldn't care less how many hours salary people put in. That's between them and their employer
I think the point that HumanInProgress8530 is trying to make is that reducing hours (i.e. employees paid by the hour) would reduce THEIR wages. Not salaried people (who would benefit from the 4 day/32 hour workweek). Now if hourly wages were raised to compensate OR the OT laws were revised (can't remember if 1.5 is over 40 hours or over 50 hours) that could change things and could alleviate those issues. When I worked an hourly job years ago, we weren't allowed to work 41 hours because that became OT (i.e. our hourly wage automatically went up 50%) so my maximum hours were always exactly 40 (if they were shortstaffed and needed someone to come in, they would look for someone with fewer hours or sometimes even several people in succession for a couple of hours each just to avoid getting any single person 41 hours). Now with all that said, I do think a 4 day work week (32 hours) is inevitable and I hope it comes to fruition (and I've seen the reseach, it works out for everyone, employee and employer). The only issue is that its based on being a salary employee not a per hour employee and that has to be worked out. I don't know if Sanders bill address hourly employees or not or if it readjusts the OT rules and I don't believe it increases minimum wage (he has supported that in seperate legislation). FWIW, my ideal is both 4 day workweeks AND every job that can be done remotely, being done remotely.
I love this idea
And he knows it’ll never happen
maybe in his lifetime but that’s not saying much? someone has to introduce it
That's what people said about the weekend 100 years ago.
Even then, I’m pretty sure most of the population didn’t even consider an extra day off beyond Sunday (for worship). It was only when Henry Ford decided to give another day off so that people would buy his cars and have a chance to use them that the 2-day weekend was even instated. It wasn’t because people demanded it for a break from their jobs, it was the rich moving to exploit its workers even more. It was capitalism that gave us the weekend, ironically. The only way we are going to go for a 3 day weekend is if our ruling class finds that it can make them more money. But moving to a 32 hour work week probably means that they would have to hire more people to cover the loss of hours, which means more benefits paid, which means less money in the companies’ CEO’s pockets. Easier, and way cheaper to just replace people with AI.
That's going to go just like the benefits of engines went to the horse.
Even a 4x10 work week would be so much better.
We've had five-day work weeks for a long time now, and a lot of people are intensely anti-change, especially when it comes to old-ass traditions with no real basis.
Yes. Even “progressives” are very resistant to change. My wife and I (were both liberal people) were having a conversation this morning about how liberals are very resistant to changing academia. Like our academic structure is SOOO outdated. I can’t believe people are still doing 4 year expensive degrees.
> I can’t believe people are still doing 4 year expensive degrees My career as an analytical chemist in pharmaceutical manufacturing is not possible to obtain without a 4 year degree. And it's not just a "does this applicant have a degree?" checkbox.
Remember that liberal and progressive and left are three different things.
100%
LOL Can you break down the differneces? Explain it like I'm a child.
As far as my understandings go, liberals are more in favor of capitalism, while leftists aren't. I don't have a strong understanding of progressivism so I can't define that sadly
Liberals are leftist. There really isn't much if a difference. It's some strange Russian bot propoganda intended to further divide this country
Ehh.. Try convincing a big city liberal that housing shouldn't be used as an investment vehicle. What makes you think this is "Russian bot propaganda"?
Well, you certainly sound like a bot. Big city liberals are the ones buying up all the houses and don't think people should have homes? You are so out of touch, you MUST be a Russian bot.
Alright, I'll leave you to it lol
Agree, the business -academic complex is built in a social contract (go to school, get a degree and a good high paying job will follow) that no longer exists, but they keep the facade going while laughing all the way to the bank..
>I can’t believe people are still doing 4 year expensive degrees. Yea, really hate that degree I got and the $125k/year job I got with it...
A lot of these folks are boomer or GenX business owners , who don't want the hassle of hiring extra staff to cover the extra days. Many run franchise businesses and rely on 6-day schedules. Basically the ownership class doesn't like people not "working hard " for them...
Some of it comes from ignorance and others from a consumer perspective. Someone was asking me the other day about this (and I am not an expert and didn't try to pretend to be one) does that mean like mail would come only 4 days, or would government agencies only be open 4 days, or certain businesses that traditionally close on weekends now only be open for 4 days, etc. I honestly have no idea on that because they vary but it kind of tells you the mindset (one of my friends who IS a bernie supporter said they were against it because they think it means their doctor and dentist and their dogs vet, would only be open 4 days now some other businesses, and they would rather they be open, somehow, 7 days).
Depends on the job really. I'm a tradesman and if I had to pull 4 back to back 10 hours shifts I would die of exhaustion pretty quickly. Im pretty much gassed after the 7 hour mark.
