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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?

#141

Post by loonster »

ipaddr wrote: post #105
xupybd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is a win-win. They force other businesses who can't buy a machine to pay a higher floor. If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. Your company gets more productive. Paying some a lower wage because it delays another machine purchase is not a long term solutiom

> If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth.

And those companies will calculate the ROI for moving into a lower tax burdensome area. After the company leaves the people wont have a job or the tax revenue.

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

#142

Post by jcvhaarst »

Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years.

It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days.

The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him benefit.

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

#143

Post by procinct »

jcvhaarst wrote: post #142

Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years. It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days. The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him benefit.

It’s definitely not just a US thing. In NZ the vast majority of people work 5 days. I suspect probably the same in AU and UK.

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

#144

Post by trcarney »

ethbr0 wrote: post #129
trcarney wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you build your skills, if you're spending 40+ hours a week working to make ends meet and trying to care for a family? You're arguing from an ideal situation, without taking into account that reality's average is very much less than ideal.

You are building your skills while you are working. If you can find time outside of work, you are just accelerating things.

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

#145

Post by satyrnein »

datavirtue wrote: post #133
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He was literally talking about how it was his choice to stay, and you're calling him a slave. Over only getting half a day off on Christmas Eve, which is not even a holiday. I honestly cannot tell what is sarcasm anymore.

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

#146

Post by emptysongglass »

procinct wrote: post #143
jcvhaarst wrote: post #142

Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years. It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days. The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him benefit.

It’s definitely not just a US thing. In NZ the vast majority of people work 5 days. I suspect probably the same in AU and UK.

Definitely also still the case in Denmark, which is a stone's throw away from the Dutch. Don't think this is in any way illustrative of a US-bubble.

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

#147

Post by TaylorAlexander »

jcvhaarst wrote: post #142

Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years. It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days. The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him benefit.

Hell I’m in the USA and I work a four day work week (four six hour days!!). Last time I was job hunting I simply told every prospective employer my desired schedule and I found one small organization that was fine with that. It’s life changing!

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

#148

Post by hvgk »

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…

I tend to attempt to ruin asshat companies like that, usually because it’s only the tip of the iceberg of abuse. I’ve taken out two so far, one by quitting as the sole engineer when their only client went down and i wasn’t paid properly and secondly by scaring all the permanent staff off after getting a bailiff appointed to take kit away from their office because they didn’t pay my invoice. I don’t shed an ounce of guilt for this.

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

#149

Post by jacksonkmarley »

dboreham wrote: post #86
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.

Tried that with Teams just the other day, sadly no go.

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

#150

Post by mlyle »

anonAndOn wrote: post #138
trcarney wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/____?

> the mentally challenged, the old, the handicapped

We have disability safety nets (that could be better). And FLSA and state regs all allow paying these groups under minimum wage (and this is a good thing).

My wife's brother is severely mentally handicapped. He lives in a nice, well-run group home (I'm aware this is not universal). He also has the option of going to "dayhab" where there's educational content and the option of working making crafts for a couple of dollars per hour of spending money.

I am not sure his labor output is worth the $2-3/hour he gets paid: a lot of this is probably charity, but it makes a difference to him to be able to earn something and work towards goals, and not just spend his entire day watching TV instead.

You don't fix these things with a minimum wage and you possibly make them worse. They've got different solutions.

> The young, ... the convicted

These are harder problems.

* How do we provide a good on-ramp to productive work and independent life for at-risk youth?

* How do we allow those who have broken the norms of society in the past to rejoin in an orderly way, with hope and better prospects from compliance than reoffending?

Note that I think we should have a minimum wage. I just think it's also a band-aid at best, and often causes a fair degree of problems as well. It's better than nothing, but one would be better off addressing the problems it's targeted at in any other available way.

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