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Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#81

Post by toomuchtodo »

throwawayboise wrote: post #63
jedberg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal spherical cow world, having no minimum wage would work exactly as you describe. In the real world, that's you how get slavery. For many reasons, not everyone has a choice to turn down a $1/hr job.

Where I am McDonalds is begging for people to work at $15/hr. How would they even think about paying less?

They'd simply cut wages when the labor supply shock recedes and labor is in surplus again. Businesses do not pay the minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts; on the contrary, it communicates "we'd pay you less if we could, the law simply doesn't allow us to."

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#82

Post by xupybd »

mlyle wrote: post #69
toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need both: A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income someone can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc) and ratcheting down the work week distributes productivity gains of capital to workers in aggregate. The former is, arguably, more tenable politically at the moment ("Fight for $15" and so on), the latter likely in the future as the electorate (and the beliefs around work and its contribution to…

I agree that one needs both and that they serve complementary purposes. But a minimum wage is useful to the extent that there are jobs for your lowest skill, least desirable workers. And ensuring that may take reducing the work week.

Higher minimum wage laws do hurt low skilled workers. We have two great big machines at work each will pay for it's self in under a year at current minimum wage rates. There is no choice but to replace the people for machines if we want to remain competitive.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#83

Post by twalla »

austinl wrote: post #61
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #6

I'm currently working for a company that forces office staff to work a half day on christmas eve with the additional stipulation, of course, that you must burn a full day of vacation to skip it. This despite the fact that no one in the company can ever remember a customer calling on christmas eve. So I'm very skeptical that this trend will grow. It took the IWW to get us the concepts of The Weekend and Sick Days, and…

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the company I work for shuts our offices down from the 24th to the 2nd. Engineers submit availability for on-call schedules, and get a gift card for each on-call day they're responsible for. I feel very spoiled, but I think this is generally a trend amongst west-coast tech companies? I've had a similar experience at previous places, and it seemed like the rationale for the holiday…

The real rationale is to remove a metric shitton of accrued PTO from their books if paying out PTO on employee departure is something the company does.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#84

Post by mlyle »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #81
throwawayboise wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I am McDonalds is begging for people to work at $15/hr. How would they even think about paying less?

They'd simply cut wages when the labor supply shock recedes and labor is in surplus again. Businesses do not pay the minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts; on the contrary, it communicates "we'd pay you less if we could, the law simply doesn't allow us to."

Sure.

But note also that there are people one might be willing to gamble on employing at $12/hour but that don't offer a positive return at capital at $15/hour.

I think minimum wage laws are important, but that reducing the supply of labor will do more to push up the wages of the lowest earners.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#85

Post by DwnVoteHoneyPot »

trcarney wrote: post #52
mlyle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. If we shorten the nominal workweek to 36 hours before overtime is required (and encourage this to be in the form of 4x9 or 9/2 * 8): * Supply of labor will fall, increasing equilibrium pay for everyone * Everyone's quality of life goes up * Traffic and environmental impacts from commuting s…

>I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. The government being involved is the most likely answer as to why a 40 hour work week is standard and why there are so many "minimum wage" jobs. A funny thing happens when you set floors or ceilings in markets, you hit them. There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set t…

> There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set the minimum wage because people act in their own self interest.'

I'm very capitalistic and libertarian, but reality is all systems need to manage edge cases. Minimum wage is a part of that. To believe that the market can figure everything out requires serious tunnel vision.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#86

Post by dboreham »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #27

FWH has exposed how many white-collar jobs were only full-time in the ass-in-seat sense and how many employees should have Professional Meeting Attender as their job title. I used to be the guy who would champion efficient meeting practices. Now it's the last thing I want given that I can now work-out, make breakfast, do manual labor, etc., while listening to meeting. 4 day work week in grasp you ask ? For many I'd b…

The true killer feature for the remote tech stack would be to attend more than one meeting concurrently.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#88

Post by woobar »

twalla wrote: post #83
austinl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the company I work for shuts our offices down from the 24th to the 2nd. Engineers submit availability for on-call schedules, and get a gift card for each on-call day they're responsible for. I feel very spoiled, but I think this is generally a trend amongst west-coast tech companies? I've had a similar experience at previous places, and it seemed like the rationale for the holiday…

The real rationale is to remove a metric shitton of accrued PTO from their books if paying out PTO on employee departure is something the company does.

Hmm... in a few companies I've worked holiday shutdown was not coming out of PTO budget.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#89

Post by tick_tock_tick »

anonAndOn wrote: post #71
trcarney wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. The government being involved is the most likely answer as to why a 40 hour work week is standard and why there are so many "minimum wage" jobs. A funny thing happens when you set floors or ceilings in markets, you hit them. There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set t…

> There should be no minimum wage. Spoken like a true capitalist! The young, dumb and disadvantaged should be thankful for the pennies that trickle their way. It's not like they're gonna sue if they get ripped off, they're broke. Besides, they can always move into high paying career ladders just as soon as they can afford to stop taking the bus everywhere. /s

Yeah horrible idea to copy countries like Denmark and Norway.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#90

Post by skeeter2020 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #6

I'm currently working for a company that forces office staff to work a half day on christmas eve with the additional stipulation, of course, that you must burn a full day of vacation to skip it. This despite the fact that no one in the company can ever remember a customer calling on christmas eve. So I'm very skeptical that this trend will grow. It took the IWW to get us the concepts of The Weekend and Sick Days, and…

>> forces office staff to work a half day on christmas eve

...or that traditionally lets people go home at lunch? This is pretty common but you frame it pretty negatively.

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