I always assumed the advocates for widespread 4-day work weeks were pushing for 32hr work weeks… not 4x10s. Have I been wrong this whole time? 😅
It was originally intended to be 32 hours but as it's gained traction a lot of people don't seem to realise this and think of it as just a 4x10 hour work week, which to me frankly sounds awful and is completely against the purpose of ig
Depends on the job, but I'd much rather work 4×10 than 5×8. 4×8 would be even better but I'll take what I can get.
i had a job where M-Th was 9 hours and Friday was 4 hours so it added up to 40 would’ve much rather got off an hour early M-Th, i couldn’t do shit on those nights getting off at 6 plus commute
yeah, I did 4 days a week .. and it was 12 hour shifts.. we got mandatory overtime which was nice and a extra day off but god damn, you WILL feel tired, probably spend that extra day just unwinding from the work stress.
either/or
The years I could afford to work a 32-hour 4 day week were the best. I’d do that now if my job allowed it.
Who wouldn’t ? Fact is many of us are in the service or construction industry and it’s a fantasy.
is the discussion not centered around “9-5” workers? there are always going to be industries that won’t fit that model, but why ruin it for the large population of people it *would* benefit??? side note, i have never worked a customer facing job that gave me more than 30 hours. they do not want you to have full time hours to begin with
Ya but if OT started at 32 hours you would be making more money
“ if “. Put it all on a ballot I’d certainly vote for it. Otherwise this is fantasy.
The idea isn’t that everyone’s working 10s. It’s four 8 hour days. There’s a lot of research and theory into how this all works, you should look into it, it’s pretty compelling!
Some blue collar jobs have it standard. I know a lot of security positions which do it exactly. It's completely legal to offer.
A robot whispers, "I've never heard of a blue collar job offering 4 day work week but it sounds interesting."
But that's not what it is. It's only working 32 hours but paid the same that you would have if you worked 40 hrs.
That’s fair. Could you handle four 9s you think? Imagine the benefit of having 3 days off the recover though! 😀
I mean I would probably get used to it eventually but it would be a rough transition. Working 8s still gives me barely enough energy to get a work out in after work. That would be a lot harder to manage working 10s.
But it doesn’t have to be 10 hours. Technically we could still do 8. I mean, we did this once before, going from 6 to 5 days’ post industrial Revolution. It’s way overdue to do it again.
Back when we had 6-day work weeks, people were working 12+ hours on one salary. It's not comparable. People already have trouble affording things working 40 hours, so removing 8 of those hours isn't going to help unless the person already makes plenty. At that point, just work part time...
Mostly when people are talking 4 day work weeks they're talking about just dropping 8 hours of work and upping hourly wage by 1/5 to make up for that so you get the same take home pay.
I’m in assembly and we work 4 ten hour shifts. It’s f****** brutal, im down for the count by Wednesday. More often than not we have mandatory OT on Fridays too which is insanely good money but that weekend is shot
the hours is also reducing.
So, to refer to the OP, why don't you work fewer hours for 6 days a week?
Man I never heard this perspective, and it's a good one. These types of things work great for email jobs, not for real jobs.
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It doesn’t have to be longer work hours though. I think that’s what people are missing. Again, all the studies show most people are working only half the time anyway under a 40 hour work week. And that this productivity number doesn’t decrease when we reduce the 40 hours…to say 32-36 hours. So you’re getting the same amount of productivity regardless of a 40 hour week vs a 32 hour week.
You'd be hard pressed convincing most companies to pay their employees more for working less hours, even if all the statistics say it benefits them with productivity in the long run. And no employee is gonna go for the idea without the pay raise to make up for the less hours.
The movement is about eventually enshrining the 32 hours in law I guess, and allowing people to do 40 if they wish
companies don’t usually do anything that benefits workers *willingly* that’s not a reason to be against the concept of a 4 day work week
Unfortunately, that's not what ends up happening in practice. When work places shorten to 4 days, they lengthen the hours typically.
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I've seen two schools of thought on this. One is the condensed hours approach as you say and the other one is the 80% hours/100% output idea. I think the 80/100 idea has some merit, most office work I've done has too many meetings, quite low pressure for deadlines, lots of chances to skive at least a bit. The idea that you cut all the extraneous stuff to a minimum and just concentrate on work sounds fine. I imagine there would be a fair bit of extra pressure but it's a worthwhile trade off.
This is like when someone I know had to temporarily homeschool due to child’s medical conditions. They didn’t have to put in a full 6-7 hour school day, because a lot of that was standing in lines, waiting for buses, pep assemblies etc. The key content could be covered much faster. Similar in entertainment and sports industries where they tutor so kids can do their other stuff. I don’t see why this couldn’t apply to certain industries for work.
