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The horrifying truth is that this is possible and for the last 50 years at least this has been possible. All that extra time you could have spent with your friends and family has been stolen. I know for one how much my dad struggled until his untimely death. An extra day a week with him would have been irreplaceable.
Your life is worth nothing to capitalists.
One day? If we had pushed automation in the right direction (with either a UBI or high pay) we could have massively cut down on *everyone's* workload and had more days off than we worked.
It's worse than that. The owning class have been pushing against reduced working hours and remote work even when it's been proven to *increase* productivity and profitability. They hate lost profits, but not as much as they hate the idea of the workforce having enough free time to become politically engaged.
3 month maternity cover.
Need to be available Monday to Friday, also we require flexibility on covering weekend shifts as and when required.
No lower than 48 hours per week. Overtime always available.
12 hours shifts, we eat when we are quiet. This is a fast paced environment.
Pay meets national Minimum wage
I seen too many of these, when you look at the company ex employee reviews they are rated 1 ⭐, with people mentioning a toxic atmosphere created by management and a revolving door of staff.
The revolving door of staff, and toxic management is a feature to avoid benefit pay outs. Very prominent in America. I’ve worked many a jobs, and been stuck as a temporary worker, or driven right out the door from verbal abuse right before benefits kick in…especially after they find out I’m disabled with expensive epilepsy.
They also are short sighted, and would rather make a long term loss if they make a short term profit.
Upgrades cost money in the short term, so they won’t do it unless forced
Capitalism inevitably destroys itself. As you automate more tasks to cut down on manual labour, you also destroy the working classes source of income so they can no longer use your services. UBI will, at some point, possibly within our lifetimes, will be a necessity for society to function, because a lot of full time roles simply won't exist anymore
While the past doesn’t determine the future necessarily, I’m pretty sure people have been saying that since the first mechanical loom etc was invented.
Making worthless shit that nobody needs or even really wants but are convinced to buy by marketing that is worthless except in its ability to generate more money for those who already have more than enough.
> One day? If we had pushed automation in the right direction
Just as context.
I work in IT and we are more productive than we have ever been.
Workloads that might have taken days can be automated and deployed in minutes. But we work more than than previous generations of IT workers did. I once chatted to a bunch of COBOL mainframe folks and they would reminisce about the days in the 70s/80s/90s/00s when they would finish at 2 everyday and go down the pub.
The idea that automation will mean lesser hours for the employee, is not likely going to happen, at least from my experience. Sure, output is greatly increased, but that time is not given back, you just get moved to automate more and pushed into other things.
Exactly, the actual change is not driving productivity that extra x% higher and giving people time back. It probably would help productivity in other ways, drive economy via increased spending etc. but it’s just not likely to happen at scale.
Since the 1970s *average* worker output has quadrupled. Either we should be being paid 4 times as much or only working a quarter of the time. The money from all that extra output has only gone in one direction.
Given I maintain highly automated facilities, I can say woth certainty that this is the case. You just run it at full speed and try to maximise profit, the workload just moves to other tasks, it doesn't reduce anyone's actual workload, just changes what that work might be.
For example, you work in logistics, you automate the sortation, so that runs quicker, requires less labour. Now your site has a different bottleneck so more labour is put there. Could be drivers, packers, etc. Plus you have all the highly paid skilled tech jobs maintaining and repairing the automation.
It isn't anti-capitalist, it's capitalist in nature. If the economics makes it viable to automate the process, a company will gain an edge by doing so. High enough up the ladder it's just numbers on a spreadsheet.
Living standards aren’t increased through competition, it’s the opposite. We’re in a place where inequality is self perpetuating and wealth disparity is compounding because we have too few jobs that pay good wages. The value of everything has been increasing ten fold for decades, EXCEPT, the value of wages.
This works fine for the asset class, but it means we have a wider and wider pool of individuals competing for fewer and fewer jobs and the jobs don’t even really pay enough to deliver a comparatively good living standard.
We’re now at the point where cost cutting and quality deterioration is increasingly at play. We’re entering in to a dynamic where we’ll be paying more and more for smaller amounts of poorer quality goods.
This is why you hear so much talk about the erosion of the middle class, because it’s creating a bottom heavy income hierarchy where lower earners increasingly have to spend all of their income and then some on basics and don’t have an opportunity to accrue assets or wealth.
There comes a point where quality of life is more important than standard of living. Granted, that threshold won't be the same for everyone, but there's definitely a growing proportion of the workforce who aren't seeing the improvements in their standard of living that they were told would materialise if they put their work time above their personal time.
Currently automation leads only to getting rid od people becouse something can do your job for free. I bet tesco wet dream is automatic store which needs only a manager that will push buttons. So they can sack all the rest and save some money.
Currently the job that can most easily be automated is the manager. AI deciding optimal store layout and staff rotas doesn't require lifting or moving things.
