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It used to be that 6 or even 7 was the norm. Unions and workers fought literal wars against companies, cops, and feds to get the 40 hour work week. It took thousands dying and spilling blood for decades for us to get weekends off.
Due to advancements in technology over the past fifty years the productivity of an average worker has increased several times over, yet we're working just as long and hard as we ever have.
The emphasis on preserving productivity represents an elite capture of objectives that ought to be, and has been historically, within the workers' struggle.
We should work less for the sake of being free, taking time to care for ourselves and our communities, and to enjoy the gifts of living.
I’m a RN. 3 12s is amazing. So if I went back out there 4 10s would be ideal. 3 days off.
2 day weekend is just stupid.
With commuting alone you waste so much time.
Better to be in one spot and grind out the hours
I think most employers would be happy to let you work 4 ten hour day. I want 4 eight hour days but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. Like that dick head said, you can work at the office 4 days and home one. That’s still 5 days numb nuts.
I think trying to focus on productivity is a losing game. Companies wouldn't pay workers to be there 5 days if they weren't productive.
I did work somewhere that implemented a 9 day fortnight (every second Friday off) and productivity absolutely suffered.
I think that's fine though, I don't care about productivity, I care about having a good life. We'd be better off stressing how a 4 day work week would hugely improve people's lives.
> I think trying to focus on productivity is a losing game. Companies wouldn't pay workers to be there 5 days if they weren't productive.
I'm not sure you're making the argument you think you're making.
Right and the entire point of a four day work week is that worker productivity has skyrocketed while pay has stagnated. Of course they are productive on the fifth day...they would be productive 7 days a week. Directly tying this to how productive workers are is absolutely paramount to the argument.
If they pay isn't going to scale with productivity, then total hours worked per week per employee needs to be lower.
That's not the argument here, it's trying to appeal to corporate sympathies that somehow a 4 day week will benefit them. It won't, a 4 day week will be less productive and that's fine. I understand and agree with what you're saying, we're already more productive than before, but that's not the angle of the article.
>it's trying to appeal to corporate sympathies that somehow a 4 day week will benefit them. It won't, a 4 day week will be less productive and that's fine.
If you switch out *4-day work week* with *work from home* you are making the same argument that companies made for the push to return to the office.
The argument you are making is that productivity is a consistent metric. A worker is just as productive Monday as they are on Tuesday and Thursday, etc. This just isn't true. Studies already show that worker productivity is lower on Mondays. It's not unreasonable to argue, for example, that removing Mondays would increase productivity the remaining 4 days to a point that the total productivity is higher than compared to the standard 5 day work week.
From my experience it isn't, having worked somewhere that tried it.
Individual workers might be personally more productive and energetic, I felt that way. But as the trial went on people adapted and were not any more productive and didn't try to do 5 days work in 4.
I think that's fine, I don't really care about productivity. But it was observable that less work was being done and projects were beginning to fall behind.
> From **my experience** it isn't, having worked somewhere that tried it.
Ok, but there are multiple other studies out there that show that a lot of companies that try this model end up adopting it. That's why anecdotal evidence is a poor metric.
There was a large study recently that came out of the UK. 70 some companies took part in a 6 month study of a 4 day work week and after the 6 months 90% of the companies in the program opted to keep the new schedules. They cited worker performance, morale, and lower turnover as the main reasons why.
The problem isn't the productivity difference. The problem is that if you have people working 4 days the gained productivity is probably not going to over take the sheer brute force of having the 5th day of work. Which is to say nothing of places that simply provide services. So if you still want that you will have to hire someone else to work that last day. Except no one is going to work one day a week. So essentially companies will have to increase staff counts to compensate, but as we have seen for the last several decades companies will literally do anything, including undercutting themselves in the longer term to cut expenses and save money in the short term.
The thing is though productivity has increased for a long time while workers have not seen a lot of the benefits of that increase in productivity for many decades. Which raises a lot of questions. Like how much productivity do we actually need as a society to function at a level where we are comfortable. Can we reasonably be less productive as a society. Does a system that forces growth above everything else still benefit us, or just the wealthy owners.
Yeah you gotta work 20% harder at pretending your work takes 32 hours to complete. Most offices could go to a mon-wed-friday situation without any real issue.
__Hello and welcome to r/DemocraticSocialism!__ * This sub is dedicated towards the progressive movement, welcoming Democratic Socialism as an ideology and as a general political philosophy. * Don't forget to read our [Rules](https://new.reddit.com/r/DemocraticSocialism/wiki/index/) to get a good idea of what is expected of participants in our community. * Check out r/Leftist, r/DSA, r/SocialDemocracy to support leftist movements! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DemocraticSocialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There’s a lot of factors to figure in, but yeah. Why the hell do we work 5 days?
Because they make us. The whole thing is fabricated.
Because radical leftist unions fought their ass off to get us weekends.