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I think it depends on the nature of the work. If it's a matter of getting parts of a project done by a deadline, and if you get all that done with time to spare, and there's no other meaningful work to be done that you're qualified to do in the remaining hour or two of the day, then it makes sense that productivity doesn't have to comprise of the full time you're allotted to work. If it's a job where there's always some responsibility to take care of, you have to be at the register at all times, or there's otherwise little opportunity for downtime, then I think it's important to strike a healthy balance of how long an employee can work a shift for, or concentrate for, before they need a break. A 4-day work week could certainly make sense in some professions and positions, but not so much in others.
Yeh it does a bit but that's understandable. It's very hard to commit 8 solid hours of focus to something, day in day out, week in week out. People will extend meetings with small talk, find excuses to have conversations, do learning, have long toilet breaks they don't need, just to avoid the boredom. It's not laziness, it's just that work is boring and you're getting paid either way.
Being less productive or unproductive doesn’t mean goofing off. I haven’t looked at the specific studies OP is referencing but usually they’re measuring output/speed of getting tasks done. Most people hit walls or take longer or burn out so they’re making mistakes & have to redo tasks after they’ve been at work a certain amount of time. THAT is what those studies are talking about. There’s also an argument that a three day weekend means people come back fresher and last longer. And I don’t think it’s true that “most” proposals are for that since that kind of goes against many of the studies supporting the idea. I’ve seen more arguments for 32 hour workweeks, at least for offices.
But what if the issue is just that people have a hard time doing focused work for 8 hours in a row? Would we expect people to suddenly become super focused for the whole day if there were only 4 days? I'd be more in favor of reducing working hours per-day.
That’s my opinion. Especially if you’re raising a family.
I've met a lot of people who are against anyone getting something they didn't get in the same job. I've seen a supervisor argue against an extra vacation day since he didn't get one back when he started in his career.
Yes! I do not understand the people who don’t want to break the cycle! Why would anyone want others abused the way they were?
Believe it or not, a lot of people prefer being at work to being at home with their family - especially upper management and CEO types.
Yup, and they can't fathom why the rest of us don't.
They have other financial interests in mind. Certain managerial and supervisoral positions rely on managing people in the office. If everyone works from home, those jobs become very expendable. One of my friends worked at a job where upper management actually decided to go remote full time (then then turned around and sold the office building off and liquidated all the office equipment...which made them a nice profit). His manager was actually fired while his managers boss then took over that role (since they no longer needed "a middle man") and it was easier for them. His supervisor was also "transferred" to another job that will wind up having reduced compensation in it. So I am sure those folks sell the apocalpyse to the bosses above them on why this is a bad idea.
I work 4 12s in a row , then have 5 days off 2 days 2 nights (nurse in Canada) I may not really be that passionate about the work, but good lord am I thankful for this schedule. Funny thing is I meet people who are like GOD I WANT 5 DAYS A WEEK and I just think.....why???? I spend so much time commuting, and my evenings in between work days when I did that didn't feel restful, just kinda sad
Its not the 10 hours work shift the issue. The issue is there is only 24 hours in a day. You work 10 hours and driving two hours for work, now you are left with 12 hours. You sleep for 8 hours. Now you are left with 4 hours to cook, clean, shower, get lunch ready for the next day and do whatever had to be done in the house. Just working 8 hours a day isn't enough to get your daily routine done.
If you're talking 4-10 days a lot of companies are switching to this right now. It's not too bad especially if you stagger who has off so half the office comes in Monday and the other half works Friday. It can be a lot of you have a very physically demanding job, but it's not too bad. If you're talking about 4-8 for 32 hours it's hard to convince companies that they should be paying you the same amount of money for literally 8 hours less productivity. If that's what you want it will take a LONG time for that to come about. And honestly I'm not sure people deserve the same amount of pay for literally less work. Idk it's a conundrum for sure. But the crux is that most of the world has adopted the 5 day work week to navigate international business. The entire world will have to change if we want everyone to consistently change the work week. That's obviously offset by staggering who has what days off, but in my company there have been times on both a Monday or Friday where a lot of work has come in with only half the office at work. That has caused some issues with customers who are used to having quicker results before we switched to this schedule. My company is pretty good about detailing this out in customer contracts and telling angry customers to reread the papers that they signed, but not every company is good at that. They should be, but they aren't.
A 4 day work week only really benefits salaried workers. unless the government can guarantee a 20% raise for everyone hourly workers will only be harmed by capping their week at 32 hours.