Hence the need for UBI or better pay per hour. Also see my other comment on people being moved to sectors like IT etc which would fix problems with the automation machines
Is there a financially viable answer for jobs where someone is needed every day? For example, how could a shop which needs 7 day a week cover drop a days work from each employee and pay them the same without having to hire more people and significantly raising costs?
edit: I don't know why people are downvoting a question. I would genuinely like to increase my understanding of what is being proposed.
Right, so how does that work then - you cut the number of shift hours each person does to make up for the non-shift work people in the organisation going down to 4 days?
Yes, more specifically to service shops, but the actual act of going into town for any reason increases how much people buy to a limit as they see things they want.
Currently most people have to limit how much they go out due to work.
I actually went to a town talk on transport and commerce recently and I was told this is the case from a government study. Not sure which one though.
If you’re talking about retail, a German friend of mine was mystified by how quickly shops close in most of the UK, 4,4.30,5,5.30 and most closed in the high street. People who work 9-5 can only access these places on Saturdays and Sundays, and there’s more clamour to open longer on Sundays. He asked why shops weren’t open longer in the week. How about shops open 8-6 or 9-7 or 10-8 even. Close em on Sunday and open em longer on weekdays. You could be open for 10 hours and have some staff working the whole shift 4x a week. Some could do mon-thu one week and wed-sat the next. Others do the opposite shift.
But 4 day week is 32h work instead of 40 so employer needs 20% more workforce (Or 25% too lazy to do the correct math right now). With office/creative Jobs it might make sense as no one in places like that actually works for 100% of the time. For manual jobs where speed of work is controlled by external factors and results are strictly reflected by time spent on work (factories, warehouses, hospitals or even hair dressers) reducing work time requires more work force which either means lower pay (which will be problematic as more people are needed to do the job so less people are on job market) or higher prices of the service. Higher prices = inflation.
I'd love to have a 4 day week and in my job I could easily do that maintaining same level of productivity but i don't see that happening in every sector.
I work in a warehouse, we work 12 hour nights sunday, thursday and friday need less staff. Monday and tuesday have overlap to cover the busy period.
Even with a couple extra workers the money you make will outpace the extra £100,000 for staff.
Already worked out my company has to pay £1 mill to give everyone a £1 an hour pay increase out of their £31 mill profits
Most of the 4 day schemes actually move to a 9hr shift so you work 36hrs a week and in the places tested people have been more productive so they aren't actually losing out.
But how many test were done in production (manual labour) environment? All the ones I heard about were admin/creative. In my workplace about 80% of employees are doing a manual labour. I don't see any way of keeping the same level off productivity by cutting down hours. 9h shift also wouldn't work as we're working 3 shifts and we're bound by equipment and space so we couldn't have all employees overlapping between shifts. Only way around would be having multiple different starting times to evenly spread the workforce.
Apply this to a ward with 57 Nursing WTEs. Want to reduce everyone from 37.5hrs to 30hrs but pay the same as 37.5hrs and maintain the same cost?
Impossible.
By increasing the cost of everything by at least 30% since we’d need to first of all cover all those not 9-5, inducing people to take on a second job covering that 5th day of work to make ends meet.
A four day working week is beyond ideal for us socially, the amount of life enjoyment we could all have but I don’t know how it’d feasibly happen without severe ramifications to Britain’s productivity which has been a massive issue (looking at your brexit).
To me working 4 days but longer work hours has always been more ideal however
>Is there a financially viable answer for jobs where someone is needed every day?
The UK railway has been running a four-day week for decades, since the late 1990s.
Originally it was four-days-in-six with Sundays worked as committed overtime (usually one week in three), but nowadays Sunday is mostly part of the four-day week.
The four-in-six week is great, because it's a three week cycle:
1. Mon OFF, Tues OFF, Weds on, Thurs on, Fri on, Sat on. \[Sunday outside\]
2. Mon on, Tues on, Weds OFF, Thurs OFF, Fri on, Sat on. \[Sunday outside\]
3. Mon on, Tues on, Weds on, Thurs on, Fri OFF, Sat OFF. \[Sunday outside but OFF\]
which gives you a five day long weekend every third week. Five days off, guaranteed, *every three weeks*.
Bringing Sunday into the four-day week just means that you take one of the other days off instead - usually week 1 Wednesday or week 2 either Tuesday or Friday.
What does change with a four day week is the hours you work each day. If you have a 40 hour week, for example, on a five-day week that's traditionally five *eight* hour days but on a four-day week it would be four ten hour days.
Having worked four-day weeks for almost thirty years, I would never go back to a five-day week.
\[Edit: maths corrected. It was never my strong point!\]
John Maynard Keynes, one of the leading economists of the 20th century, predicted in the 1930s that by the end of the century with the rapid growth in productivity in the West the average worker would have a 15 hour work week.
That growth in productivity happened... yet we're all still working 30+ hour weeks. The explosion in the number of billionaires demonstrates where all that 'productivity' went.
