If the length of our work week followed productivity, the workweek would be at 13 hours today. Your claim is completely and utterly baseless.
You can easily work 13 hours a week if you are willing to enjoy early 20th century living standards! The gains from productivity are distributed between extra leisure time and extra material benefits.
Ah yes, the 20th century standard of owning a home with land and providing for a family of 8, easily affordable on 13 hrs per week.
Productivity gains do not lead to increased worker benefit, they lead to increased owner benefit. Organized labor leads to increased worker benefit.
This is demonstrably untrue - looking at the tech industry for example. Salaries are enormous with no unions. You shouldn’t state opinions as fact.
I think you've misinterpreted GP. Tech salaries started high, and that is mostly a scarcity problem. The market will correct that in due time without labor organizing because the profits go to the owners, not the workers. The owners are the ones who decide what happens with the profit (reinvestment, their employees' wages, their own wages, etc.).
Productivity gains do not lead to increased worker benefit, they lead to increased owner benefit. Organized labor leads to increased worker benefit.
This is demonstrably untrue - looking at the tech industry for example. Salaries are enormous with no unions. You shouldn’t state opinions as fact.
This greatly depends on which part of the 'tech' industry you're in. Yes, if you're at the top, salaries are enormous, but uh, vast majority of people in 'tech' are not receiving enormous salaries.
in tech, we don't really have 40hr/wk. It's more like 80hr/wk. And work on weekends. If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. I hear stories about colleagues being overworked on continuous basis.
I assume this is referring to the US? I don’t know anyone who does much over 40 hours in the UK, let alone anything close to 80 hours. A few might pick up urgent tasks on the weekend, but only when needed and not regularly.
I think also depends where in the US. In Seattle, a lot of tech workers are with Amazon. When I worked with Amazon, over two years, there were perhaps two weeks total where I worked less than 50 hours. In that job, and in several that followed, the office was for collaboration, meetings, maybe an hour of actual work, and then at home was where the second workday began in a quiet setting & you put in 3-5 hours additional coding (plus whatever on-call threw at you).
small but important correction... > However, when society industrialised, a rigid, five-day, 40-hour workweek arose in factory settings ummm... no. More like the 6 day 16 hour per day work-week arose in factory settings. The five-day, 40-hour workweek was fought and died for by the labor movement.
in tech, we don't really have 40hr/wk. It's more like 80hr/wk. And work on weekends. If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. I hear stories about colleagues being overworked on continuous basis.
That is most definitely not the case in Australia. I'm a dev, I never work weekends. I do sometimes work later in the day meaning some weeks are probably a bit more than 40 hours, but I also take long lunch breaks or leave early so some weeks are also probably slightly less. This is the case for all the devs I know as well, and more than a small amount of regular OT is seen as cause to quit and get work elsewhere.
There is an exception for dev managers, who seem to work longer hours generally but definitely nothing approaching 80 hours
small but important correction... > However, when society industrialised, a rigid, five-day, 40-hour workweek arose in factory settings ummm... no. More like the 6 day 16 hour per day work-week arose in factory settings. The five-day, 40-hour workweek was fought and died for by the labor movement.
in tech, we don't really have 40hr/wk. It's more like 80hr/wk. And work on weekends. If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. I hear stories about colleagues being overworked on continuous basis.
> If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky.
That's backwards. If you have a position that requires over 40hrs/wk, or any weekend work without overtime pay, consider yourself exploited (and if you're doing it without it being required, consider yourself a scab). Join a union, quit that job, or both.
in tech, we don't really have 40hr/wk. It's more like 80hr/wk. And work on weekends. If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. I hear stories about colleagues being overworked on continuous basis.
> If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. That's backwards. If you have a position that requires over 40hrs/wk, or any weekend work without overtime pay, consider yourself exploited (and if you're doing it without it being required, consider yourself a scab). Join a union, quit that job, or both.
If you have sufficient equity upside, it’s not unreasonable to put in “extra” time to grow the company.
small but important correction... > However, when society industrialised, a rigid, five-day, 40-hour workweek arose in factory settings ummm... no. More like the 6 day 16 hour per day work-week arose in factory settings. The five-day, 40-hour workweek was fought and died for by the labor movement.
> If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. That's backwards. If you have a position that requires over 40hrs/wk, or any weekend work without overtime pay, consider yourself exploited (and if you're doing it without it being required, consider yourself a scab). Join a union, quit that job, or both.
If you have sufficient equity upside, it’s not unreasonable to put in “extra” time to grow the company.
Agreed if you have real equity ownership (at which point you're not really a worker). Some stock options isn't the same thing.