Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 364 posts

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

#91

Post by skeeter2020 »

trcarney wrote: post #72
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.

I don't understand how people hold your view. Would you except a $1/hr job? No, then why do you think other people would. If you can make more money walking through a parking lot picking up change, why would you work. Plus companies wouldn't want to hire at $1/hr because what kind of employee are you getting? Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of bu…

We're actually seeing this with massive labour shortages in traditionally low paying fields. People did better off government hand-outs and then didn't ever go back to these roles at the offered wages.

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

#92

Post by DwnVoteHoneyPot »

trcarney wrote: post #72
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.

I don't understand how people hold your view. Would you except a $1/hr job? No, then why do you think other people would. If you can make more money walking through a parking lot picking up change, why would you work. Plus companies wouldn't want to hire at $1/hr because what kind of employee are you getting? Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of bu…

> Its because they want to attract the best talent.

When we are talking about minimum wage, you need to consider the people with the worst talent. Think sweatshops in China, construction camps in Dubai, prostitutes in the US. Not Google or Facebook employees.

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

#93

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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…

As long as "elsewhere" is SV or some other big city, that grass will never be green enough for me.

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

#94

Post by nickff »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #65
azinman2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup… because their jobs may then go abroad as has been the trend for the past 20 years…

Some of my best (ie: most profitable per hour jobs) were rescuing projects that were sent abroad.

This seems like it could be survivor-ship bias; i.e. your highest margin jobs weren't those that had been sent abroad, they were the ones that failed after having been sent abroad.

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

#95

Post by dv_dt »

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.

We should consider thinking of those jobs not as lowest skill, but jobs where the workers have the lowest negotiating power.

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

#96

Post by trcarney »

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

You will be paid at the highest rate you can command based on the value of your skills in the labor force. If you have no relevant skills, you don't make much money until you do have relevant skills. You earn shit money and then build your skills and then you will no longer earn shit money. It's pretty simple and it is what happens to most minimum wage workers and workers in any sector of the economy.

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

#97

Post by a_c_s »

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.

How does shutting down the office remove PTO obligations?

I worked at a company where we had 10 days of vacation + the office shut down for the last week of the year. Nobody had to use vacation time during that 1-week shutdown. If anything, it increased PTO accrued obligations because nobody had to use their PTO for time off during that week.

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

#98

Post by 14 »

No we are not within grasp. I work as a care worker and we are short staffed every day. You could deem the official work week 4 days but they would still need ya to work 5. All this would change is when someone would be deemed full time and when they can get benefits. The companies would still be short staffed but after declaring 4 days a week would be forced to pay overtime for the last day. There are no more workers available we are constantly trying to hire.

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

#99

Post by skeeter2020 »

willheis wrote: post #14
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…

Obviously on-call has to cover holidays but Christmas eve is a work day for everyone (in an office) at your company? Why stay? That is simply barbaric

Christmas eve is usually a work day for the vast majority of the world, even the out-of-touch white collar minority. We benefit from the fact that (a) the work is easy, (b) not much of it gets done and (c) you go home 1/2 way through the day. You sound even more out of touch than the rest of us if you think this is "barbaric".

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

#100

Post by mlyle »

dv_dt wrote: post #95
mlyle wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We should consider thinking of those jobs not as lowest skill, but jobs where the workers have the lowest negotiating power.

They go hand in hand.

Why do the workers have the lowest negotiating power in these jobs? It's because they are the most easily replaced and the net benefit from employing them is smallest.

[There are some edge cases, where a field is swamped from people doing the job for the love of it... But this is not the typical case.]

Post reply on HN