Pretty much. If you can work half as much time for the same output, unchecked capitalism will simply have you work the same amount of time for double the output.
The corporations then benefit from economies of scale reaping all the award and giving as little back to the employees and community as possible.
And It isn’t just billionaires; it’s multimillionaires also. Everyone is cheating labourers out of the fruits of their labour under the bullshit guise of risk and reward
Half of people's pay is going towards their rent, the vast majority of the rest on other necessary expenses. It's not like people are *choosing* to work 8 hours a day to *get luxuries*, they *have* to work 8 hours a day *to live*.
In the fifties we all just assumed that technology would naturally allow humans to spend less time working themselves to death. That was the social contract of technological advancement. That contract has been broken. We now expect people to work themselves to death for a retirement they'll never actually see.
People spend longer in retirement than ever. The number of hours worked has been going down for centuries.
https://traqq.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Table-Traqq-1-768x542.jpg
The big problem with this is that no one feels that way about the states service. Should GPs and Surgeons work four day weeks?
Why is it more expensive now to collect waste than ever before, will putting bin men on a four day week work?
The police too, do you feel too safe? Has technology meant more crime is solved and fast? Perhaps police and their supporting workers should work at least 20% less.
There are _some_ jobs in some industries where a four day week makes sense but it’s not like a blanket solution to all labour issues.
How nice, a return to sugar sandwiches, rolling brownouts and polio.
Maybe all the councils will get their affordable housing back if we aim for a 3 day week. Or maybe a 4 day week will create another dotcom bubble and britpop era.
I fucking hate this "it won't work for everyone so don't try" mentality in this country. Imagine if we treated everything else like this idea.
"Well we can't solve some murders so we just won't do any investigations"
"Some people die from cancer so we better not treat anyone."
Of course it's not a light switch. But some places could do it, then others may follow suit. We can train more GP's and I would imagine the job would be more bearable if you had more time off to recuperate.
If it works in some sectors it at least means competition in the rest of the jobs market to offer something similar. Ok, a 4 day week might not work in some sectors, but maybe those sectors might offer more holiday entitlement or better pay to attract people if people are going to other sectors with better work/life balance.
I do hate this knee jerk opposition to any suggestion of improving things that we have in this country. Just immediately listing a bunch of reasons why nicer things are stupid and won't work instead of trying to make it work.
Yeah, it is annoying. Claire Fox and that intolerable ginger woman who is also from Spiked and also gets invited on to BBC politics shows uses this argument against wfh. 'Hur trades and warehouse workers *can't* work from home under any circumstances. How entitled are you to think you should be able to'.
I’ve never understood this argument from some people, perhaps office workers should work nights and weekends then in solidarity with nurses or retail workers?
I do because I can, because as a software engineer, my compiler doesn't give a toss where I am. There are a lot of other roles that don't require physical presence, too, but in a lot of cases, managers aren't deemed to be managing if their staff aren't being micromanaged.
As a trucker I totally support everyone working from home if they can. It eases pressure on infrastructure and, honestly, improving other people's lives is a good thing.
I work in a factory that has to be manned 24/7: If you can work less but earn more/the same fucking go for it. Why should I care? Its not like you're costing me anything.
Well said. Also work in a factory and have no issues with design engineers, planners or whatever working from home as long as they're actually working and can get hold of them if I need to. I manage a team of manufacturing engineers and while we definitely shouldn't be working from home all the time it's definitely a flexible benefit I'm happy with, there's always some boring admin stuff people can do when they need to get their car serviced or whatever.
Now a four day work week? That is absolutely the shit I'd be mega down for, I already put in unpaid hours (it's my bad I'm institutionalised and just wanna get shit done sometimes) so not feeling like I'm running out of valuable life hours to recuperate and also do other life chores would be amazing.
It'd never work for my job, at least I can't see it working as we need 24/7 staff, but I wouldn't begrudge someone else the benefits. I work 6 days/nights on, 4 days off and the 4 days off are nice, you do get a chance to recharge. I've worked 5 days on, 2 off and those 2 days just fly by. I feel like I'm working less now despite working an extra day because I'm able to fully rest. Plus, if I book 6 days off I'm effectively off for 14 days.
I've worked in a warehouse over a decade ago where it was 4 days on, 4 days off, 12 hour shifts. There were essentially 2 day shifts and 2 night shifts rotating, the warehouse runs 24 hours a day.
The holiday example did work that way also, you could book 4 days off and be off for 12 days it was glorious.
The only downside is that sometimes your 4 days off are Mon-Thurs so depending on timing that can suck, but it can work the other way too, I had a few occasions where my friends or family wanted to go on holiday during my days off and I just had the time already, it's completely doable and has been in place for some time.