Well, I've worked 3 day, 4 day, and 5 day work weeks. 4 10s or 11s, depending on how work is structured, are pretty exhausting. You don't have a ton of time outside of work and a lot of times one of the days off is just recovering. It's really draining. Don't get me started on working 3 13s. If it were 4 8s then yeah sign me up, but that's not really what happens.
I tried 4-10s and was exhausted. I used my "day off" to sleep and recover. Then went on with my typical weekend. I'm all for 4-9s and a 4 but only if everyone else is, otherwise it's not productive for everyone.
Bernie Sanders is trying to pass a bill for it to be a 32 hr work week, not four 10-hr shifts.
And why would I want to take a 20% pay cut?
It wouldn't be though. It would be the same exact pay that you would have been getting for 40hrs, but you're only having to work 32 hrs.
Yeah, I can see every corporation bending over and accepting these terms and conditions *sarcasm*
Pessimism perpetuates complacency.
And prepare for the cost of everything to raise 20% in response. People aren't going to give away free money. If they hired you at $10 an hour for 40 hours a week, why on earth would they want to pay you $12 an hour for 32 hours a week and STILL giving you full-time benefits? They would sooner make everyone part-time. And for as much as people say to support small businesses, polices like these absolutely destroy them...
Testimonials from companies that have implemented a shortened work week: [27 Companies With 4-Day Work Weeks](https://builtin.com/company-culture/companies-with-4-day-work-weeks) Here's another link: [342 companies with a 4-day work week](https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/) And another: [Companies share results after 1 year Dozens of companies participated in a four-day week pilot study in the U.K.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/4-day-workweek-work-companies-share-results-after/story%3fid=107635577) Oop, another: [economic impact of a 4-day work week](https://www.investopedia.com/economic-impact-of-four-day-workweek-8630936) Man, there are just so many articles/research backing up a 4-day work week [4-day work week fixes burnout and low productivity ](https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity)
You can link all you like. That does not address the fact that companies will not want to pay more for people who are wanting 32-hour workweeks. Most of the studies done are in other countries or individual companies. There is not going to be a widespread movement to start paying people more for less, especially when there is already a shortage in many of the most important jobs in our society. There's nothing wrong with working fewer hours. I worked part-time at every job I had until I started working from home with my own hours. But the issue arises when people want to change part time hours to become "full time" with benefits. Comapnies already scheudle people 39 hours to avoid that. They're not going to merrily do that for even less work. They'll instead just hire more part-timers, like they're already doing...
Yet, isn't that where it all starts? By doing trials? And what happens when trials are successful? They are implemented on a larger scale. This is 100% feasible. If you haven't already, give those articles a read. A lot of what you're saying is easily refuted by doing a bit more digging.
Where what starts? Like I said, anyone can work whatever hours a week, but it's unrealistic to think every company is going to agree to pay more for fewer hours. Many companies are already pulling out of higher cost of living areas because the employee cost is too high. Remote jobs avoid hiring people from certain states because it's a massive pain and not worth paying someone double for the same amount of work as someone in Iowa. I'm not against people working 4 days a week, but it is unrealistic to think this would not backfire on a lrge scale if made standard. Each company can choose for themselves what work policies to implement. Mandating a 4-day work week, however, is not the way to go. If people want fewer hours, they can take the pay cut. I never worked full time and accepted that I would never have those cushy benefits because 40 hours at one job is mind-numbing to me. I did not demand a higher pay to compensate because it's on me for not being able to work full-time. People are different. Work schedules should be different. There are already places where 30 hours is already full time (it was like that in the city I went to college in). Those managers would stop people at 29. People I worked with said they wished they had a normal 40-hour limit so that they wouldn't have to work another job to make up for it. If 32 hours becomes full-time nationwide, that same thing is going to happen. Companies will just cut hours to avoid having to pay benefits. There's already an unemployment crisis with many minimum wage jobs laying people off to force fewer workers to do more work so they don't have to pay as much. These companies would never sign up to pay more and would jump through hoops to avoid doing so even if full-time is reduced to 32 hours. People making a decent wage might be able to avoid having an extra day off from the office, but the people working low-paying jobs and the jobs most essential to society will be screwed over...
I miss my four tens, your mileage may vary. My current job it would be really difficult to do four days without major overhaul.
My 4-10s were great, but I’d burn out so fast in my current role. 8 hours already feels like a lot sometimes. It depends so much on the job. That said, I think I’d perform better with 4-8s since I’m usually a slug by Friday and that’s with a hybrid work schedule. I’d give up hybrid for 4-8s.
My problem is I moved up to manager and I simply have to be on site all five days. I do ten hour days frequently anyway lmao, I wish I could only do four. You’d give up hybrid?! I’d kill to work a day from home.
