Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

Without getting too much into it, it's always dangerous comparing different countries. I'm not trying to discredit you, but at times it can be apples and oranges because the amount of variables is incredible.

For example, consider when somebody asks, "Well, $country has light rail that's cheap, punctual, and goes everywhere. Why doesn't the U.S. have it?"

They ignore that the U.S. is the fourth largest country in the world by land area. The state of Oregon has roughly the same land area as the United Kingdom. While light rail may be something that's very good to have, it can be otherwise impractical for a country as large as the U.S.

In this case, it's exactly as you say: the employer has decided to reduce its employees' working hours. It just happens that the employer is also the government. The experiment in Göteborg discussed in this article involves only municipal employees: the city is experimenting with moving its employees to 6-hour work days, and seeing what effect there is on productivity, morale, and other such measures. There's no requirement that other employers follow suit.

I believe even the 40-hour week is not statutory. At least in Denmark (maybe the same in Sweden?), the basic parameters of employment (maximum working hours, overtime pay, minimum wages, etc.), are negotiated between the employer's confederation and the union confederation, rather than set by statute. However, since the unionization rate is over 90% and the basic parameters are set through overall framework agreements (applying to all workplaces covered by the confederations, not separate company-by-company negotiations), these negotiated agreements de-facto set the conditions at almost all workplaces.

The Danish switch in 1992 from 40-hour to 37-hour weeks, for example, was entirely through union negotiations, not done by legislation.

In theory you have a point, but historically speaking, individual businesses have been quite reluctant to allow shorter hours than what prevails in society. Progress on this metric almost always comes from societal movements and government intervention.

> "though the United States is an outlier here, working both long and hard"

The article conflates productivity with 'working hard'. Productivity is a measure of how much value is produced ('money is made') per hour of work.

A bulldozer operator working an 8 hour day to move a few tons of dirt is more productive than a worker who needs many 12 hour work days to move the same amount of dirt with a shovel and wheelbarrow. A trader at a bank who moves millions of shares with a phone call and a few mouse clicks is more productive than the bulldozer operator. Does this mean the banker works hardest and the guy with the shovel the least hard?

A high productivity per hour in a country means fewer ditches are dug using shovels, and more credit default swaps are sold. It doesn't mean people are working harder. It also doesn't necessarily mean the shovel digging country is organizing its economy less efficiently. Where the cost of labor is a few dollar per day, investing in a bulldozer might never pay off. Hiring 100 guys with shovels and wheelbarrows could be more efficient than hiring one guy with a bulldozer.

In the EU, all countries are bound by the Working Time Directive unless they have exemptions (I think only the UK has any major exemptions), which does not make the 40-hour week statutory, but does set an upper limit (with some exceptions) at 48 hours/week.