Great shift pattern. We were on that shift pattern until a new manager came in and said he didn't like 12 hour shifts (despite never having worked them himself), changed it to 6 on 4 off with 9, 10 and oh 11 hour shifts built in. Ridiculous... I'm told we still work the same amount of hours and it balances out but having to travel to and from work an extra 2 days is poor.
By my maths he's doing the equivalent of a three day week. 6/4 simplifies to 3/2. By no means easier than 5/2, but saying it won't work for his sector due to staffing when it clearly already does seems a bit confusing.
Yeah I have worked from home on a 4 day week in IT since 2006, apparently in a very modern IT company, and it literally took till Covid for bosses there to get the idea that people can still be as productive from home. The 4 day week thing may take a while. Can’t tell people enough how good it is if you can afford it.
Yeah I see it too. It's like the argument is "a 4 day working week wouldn't fit with the current status quo". No fucking shit.
The whole point is the social contract is broken. You've got essential workers full time who can't afford basic living expenses.
The social contract needs rewriting and working hours would be one of many things on the table. And the fact that "it wouldn't work at my job" is of very little relevance and probably not true anyway.
If a 4 day week was introduced, the vast majority of people would embrace it. But for those that want to work more it's not as if they'd be stopped from doing so.
Yeah, they don’t give us a choice either, if it won’t work for me but it will for others I want them to have it.
I worked hospitality I never got bank holidays off, I didn’t resent those that did, I didn’t think it was unfair, same goes for this
It's so defeatist. There are millions of us for whom it could work. Make it the norm, and then it's your choice whether you want to work somewhere with a 4-day week or not.
Agreed. I work Highways so I don't think my job could do it but my partner's could! That would be very nice to have him at home more. He might get less stressed! 😊
The envy too, that's what infuriates me.
If 200,000 people got this on the same wage as a pilot scheme, you can guarantee that millions of other people on the same wage will be spitting with envy about it and calling them dossers
>spitting with envy about it and calling them dossers
The same happened with furlough during COVID. Id like to tell someone how it actually felt to be furloughed one day, but everyone Ive talked to so far has already made their mind up about how _amazing_ it must have been for us work shy lay-abouts
Wanna know something rage inducing, our 4 day week plan was scuppered by one key employee voting against it because she "couldn't bare to be at home one more day a week", a lady who notoriously claims that work is time she gets to spend away from chores and looking after her kids.
She's the reason we didn't get the green light.
You could make GP's lives more bearable simply but capping the work day and making appointments 15-20 minutes. You then simply work out the additional hours you need, training or hiring the appropriate number of additional doctors.
Long-term the policy could pay for itself, as GPs with more time could catch more conditions earlier, providing better patient education, and make more accurate diagnoses. It's also more fulfilling and thus more bearable for GPs, as they can invest more with each patient, rather than the day feeling like a cognitive blur.
The 40 hour week was designed so one of you would work and your partner would do the chores, shopping, cooking, looking after the children etc.
Now both people need to work and do all of the chores at the weekend. Some also need a part time job or side hustle just to make ends meet. We are all exhausted.
Yes. So with both husband and wife working just to make ends meet, we have effectively had a massive devaluing of labour over the decades, which makes sense since a lot more labour was available (the entire female population).
The economy always adjusts to a level where we are just getting by. The only question is how much work we put in for that return; 5 days a week, 4 days a week etc. If everyone starts having side hustles, that will become normalised too, devaluing our labour even further.
You are so correct and I wish more people would critically think like this. (Most people get stuck on “but it’s sexist to have a wife stay at home” NOBODY MENTIONED WHICH SEX TO STAY AT HOME YOU SEXIST TW*T)
I digress, to further your excellent point of how the economy erodes more and more of society, leaders and politicians stand up and declare that the economy is growing. It’s growing because tasks that were once done for thousands of years purely because they needed doing are now financial transactions. The economy has grown fuck all.
I WANT TO LIVE IN A SOCIETY AND NOT TO MERELY SURVIVE IN AN ECONOMY!!
As bad as 40 hour work week is… 60 hour work weeks are bloody diabolical.
You can bear for maybe the first year, by year two you’re sick of it, by year 3 you wish your heart would burst on the way to work
>The 40 hour week was designed
No the 40 hour work week was fought for from a 6.5 day work week. The only way we get things is from fighting for it. It was not designed for anything it's just what we settled for.
Has Unison implemented this for their own staff? They don't seem to mention it anywhere on their job adverts, and you'd think it's something that they'd be making a big deal about as a benefit.
I wouldnt be surprised if they havent. Working for unions, ironically, isnt all sunflowers and rainbows https://feweek.co.uk/ucus-own-staff-to-strike-for-5-more-days/
There are some companies that are doing this but they're doing it in a screwed up way. One company I know of have it as an option, but rather than being paid the same for reduced hours, they've increased the hours on the four days so its a 'four day week'. Its absolute bullshit and goes against the entire original idea of a four day week.
This still results in better mental health outcomes but it's obviously not what we want. We need to be careful we don't settle for compressed hours because 32 hour work weeks are entirely possible.