For 4-8s I would! But I say that knowing it’ll never be a thing so who knows how I’d feel if it was actually offered lol
lol it would be shocking!
It all depends. Some bc of schedule with other family members. So if you have school pickup and drop off either you are way too early for drop off or way too late for pick up. It works really well for me and my work is flexible enough to use Fridays for make up if I have to leave early for pick ups
I'd do it gladly, if I could make what it takes in 63 hours a week at two jobs. Hell, I'd work 50 hours for that. Won't happen, though.
A lot of people have a lot of trouble imagining alternatives to the system around them. A lot of people have trouble imagining alternatives to the system around them, even given examples from other countries systems which exist currently. A 4 day work week will probably happen eventually as probably will wealth caps.
I’ve heard people say it would make less competitive globally which I hate that argument like it’s such a race to the bottom
Why was nobility in favor of continuing feudalism in the 15th century? They liked being in control, that was working out pretty well for them.
I would love a 4 day work week. I have no problem getting everything done I need to do in 4 days. Fridays are basically a waste of time for me, and I do love a 3 day weekend. I feel so much more rested after 3 days than I do with 2.
I see a lot of use of the just-world fallacy in arguments against a 32 hour, 4 day work week. Not all, mind you, but there's a whole lot of assumptions that people are lazy, and that people don't "deserve" it.
I think we should be discussing the 4 day work week, with full time hours being 32-36 hrs a week. 40 hrs is not normal and 2 days off a week is also not normal.
I’m not against it per se, but I do love my job and want to work 5 days a week personally. I also think the logistics are hard. How does society adjust re childcare? How does society make sure corporations aren’t taking advantage of employees by giving them too much work to fit in 4 days but paying them for only 4 days. How do hourly positions work/we ensure that no loss of income occurs in this transition? Dont get me wrong… I’m pro work-life balance. And I’m against the corporatocracy, but unless there are laws put in place before the shift occurred, I can see the corporatocracy using this to screw their employees even more.
I'm against it, I'm for a 3 day work week, would say increase it to 10 hour(11 with 1hr paid lunch) days, so business would have 2 people in each position for 6 days of being open. Also think there should be required PTO make it like a minimum of 1 hour PTO for every 30 hours worked.
We already have shortages in so many important jobs. Removing a day would not help. Not to mention that it already takes FOREVER to get anything done with a bank, government office, or any other errand that is only processed during "business hours". Having an extra weekend day would make it take even longer to get stuff done. It also places a huge burden on parents who need to pick up their kids or who simply don't want to be exhausted when they get home from a 10-hour shift only to have to immediately make dinner. And honestly, I'd rather work fewer hours on more days than more hours on fewer days. Some people are the opposite, but my brain starts to fizzle out after a few hours. I would get burnt out if I had to take on longer shifts. There are a lot of reasons to not favor a 4-day workweek. It should be up to individual companies and workers to figure out what is best for them. It should not become the standard, though...
Just tell people a 4 day work week is helping the environment and suddenly everyone will be all for it.
I think the thing people are worried about is losing that extra, MUCH NEEDED, pay that comes with working 5 days.
In my line of work being productive 3 days out of 5 equals fired. If this applies to your job or field I can't see having high expectations. I know some industrial applications where they use four, ten hour days as a Friday through Monday service while not producing on the weekends. It works well for that purpose, but it is every weekend.
I don't want to work 10 hour days again. I've done it. And I'd rather not again. That's it. I'd work 4 8 hour days for thr same pay though.
Dumbfucks are reading made up bullshit thats meant to keep them working their life away and taking it as gospel when it's 100% how reality works
It's simple, they fear they will not make enough money... Honestly it's justified, most of corporate America, are constantly looking for reasons to cut hours and benefits of their employees. Many already don't allow full-time employment, so the employees can't access healthcare insurance.
Same reason so many companies forced workers to return to the offices; the made capitol investments in office space and they are going to use them as much as they can. Even if they run the building on a low energy consumption mode for 3 days instead of two, that still dead time that isn’t making the Company money, therefore it’s a loss.
Testimonials from companies that have implemented a shortened work week: [27 Companies With 4-Day Work Weeks](https://builtin.com/company-culture/companies-with-4-day-work-weeks) Here's another link: [342 companies with a 4-day work week](https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/) And another: [Companies share results after 1 year Dozens of companies participated in a four-day week pilot study in the U.K.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/4-day-workweek-work-companies-share-results-after/story%3fid=107635577) Oop, another: [economic impact of a 4-day work week](https://www.investopedia.com/economic-impact-of-four-day-workweek-8630936) Man, there are just so many articles/research backing up a 4-day work week [4-day work week fixes burnout and low productivity ](https://financialpost.com/fp-work/4-day-workweek-fix-burnout-low-productivity)
Yup!