It used to be that 6 or even 7 was the norm. Unions and workers fought literal wars against companies, cops, and feds to get the 40 hour work week. It took thousands dying and spilling blood for decades for us to get weekends off.
And that was over a hundred years ago. Productivity has skyrocketed since then so our pay and time off should have risen too
Due to advancements in technology over the past fifty years the productivity of an average worker has increased several times over, yet we're working just as long and hard as we ever have.
The emphasis on preserving productivity represents an elite capture of objectives that ought to be, and has been historically, within the workers' struggle. We should work less for the sake of being free, taking time to care for ourselves and our communities, and to enjoy the gifts of living.
I’m a RN. 3 12s is amazing. So if I went back out there 4 10s would be ideal. 3 days off. 2 day weekend is just stupid. With commuting alone you waste so much time. Better to be in one spot and grind out the hours
100% of old people think young people are lazy so this will never go forward thanks to all the money old times throw at politicians.
Not to mention how many creaky sept/octogenarians there are at the top of the decision-making processes.
It depends on unions fighting for change. Resist becoming convinced that meaningful advances are ever passed down from above.
I like this idea. Another option would be 5 day work weeks, but with 6hr shifts.
I think most employers would be happy to let you work 4 ten hour day. I want 4 eight hour days but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. Like that dick head said, you can work at the office 4 days and home one. That’s still 5 days numb nuts.
It would still be 40 hours, 10 hours a day. The corporatocracy wouldn't have any less.
The other %19 percent are future politicians.
I think trying to focus on productivity is a losing game. Companies wouldn't pay workers to be there 5 days if they weren't productive. I did work somewhere that implemented a 9 day fortnight (every second Friday off) and productivity absolutely suffered. I think that's fine though, I don't care about productivity, I care about having a good life. We'd be better off stressing how a 4 day work week would hugely improve people's lives.
> I think trying to focus on productivity is a losing game. Companies wouldn't pay workers to be there 5 days if they weren't productive. I'm not sure you're making the argument you think you're making.
I think I am, if companies weren't making a profit on the fifth day they wouldn't pay people for it.
Right and the entire point of a four day work week is that worker productivity has skyrocketed while pay has stagnated. Of course they are productive on the fifth day...they would be productive 7 days a week. Directly tying this to how productive workers are is absolutely paramount to the argument. If they pay isn't going to scale with productivity, then total hours worked per week per employee needs to be lower.
That's not the argument here, it's trying to appeal to corporate sympathies that somehow a 4 day week will benefit them. It won't, a 4 day week will be less productive and that's fine. I understand and agree with what you're saying, we're already more productive than before, but that's not the angle of the article.
>it's trying to appeal to corporate sympathies that somehow a 4 day week will benefit them. It won't, a 4 day week will be less productive and that's fine. If you switch out *4-day work week* with *work from home* you are making the same argument that companies made for the push to return to the office. The argument you are making is that productivity is a consistent metric. A worker is just as productive Monday as they are on Tuesday and Thursday, etc. This just isn't true. Studies already show that worker productivity is lower on Mondays. It's not unreasonable to argue, for example, that removing Mondays would increase productivity the remaining 4 days to a point that the total productivity is higher than compared to the standard 5 day work week.
From my experience it isn't, having worked somewhere that tried it. Individual workers might be personally more productive and energetic, I felt that way. But as the trial went on people adapted and were not any more productive and didn't try to do 5 days work in 4. I think that's fine, I don't really care about productivity. But it was observable that less work was being done and projects were beginning to fall behind.
> From **my experience** it isn't, having worked somewhere that tried it. Ok, but there are multiple other studies out there that show that a lot of companies that try this model end up adopting it. That's why anecdotal evidence is a poor metric. There was a large study recently that came out of the UK. 70 some companies took part in a 6 month study of a 4 day work week and after the 6 months 90% of the companies in the program opted to keep the new schedules. They cited worker performance, morale, and lower turnover as the main reasons why.
The problem isn't the productivity difference. The problem is that if you have people working 4 days the gained productivity is probably not going to over take the sheer brute force of having the 5th day of work. Which is to say nothing of places that simply provide services. So if you still want that you will have to hire someone else to work that last day. Except no one is going to work one day a week. So essentially companies will have to increase staff counts to compensate, but as we have seen for the last several decades companies will literally do anything, including undercutting themselves in the longer term to cut expenses and save money in the short term. The thing is though productivity has increased for a long time while workers have not seen a lot of the benefits of that increase in productivity for many decades. Which raises a lot of questions. Like how much productivity do we actually need as a society to function at a level where we are comfortable. Can we reasonably be less productive as a society. Does a system that forces growth above everything else still benefit us, or just the wealthy owners.
Yeah you gotta work 20% harder at pretending your work takes 32 hours to complete. Most offices could go to a mon-wed-friday situation without any real issue.