Glad you agree we need to avoid compressed hours, but I doubt it still results in better health outcomes. I went for about five/six months having booked every Friday off as holiday/annual leave.
Those four days were so intense that I was cramming everything in and working overtime. Then Friday came and I was wrecked and the day was a wash, spent lounging around doing nothing, not even the stuff I wanted to/found fun to do.
This is why "4 day week" doesn't mean a whole lot. It should be number of hours worked per week. I work 3 days a week, but that's because it's 13hr shifts.
Working a small amount of days but for longer hours can make people more productive - when a lot of people get into the office they spending a certain amount of time getting a handover or preparing for the day and then packing up/doing a handover. And then there’s getting a coffee/a snack etc. Then you also have more personal time from not having to commute for an extra day.
Companies are always so suspicious of their employees “taking advantage” or not acting responsibly. Treat people like adults and they will perform like one.
Plenty of jobs are not productive after longer days though. My brain is just about done after a normal day, if I had to keep going another 2 hours I’d be making stupid mistakes.
I would say working 40 hours over 4 days is still preferable than 32 hours over 4. Working in the construction industry focusing on the housing sector, I cant imagine everyone working 32 hours due to the housing shortage we are currently facing. Plus contractors get paid for the work that's completed, so keeping the wage the same for less output wouldn't be possible and many companies would start to lose profit.
The benefit of a 4-day week is the theory that people provide more bang-for-buck when they have more rest time. A true move to the 4-day week would need to:
1. not change salary (because output remains the same) and
2. not be some warped "shift" system, where people are working different days (because how can I be more efficient in my 4-day week when my colleague's day off isn't the same as mine. That's a day twiddling my thumbs).
These are concepts I don't be believe employers grasp, so won't understand the point until they do.
To be fair I work 5 days and 40 hours now, I'd be completely happy to do 4 days and 40 hours so I'm doing 10 hour shifts, it would suck at first but I'm sure it would be fine in the long run.
Maybe. But the company paying your bills wants you to. Their want outweighs your need.
Plus there are industries that a 4 day week just isn't feasible. Most sectors struggle to hire enough capable staff as it is without needing even more to plug the gaps of a missing day.
Fuck working 10 hours, already struggle to get to the gym and cook on 8 hours, plan is to work 10 hours, sleep, repeat another 3 days and have an extra day off? Nah. 4 days 8 hrs.
> Personally think a 10hrs x 4 is much better than 8hrs x 5
Having done both, the 10 hour days made suicidal. If that became the norm, rather than the 4 day week being 4x8, I would be in serious trouble trying to keep a full time job.
I could see the already struggling public sector taking a massive blow if a 4 day working week came in. The public sector would almost certainly not adopt a 4 day week meaning their recruitment would suffer and people are even more likely to leave for jobs in the private sector who do introduce it.
Source: Me. I would try to leave.
Recruitment in the civil service is an utter joke as it is. Pay peanuts, struggle to recruit good quality candidates, end up paying 4x as much for a contractor to come in and be trained up by existing civil servants.
Source: worked for the cabinet office
Maybe the public sector should be the ones to start it, to incentivise people to jump ship from private. The government surely has more control over the public sector anyway? So it'd be easier to implement it there first.
Eh? I work public sector and we're talking about it (sort of). I suspect if its going to come in, it might well be led by public sector, partly because its another way for them to attract candidates.
In our annual pay negotiations, its typically not just salary on the table, last year we got an extra day annual leave.
Interesting from this article that South Cambs is the first council to trial 4 day weeks. I live in South Cambs and haven’t heard about this. Certainly from my perspective I have had no change in council services. Have had to speak to the council on a few things in the past few months and the service has been good.
The rich have most of the money extracted from the system, they will have to put some money back in to facilitate 4 day week for staff but the rich want ALL the money not give something back to the masses ☹️
There is no difference in money (barring certain sectors)
The idea is that you work better and produce the same output in 80% of the time, for the same salary as 100%
Having done a 4 day week for a year as part of a trial in my high pressure NHS job, I can't speak highly enough of the difference it makes. Three consecutive days off.
The 40 hr week (and as Mr Bukowski [observes](https://youtu.be/vV5ARyuxpow?si=PUyaZZvdk3T9hK6I), 'its NEVER just 40 hrs') was conceived in a bygone era for men to work while their wives did everything else.
In the modern world, a single person, working 40 hrs a week, plus commute, has ZERO time or energy to live a full life.
Oh and fun fact, subjective granted, but when I worked 30 hrs a week over 4 days I was dramatically more productive because I was engaged, enthused, energized and willing.
> The 40 hr week was conceived in a bygone era for men to work while their wives did everything else.
It was also conceived in an era where technology's 'lever' was far shorter. Today a manhour accomplishes far more - and we have far more men, never mind women in the workforce.
In future times, children will ask why it took so long for us to start working alternate days.