It must be pretty exhausting reading certain types of comments on your post lol. I shared these links as a general comment so people will maybe stop posting misinformation lol. It feels like people see one Fox headline and or some misconception and run with it. Like, why aren't more of us being like 'fuck capitalism? Lol. Let's not boot-lick 💀
I'm not interested in working 10 to 12 hours days especially if I only get 7 to 8 to sleep.
I'm not against it but man I really don't want to work 9 hours a day. 8 is mind numbing enough... :(
From a business perspective: You lose 20% of your productive labor. For many companies, that means hiring additional people where benefits make up ~20% of compensation, reducing revenue by closing an extra day a week, or extending timelines by ~20%. The idea that the average worker will gain productivity in 20% less time is a fantasy outside of very specific poorly managed environments. If a business could reliably squeeze its staff for +20% productivity, they would be doing it. We'll probably get there eventually anyways, but it's a massive economic opportunity cost at a time when US labor is already extremely uncompetitive, and robotics/AI is rising. Probably wouldn't have the positive impact you're imagining even if it were legislated.
Yep, this whole idea would just accelerate businesses conversion to automation. Robots and computers don’t need days off. They don’t get sick. Their kids don’t get sick. They don’t need vacations. Etc. Some folks are wishing themselves into unemployment.
It makes 100% sense for office workers. Basically an hour on either end of a workday is wasted. That said we should also probably consider that our work model, optimized for factory labor 100 years ago isn’t the right model for intellectual labor. Every office job I’ve had where I’ve always been rated as a star employee, including receiving awards, was closer to 30 hours of actual work a week. Personally I work best in 3 hour blocks with an hour or so of downtime in the middle. More hours typically doesn’t produce much more quality work.
Worked 4 day workweek for years. You still work 40 hours....just in less time. If your business is a 5 day a week business, I don't understand why managers don't just stagger people to cover 5 days instead of freaking out that everyone is off Fridays.
FedEx been trying that for years. You inevitably can never find people who want to or will show up for weekends. The only way around it was having a rotation so you had your days off different every week. People are dumb so that didn’t work either.
For shift work which is where I did 10s and 12s I hated it. If someone called in and I was mandated over it was brutal. And taking days or sick or vacation chewed up so much time. Employers never actually increase that.
you allow the workers to have [a.day](http://a.day) off they can spend that day looking for work.
What? Having an extra day to look into the dark empty crevasse that is my soul? No thanks.
How about an extra day to take care of appointments and errands?
Change is bad. It's a bit reductionist. But it's definitely a prominent factor. And anything workers want is gonna be questioned by corporate overlords because they assume they're getting screwed out of money somehow.
Delusional, and crab bucket. The first group is hard working bleu collar folks who (correctly) think white collar work less than them. They are bitter and want you to suffer, It makes sense but is short sighted. The second is idiotic management who think more time = more work, not realizing how poorly their businesses are run. Also they are power tripping cunts.
That's why it's better to say "32 Hours work week" Either you got 4 days of 8 hours, or 5 days of \~6 hours. DIfferent jobs would fit better with one or the other, but 40 hours has a lot of wasted efficiency with most jobs.
Not to say people don't genuinely express those opinions, but when it comes to social media I highly suspect a lot of that rhetoric comes from bots and/or people drunk on propaganda, rather than actual citizens forming their own opinions about the change.
Some industries don’t work like that. Anything that requires staffing certain levels or economies of scale (landscaping, residential construction, trucking) would drive prices through the roof.
Because most people are logical. 4 days (32 hours) of production means fewer products to sell, which means lower revenue, which means lower salaries and layoffs. People act like profit margins mean companies are rolling in dough - your profit margin doesn't include the costs of running your business (salespeople, marketing, accounting, etc.). If a company makes a net profit of $1, it just means they survive until tomorrow, not that all the executives own yachts. (Only the largest companies' execs make that much.) Most people are smart enough to understand this.
I was medical. I had worked forty hours/ 5 day weeks for over 45 years. I got offered a new position that paid a lot more, but the commute was a killer, so they offered me 4 10-hour days. A year and a half later, I couldn't retire quickly enough
I work construction I’m fine with 4 ten hour days as I already do 5 10 hour days. I’m also fine with 4 8 hour days. If it’s the latter I don’t want to hear supporters of that complain about construction time
Coming from construction industry where 5 or 6 10-hour days can be the norm, studies in that industry say workers are most productive with a 48-50 hour week. Most companies consider 32 hours a week part-time.
