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Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

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

#131

Post by smithza »

tombert wrote: post #110

My dad, my sister, and sister in law all work for Lockheed Martin and they do the 4-10 schedule: 4 days a week, ten hours a day, and they get every Friday off. I'm a little jealous of it, honestly; it's pretty rare that I work less than ten hours a day anyway, so I think economically it would be better for me.

I work at LM and most of my colleagues here do the 4x10. I opted for a traditional 5x8 because I have young children at home and found that being gone for 10.5-11 hrs means I don't see them during their waking hours. If I could afford it, I would choose 4x8 and take the 20% paycut.

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

#132

Post by ska »

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…

> I don't understand how people hold your view.

The usual argument for this is that while there is some efficiency gained in trying for a pure labor market here, the externalities can be brutal. So the reason that the government gets involved in the lower end is that typically they are the ones that have to deal with the fallout when things aren't working well. There are other approaches, but for whatever reasons many places find min wage more politically acceptable/expedient.

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

#133

Post by datavirtue »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #31
willheis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As with all things, it's about trade-offs. As much as I dislike this company for its policies towards time off and butts-in-seats[0], I am not on-call and am never obligated to answer my phone outside of work, no one bats an eye at me taking a few hours to make an appointment every now and then, I don't hate my manager or coworkers, and generally little is expected of me which suits me fine because I haven't found IT…

Ahhh....the plantation still lives.

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

#134

Post by trcarney »

datavirtue wrote: post #114
trcarney wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the very reason unions exist. To protect all workers from the bad deal that other workers will accept. You have little appreciation for how much people can undervalue themselves. It is enough to where people think working at an Amazon warehouse for $15 an hour is a good deal. Sounds like a great deal for Amazon and Walmart. The workers making that wage don't know that it's a bad deal. Same way people pull out…

I am all for unions as long as they aren't mandated.

In some areas an Amazon warehouse job is an exceptionally good job. I grew up in a place where one of the best job you could get was working at a Walmart distribution center. Basically like an Amazon warehouse but the whole this is a freezer.

Also the government can't and shouldn't try to govern bad choices away from people. This would lead to a very authoritarian society.

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

#135

Post by GordonS »

stronglikedan wrote: post #123
GordonS wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to a 4-day work week several years ago (maybe 7 or 8, forget), taking. 20% pay cut. Ot really does feel like such a better work-life balance - as you say, it's a much bigger increase in personal time than it is a decrease in working hours. And I am just as productive as when I worked 5 days a week!

> And I am just as productive as when I worked 5 days a week! For 20% less compensation! I'd rather do the 4-10s for full pay, without the pressure to get 40 hours of work done in 32 hours.

For me at least, it doesn't feel like pressure to get more done in less time - it's more like I'm a bit more focussed (e.g. less time on HN!), don't over-think things as much, and am more adamant about not attending meetings I don't need to be in.

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

#136

Post by mlyle »

koala_man wrote: post #121
mlyle wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying to abolish the minimum wage. I'm just saying to reduce the nominal workweek before overtime. > just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), There's not an infinite supply of bodies out there. It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"-- at least not without raising comp. And, of course, getting closer to full employment is a good thing in itself...…

>It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people" Well, you just gave millions of low-income workers 10% less money and 10% more time, so my guess is that more people would be forced to get a second job.

On the absolute margins, of people already working 2 jobs-- sure, this policy is likely to mostly cause a reallocation in hours between employers at first.

* Some other people will be content working less.

* Other people who already get overtime every week will be getting more overtime.

* Exempt employees are likely to slowly evolve to working less as the 36 hour workweek becomes the norm.

* Employers faced with paying more overtime or getting less hours will need to pay more and work harder to train up lower skilled workers to fill positions.

And in the end, everyone shifts up a bit from this reallocation.

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

#137

Post by pessimizer »

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…

> Your competitor down the street paying more money would then get the better employees and drive you out of business.

No, they would cooperate and set an informal maximum wage to replace the minimum one (or more accurately, they would lower the already informally established maximum wage.) This would be a win-win for both businesses.

It's not a coincidence that all low-wage jobs pay between 0% and 25% over the minimum wage, and it has nothing to do with labor demand. It's because a bidding war is no good for anyone, and because having the best low wage employees will not improve net revenue more than always paying as little as possible. The idea that the Burger King paying $22/hr is going to drive the McDonald's paying $14/hr out of business is a libertarian fantasy never borne out by reality.

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

#138

Post by anonAndOn »

trcarney wrote: post #96
anonAndOn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Great for those with support, safety nets, options & abilities. The young, the mentally challenged, the old, the handicapped, the convicted... they're supposed eat cat food and go sleep under an overpass until they get motivated/healthy/unconvicted/a car/____?

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

#140

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

driverdan wrote: post #102
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…

Why would you expect to get Christmas eve off? It's not a holiday and not everyone celebrates Christmas.

I think the question is framed such as it already assumes the employer perspective: you should only get off on federal holidays, or at least religious ones.

But if you want some justifications: christmas is the biggest holiday in the (once?) christian-dominated west, and in the US in particular it is quite common for family to be separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles of travel. It is also common practice for people to celebrate christmas eve with one side of the family and christmas day with the other, if they live closely enough to each.

All that aside, it is less about not getting christmas eve off than it is about there being absolutely no reason for us to be there at all. The company recognizes that there is some importance to the day for its employees by cutting the day in half in the first place, yet even though all evidence shows that there is no reason whatsoever to be there and it's costing the company more to have people there than it will ever make from it, they still insist that people show up. It's not even rational slave-driving.

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