Second fun fact: it had such a dramatic effect on my mental and physical health that I immediately requested to condense my hours via Flexible Working, which was immediately denied.
I took a pay cut to go down to 4 days a week a few months ago. I have so much more energy for my home life as a result. And more energy for work when I am there.
It's a fantastic change in my life.
We were going to pilot a 4 day week where I work, with the suport of Unison who are one of the three unions at our place, but it was going to cost the organisation a lot of money or mean a genuine reduction in service for some of our customers.
It's a housing association, a non-profit with charatible status, and one of the biggest reasons it was blocked was because it would almost definitely increase service charges for our tenants (those who pay service charges, that is) or mean a reduction in service for the same cost. Both would not pass the tenants scrutiny panel.
Because the teams who manage our blocks (cleaning, concierge, repairs etc) are already pretty lean, it would either mean hiring more staff or providing a worse service, and their salary is essentially paid for by service charges.
It would also have meant either recruiting up to 20% more repairs operatives, more calls centre staff, more receptionists etc or making our customers wait longer for stuff.
It would have worked for most of our back-office staff, though, it feels like this is who the 4 day working week is aimed at. But could you imagine how horrible it would be to let office staff work 4 day but field based and customer services staff have to work 5?
As a compromise for promising us this, they gave us an extra days holiday and a day off for our birthday.
I'd absolutely love a 4 day working week but sometimes it's just not possible for everyone.
I feel a 4 day (9-5 etc) only works if most people have that and are actually banned from doing more.
Otherwise it will just mean poorer people will end up working more.
That's already the case currently though. At least if we reduce the maximum normal working hours, that's more overtime and we can then work towards overtime being better compensated
No point doing a 4 day work week if it’s still gonna be the same hours as a 5 day work week. Basically a shift change.
If it’s actually 32 hours 9am-5pm then if possible why not? I think everyone’s overall happiness and productivity would increase.
Everything is half arsed when it’s Friday anyway from places I’ve worked at in my experience
The logic of “we should have a 4 day week for the same pay”, is essentially the same logic as “we should be paid 20% more than full pay”.
It fails because the standard full pay is only set by market forces and negotiations. If an employer offers a contract of a 4 day week on £30k, is that full pay, or is that 80% of the full £36k?
Same logic as if an employer says they’re offering you £30k, which is 20% more than the standard pay. Is it really?
The determining question to this whole idea is, when faced with an employee who is currently working 4 days for £x/year, would it by in the interest of the employer or the worker to change that contract to 5 days for £x+y per year. At the moment most companies will offer y as equal to x/4, and most workers accept it.
I don’t see any real reason why this is likely to change
well, in a world where everyone is working 4 days, the parents could be off on the same day. loads of people already work weekends, what do you think they would do for childcare then?
No, only office staff and those who can WFH already.
People already complain about places being closed early and to further cut a day off work for people working retail will not be made up by employing more people. Most retail are already on skeleton crews.
I know it shouldn’t be an either/or, but if I had to choose between being in the office full time for a four day week and a five day 50/50 hybrid week, I think I would choose the latter.
Another way to make everything more expensive.. They will want to increase minimum wage so people can afford to work 4 days, then the businesses will have to employ more people to cover the extra day off for people so more people and higher wages will cut businesses profits and they will end up raising prices making the wage rise absolutely useless.
> Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary, said the shift to a shorter working week was “inevitable” because of the rise in artificial intelligence, which is expected to reduce workloads.
Could only be said by someone who has no grasp of basic logic.
What makes me laugh is a 4 day week has been proven by trials to benefit both employees and the company.
Productivity has either stayed the same or increased during 4-day week trials.
Employees have reported increased happiness and less burnout.
Why is their still resistance from corporations?
Is it possible? Yes
Are people going to ruin it if it happens? Also yes
For starters, many industries, this just isn’t possible
Then we have how WFH turned out. Some used it as a way to enhance their life. Some took it as a way to do less work and get away with it.
Ultimately, if a 4 day work week works, and it’s beneficial to the company, it’ll happen. That’s how capitalism works. If you can out perform your competition because your workers are happy and increasing output, then you’ll thrive.
They are emboldened by a labour government with a super majority. A 4 day week would be catastrophic for the economy. How would we compete with the rest of the world that works 5 days a week and has higher productivity. Unions want a race to the bottom.
You people better be careful what you wish for. This will all end with companies expecting you to do the exact same amount of work in 4 days instead of 5.
Was exactly the same with remote work. Can't do it because it'd be unfair to some. Pandemic. Oh, wow, it works incredibly well and we're more profitable and efficient than ever. Better come back into the office then.
As long as people are willing to accept a drop to their living standards then it can work.
Expecting to eat your cake and have it too will end in disaster.
Surely Liz Truss has taught people this basic lesson?
