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But it is ingrained in the profit metrics of the company so are you okay taking a 25% or so compensation hit (the extra 5 is due to benefits not scaling down)?
I work 70 hours a week. Surely you wouldn’t outlaw my ethic? And if a run a company, surely I could require my employees to work 5 days, 40 hours? The solution is to let business owners switch to 4 day weeks and then let the free market sort it out.
if the free market was capable of sorting anything out, unions would never have existed
So the "free market" for workers says they should unionize as soon as they have the power to, because they can drive the price of their services up. Monopolies happen even in free markets.
I work 70 hours a week. Surely you wouldn’t outlaw my ethic? And if a run a company, surely I could require my employees to work 5 days, 40 hours? The solution is to let business owners switch to 4 day weeks and then let the free market sort it out.
The free market would grind every last human into powder if it could. Labor regulations exist because you can’t trust humans to be various degrees of moral, decent, and empathetic. If labor regulations ratchet the work week down, you’d be free to offer 32 hour work weeks to employees, and pay them for overtime beyond that. Productivity has exploded over the last four decades (across various economies, developed and d…
That's interesting, because it's not free market capitalists advocating for importing billions of people and cramming everyone into urban centers in the name of efficiency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The free market would grind every last human into powder if it could. Labor regulations exist because you can’t trust humans to be various degrees of moral, decent, and empathetic. If labor regulations ratchet the work week down, you’d be free to offer 32 hour work weeks to employees, and pay them for overtime beyond that. Productivity has exploded over the last four decades (across various economies, developed and d…
Humans are free to enter contracts of their own choosing, not forced by arbitrary government regulations. As many other commenters here have pointed out, negotiating oneself to a 4 day workweek (or other offers) is possible. I for one, choose to not take the 20% pay cut and will happily work a 40 hour work week. That's my choice.
The world libertarians describe of “everyone is free to enter into contracts” is the modern day version of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” We’re currently trying it, and to be frank, it’s pretty fucking terrible for a majority of workers. Perhaps that’s why support of unions in the US is at record highs (since 1965); the beatings continued until we were all out of morale.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2014.html (Refer to Key findings)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...
(crafted as politely as possible and not intended as a personal attack; my belief system is a natural result of robust amounts of consumed data, actively collected ground truth, and an overwhelming amount of empathy)
Presenteeism is blight on society and ruins many a fine country and its people (Japan, the US, etc.).
The 40 hours split into 5 days is so ingrained into American culture that anything different wouldn't be seen as normal. I had a job I loved that we did 40 hours in 4 days. It was nice having that extra weekday off.
Moving to shorter working hours simply requires hiring more people to keep those things up and running. Now if hourly wages remain the same then labor costs don't change much and it might even improve hourly productivity (as tired people make more mistakes). However, will the resulting decrease in income for the workers be worth it to them, in terms of having more free time?
To maintain income levels, there would have to be a raise in hourly wages, resulting in an increase in labor costs, which would have to be balanced by a reduction in shareholder dividends and executive salaries and bonuses.
That's the answer to the question. Corporations have been doing everything they can to cut labor costs since the 1970s (global outsourcing and automation) while directing the profits to relatively small group of executives and shareholders, and won't change direction willingly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
if the free market was capable of sorting anything out, unions would never have existed
Unions are inherently free market. If government controlled all labor, Unions would not exist.
"And we know many people who work barely a fraction of the week, yet need to maintain this kind of presenteeism." I don't disagree with you necessarily but the people who game it now, will game it with 4 day week as well. Slackers are always going to slack. 5 day or 4 day.
EDIT: To give context, I'm a software engineer.