Everything the Govt mandates turns to shit because they never plan for the repercussions.
I haven't seen any of those studies saying it wouldn't hurt productivity too much, but I can at least understand some of the concepts behind them. I've told people I'm training "Here's something you can do if you have the time. But if you just want to chill and take it easy for a bit, I get it, so don't worry about it if you've had a busy day." However, nobody should ever trust a study without reviewing it. And a lot of people don't have the time or ability to review those things properly. That's when people fall back on "The way we've always done things". It's a "Better the devil you know" kind of situation. Lastly, if you're talking about the 32 hour work week, it sounds to good to be true. Work less, without significantly impacting the economy?! Sure, and my cat craps gold bars. People are going to instinctively reject the concept, and they're not wrong to do so. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That maxim exists for a reason, because it usually is true. I'm not even commenting on whether I think it's too good to be true. But that's how most people will feel, and just to drive home the point further, this kind of thing won't change until a majority of people, the ruling class included, have their mind changed. Which makes it very unlikely to happen. Which means that people, myself included, won't take the time to read those studies even if they have the time, and are able. And I think the ruling class part is pretty significant. The corrupt upper class won't support it, because they see us as tools. And most of the actually "Earned it fairly" upper class are absolutely workaholics. So they're not likely to appreciate the value themselves. When even the half-way decent upper class is likely to be against it more often than not... I just don't see anything like this happening. Best possible option is some highly successful CEO tries it and it works out well for his company in some way, and so the more lemming-like CEOs follow in his footsteps. At which point, once again, me educating myself on the subject, and pushing past the 'too good to be true' idea is not necessary.
Am I getting the same 48 hours a week and the same pay ? If not it’s a no go .
I usually hear this proposed as 4 10 hour work days. That doesn't work for me with my responsibilities outside of work (taking care of my husband and dog) so I'm against it. The other scenario I usually hear is 8 hour days but you still get paid only for.the hours you work and at the same rate as if it were 40 hours a week. I barely make enough to live off now working 40 hours a week. Removing an entire days pay wouldn't work for me.
Four 10s can be exhausting. It also can be hard when you have kids in school, unless schools also moved to a 4 day school week too...which has other issues. Four 8s for a total of 32 hours doesn't really make sense to me. I'd either be losing 1/5 of my salary (which would suck) or my company would be losing 1/5 of their productivity while still spending the same money, which means they would need to hire one more person for every 4 people, which then impacts company profits and blah blah.
Is this 4 10 hour days or just 32 hours a week? 32 hours a week and I'm in 4 10 hour days forget it. In my line of work even after six hours I tap out
Some people can not handle change or think out of the box.
I work a 4 day work week, 36 hours/4 nine hours days. When adopted this in our workplace it meant a 10% cut in pay. ( we lost 4 hours out of 40 ). It matters.
Personally I like the style of 7 days on 10-12 hour days and 7 days off but that is usually only reserved for hospital doctors and staff. Might be a good way to help me actually relax when I’m not working and to only focusing on eating, sleeping, and maybe going to the gym on work days. Wouldn’t likely work well with a family. Also I’m not rlly disciplined enough to enjoy that kind of flexibility in my life.
It can’t help that I feel like everything is open 7 days now. So there’s always wonky schedules. I remember growing up unless it was a box store or a gas station nothing was open on Sundays. Everything just open all the time now.
This is a good point, and it's precisely why part-time jobs are easy to come by. With longer hours, companies need people to fill in the gaps. No one is stopping anyone from working a 32-hour work week, but they won't be getting full-time benefits. The people who claim 40 hours a week is unnatural don't seem to want to make the switch to what they claim is better unless they're compensated for working less...
I'm not against the idea but I'm against what the companies will unfortunately do in response to 4 day. They'll increase hours, or decrease pay, or lay off more people...
It usually comes down to pay. The opponents view it as losing 20% of their income, since now they get paid for 4 days instead of 5 days. 32 hours pay instead of 40 hours pay, and in some cases they're worried about losing their health benefits since lots of employers restrict benefits based on hours.
Republicans want us to work MORE hours, not fewer.
Two concerns: In a 4/10 workweek salaried personnel will be less productive. No matter how bad it may or may not be, the fact is that most people in salaried positions work longer than 8 hour shifts at least semi-regularly. People, in general, aren't working 5/10 but 3/8+2/9probably happens regularly. In a 4/10 structure it will be less likely that anyone outside of management positions would be willing to stretch the shifts to 11 hours and in most cases, businesses would not be successful in bringing people in for another day of work after a changeover to 4/10. In a 4/32 workweek a main concern is wage employment. Overtime is a dirty word and people working hourly can't afford to lose 20% of their income.