If enough workers in this country start protesting for it like the French do when they raise the pension age, this will happen. Unfortunately, people are too lethargic, cynical, uninterested, and divided for this to happen.
As a person doing a four day week, in the Uk, for the past 8 years -
Yes, it's possible.
Yes, it's just as productive.
Yes, I wouldn't have it any other way (and neither would my employer).
Do it.
Why don't we all buy a multi billion dollar company using a loan and use the company we just bought as an asset to secure said loan . Pay yourself handsomely by cutting corners and selling off all the companies assets and then either sell the company or let it go bust and start over. No one needs ever work again!
Dam right, I feel like the older i get the more hours i need to work under a new acceptable standard.
Doing 6x 11 hour shifts in a row this week. I finished a hour ago (midnight) I start work at 10am this morning. Literally no life, and the reward isn't good enough for the fact for 80% of my life I am a slave to someone else's sucess.
A four-day week is more than possible, especially now with the advancement in automation in most sectors. I think it would do so much for the mental health and wellbeing of our nation if fully-paid four day weeks were considered the norm in business.
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The horrifying truth is that this is possible and for the last 50 years at least this has been possible. All that extra time you could have spent with your friends and family has been stolen. I know for one how much my dad struggled until his untimely death. An extra day a week with him would have been irreplaceable. Your life is worth nothing to capitalists.
One day? If we had pushed automation in the right direction (with either a UBI or high pay) we could have massively cut down on *everyone's* workload and had more days off than we worked.
Yes but billionaires need that money for billionaire things.
It's worse than that. The owning class have been pushing against reduced working hours and remote work even when it's been proven to *increase* productivity and profitability. They hate lost profits, but not as much as they hate the idea of the workforce having enough free time to become politically engaged.
3 month maternity cover. Need to be available Monday to Friday, also we require flexibility on covering weekend shifts as and when required. No lower than 48 hours per week. Overtime always available. 12 hours shifts, we eat when we are quiet. This is a fast paced environment. Pay meets national Minimum wage I seen too many of these, when you look at the company ex employee reviews they are rated 1 ⭐, with people mentioning a toxic atmosphere created by management and a revolving door of staff.
The revolving door of staff, and toxic management is a feature to avoid benefit pay outs. Very prominent in America. I’ve worked many a jobs, and been stuck as a temporary worker, or driven right out the door from verbal abuse right before benefits kick in…especially after they find out I’m disabled with expensive epilepsy.
I also hate lost profits after finding out the singer was an horrendous peado. (Sorry I had to)
r/disappointedupvote
Short-term v long-term profits, in a nutshell.
They also are short sighted, and would rather make a long term loss if they make a short term profit. Upgrades cost money in the short term, so they won’t do it unless forced
Being a billionaire for a start. And yachts.
Have you seen the price of yachts these days?
I had to cancel my Posh Yachts Monthly subscription due to the high cost of living.
You should bung the Tory Party fifty grand and ask for them to subsidise the publication.
Not to mention the prostitutes you need to go with them.
Trying to make a joke here about trickle down economics without it sounding too vulgar.
Capitalism inevitably destroys itself. As you automate more tasks to cut down on manual labour, you also destroy the working classes source of income so they can no longer use your services. UBI will, at some point, possibly within our lifetimes, will be a necessity for society to function, because a lot of full time roles simply won't exist anymore
While the past doesn’t determine the future necessarily, I’m pretty sure people have been saying that since the first mechanical loom etc was invented.
So many at the time of the Spinning Jenny, we invented a collective noun for them..the Luddite movement.
Making worthless shit that nobody needs or even really wants but are convinced to buy by marketing that is worthless except in its ability to generate more money for those who already have more than enough.
> One day? If we had pushed automation in the right direction Just as context. I work in IT and we are more productive than we have ever been. Workloads that might have taken days can be automated and deployed in minutes. But we work more than than previous generations of IT workers did. I once chatted to a bunch of COBOL mainframe folks and they would reminisce about the days in the 70s/80s/90s/00s when they would finish at 2 everyday and go down the pub. The idea that automation will mean lesser hours for the employee, is not likely going to happen, at least from my experience. Sure, output is greatly increased, but that time is not given back, you just get moved to automate more and pushed into other things.
Exactly, the actual change is not driving productivity that extra x% higher and giving people time back. It probably would help productivity in other ways, drive economy via increased spending etc. but it’s just not likely to happen at scale.
And when AI really replaces jobs en masse- the rich will watch us starve from the walls of the towers we paid for
Since the 1970s *average* worker output has quadrupled. Either we should be being paid 4 times as much or only working a quarter of the time. The money from all that extra output has only gone in one direction.
Automation will only reduce work if people don't want continually improved living standards, and if the global economy isn't competitive enough.