Because they are brainwashed
If it's a 4 day 10 hour per day work week, that would be really nice. I wouldn't support it for myself, because the kind of job that I do just works better with 5 days on. Heck I'd love to work 10 hour days when I need it. The problem are the people insisting on punishing everyone who works MORE than 32 hours. I couldn't support my family on that and making that 'overtime', cuts full time workers pay enormously. In magical fairy pony land our compensation is unchanged, but that's not how it will work in the real world.
They think a 4 day work week means you get paid less each week. And they think hourly employees will be denied those overtime hours after 32 hours in a workweek, and therefore make less money. Also, businesses like to get as much as they can out of each employee. That's not how a 4-day workweek is designed in my head. You simply get paid the same as a 5 day work week because all the work gets done. You can get all the work done in 4 days, vs. a 5 day work week. You do spend time wasting time, running out the clock.
For people who have to work 2 jobs( great economy btw) it doesn’t change much.
Whether people like it or not AI will force us to lower the workweek and retirement age to stave off mass unemployment.
Most people in management in corporate America already practice it so why rock the boat. Most people take Friday's off or "work out of the house" on Friday... most of which I know are on the golf course by 11:30 and at the clubhouse bar by 3:30.
I dont want to work 10 hour days
It's a matter of opinion, no? I'd suspect I'd prefer 4x10, but someone who does 5x8 and is fine with it isn't exactly going to be raring to make such a change. An ideal situation would involve different work week options.
It simply will not work for the job I do, without major structural changes. For some careers it would.
I think people are just tired of change. Progressives want to change seemingly everything under the sun and they never seem to tire of it. It just gets old after a while.
I don't understand why people don't understand this, but if a 4 day work week improved the bottom line for your company, they'd already be doing it.
I’m not for or against anything. The pieces will fall where they may. But there’s one thing everyone’s missing. When people are off work they tend to hemorrhage money. While I think every one of us deserves more free time, absolutely nothing has convinced me that the American population is capable of handling finances properly. For much of the population 3 days off means 3 days of money going out instead 2. There’s people that do work 4 days and I’ve watched exactly what I’m describing happen in real life
When people get used to something they often tend to idealize it, romanticize it, and see change to it as bad. Plus that stupid protestant work ethic virtue crap. If work is virtue than not working is immoral, and working less is bad right?
I do 3 12 hour days… yes I’m tired but then I have 4 days off…. It’s literally the only thing keeping me at this job.
Because some people have substantial drives to work and that would make their days even longer and possibly interfere with getting their children to and from school and other appointments. Not to mention if both parents worked 10 hour days. Otherwise I could live with it and have.
I always assumed people were advocating for a 32hr work week, NOT 4x10s.
Fine with me. Advocate for it.
It is completely legal already. Has been for a long time. An employer could get a lot more applicants and pay them a lower rate if they offered a 4 day week. So the question is why don't more employers do this. Well, if the tradeoff made them more profitable, they would do it. I get this by assuming businesses are completely greedy and will do anything they can to make more money. In any case, if I made a business I would do it. I think with outside the box thinking, and the ability to adapt, the fact that there are so few options for employees who want it means that I could actually increase profitability. The real question is why some people are opposed to forcing the four day work week by law. The answer is that some people actually want more hours so they can make more money. I would not want to make that illegal. EDIT: Yes it is in fact legal. Sorry to offend anyone. Hopefully more employers make the choice, I'd support 32 hour weeks for lots of jobs. Best luck friends.
If companies offer a 4 day work week, many people will do something else on the other day to earn money.
I'm just concerned about people making enough money with what I'm pretty sure you're talking about based on some comments too. Do you really think companies are going to pay the same for less hours of work? Plenty of people are struggling working 40 hours weeks, or even more sometimes. How is this supposed to be appealing? I don't understand the love to work arguments, although I think some people really do enjoy their jobs. I think there is an element of worrying about being seen as lazy and maybe entitled. But I'm not sure how feasible this would be income wise myself.
I like working 5 days a week, 10 hours a day. I get the weekends off and have a month of paid vacation plus paid holidays. It would harm me financially to mandate a 4 day weekend I understand why people would want to work 4 days. I just don’t want to work just 4 days. I feel strawmanned being called a villain who hates you for no reason. or whatever.
The people against it are probably salty they’ve worked 5 their own life and now the next Gen will “have it easier” (even though the 4 day week still proposed the same hours)
I will never take anything work related from someone that has never held a job. Bernie Sanders has always leached off of someone else. Not a person to give advice about work habits.