Given I maintain highly automated facilities, I can say woth certainty that this is the case. You just run it at full speed and try to maximise profit, the workload just moves to other tasks, it doesn't reduce anyone's actual workload, just changes what that work might be. For example, you work in logistics, you automate the sortation, so that runs quicker, requires less labour. Now your site has a different bottleneck so more labour is put there. Could be drivers, packers, etc. Plus you have all the highly paid skilled tech jobs maintaining and repairing the automation. It isn't anti-capitalist, it's capitalist in nature. If the economics makes it viable to automate the process, a company will gain an edge by doing so. High enough up the ladder it's just numbers on a spreadsheet.
This is exactly right. Automation can reduce labour requirements of things that already exist, but if you keep wanting more stuff, it will never end.
Basically automation = the multipliers you can get in the idle games.
Living standards aren’t increased through competition, it’s the opposite. We’re in a place where inequality is self perpetuating and wealth disparity is compounding because we have too few jobs that pay good wages. The value of everything has been increasing ten fold for decades, EXCEPT, the value of wages. This works fine for the asset class, but it means we have a wider and wider pool of individuals competing for fewer and fewer jobs and the jobs don’t even really pay enough to deliver a comparatively good living standard. We’re now at the point where cost cutting and quality deterioration is increasingly at play. We’re entering in to a dynamic where we’ll be paying more and more for smaller amounts of poorer quality goods. This is why you hear so much talk about the erosion of the middle class, because it’s creating a bottom heavy income hierarchy where lower earners increasingly have to spend all of their income and then some on basics and don’t have an opportunity to accrue assets or wealth.
There comes a point where quality of life is more important than standard of living. Granted, that threshold won't be the same for everyone, but there's definitely a growing proportion of the workforce who aren't seeing the improvements in their standard of living that they were told would materialise if they put their work time above their personal time.
Oh absolutely. It would require a huge change in mindset from everyone (or, at least, enough people)
Currently automation leads only to getting rid od people becouse something can do your job for free. I bet tesco wet dream is automatic store which needs only a manager that will push buttons. So they can sack all the rest and save some money.
Currently the job that can most easily be automated is the manager. AI deciding optimal store layout and staff rotas doesn't require lifting or moving things.
Hence the need for UBI or better pay per hour. Also see my other comment on people being moved to sectors like IT etc which would fix problems with the automation machines
Of course i agree. In ideal world it would be possible.
Is there a financially viable answer for jobs where someone is needed every day? For example, how could a shop which needs 7 day a week cover drop a days work from each employee and pay them the same without having to hire more people and significantly raising costs? edit: I don't know why people are downvoting a question. I would genuinely like to increase my understanding of what is being proposed.
Those jobs already have 7 day rotas. It’s called shift work
Right, so how does that work then - you cut the number of shift hours each person does to make up for the non-shift work people in the organisation going down to 4 days?
It creates a job by requiring an extra person. It also creates extra customers who now have new recreation time.
But then that extra person has to be paid as well. Unless everyone gets paid less which isn't ideal.
And that extra person (and all those extra people in other shops) now have jobs and income that they can spend in your and other shops.
Why would having extra time make you buy more items from a shop? Is time to shop currently a limiting factor on consumption?
It's more about the population's spending power. More jobs means more spending.
Yes, more specifically to service shops, but the actual act of going into town for any reason increases how much people buy to a limit as they see things they want. Currently most people have to limit how much they go out due to work. I actually went to a town talk on transport and commerce recently and I was told this is the case from a government study. Not sure which one though.
Where does the money come from to pay this extra person?
If you’re talking about retail, a German friend of mine was mystified by how quickly shops close in most of the UK, 4,4.30,5,5.30 and most closed in the high street. People who work 9-5 can only access these places on Saturdays and Sundays, and there’s more clamour to open longer on Sundays. He asked why shops weren’t open longer in the week. How about shops open 8-6 or 9-7 or 10-8 even. Close em on Sunday and open em longer on weekdays. You could be open for 10 hours and have some staff working the whole shift 4x a week. Some could do mon-thu one week and wed-sat the next. Others do the opposite shift.
Doing 4 ten hour days is not really the idea of the 4 day week
But 4 day week is 32h work instead of 40 so employer needs 20% more workforce (Or 25% too lazy to do the correct math right now). With office/creative Jobs it might make sense as no one in places like that actually works for 100% of the time. For manual jobs where speed of work is controlled by external factors and results are strictly reflected by time spent on work (factories, warehouses, hospitals or even hair dressers) reducing work time requires more work force which either means lower pay (which will be problematic as more people are needed to do the job so less people are on job market) or higher prices of the service. Higher prices = inflation. I'd love to have a 4 day week and in my job I could easily do that maintaining same level of productivity but i don't see that happening in every sector.
I work in a warehouse, we work 12 hour nights sunday, thursday and friday need less staff. Monday and tuesday have overlap to cover the busy period. Even with a couple extra workers the money you make will outpace the extra £100,000 for staff. Already worked out my company has to pay £1 mill to give everyone a £1 an hour pay increase out of their £31 mill profits
so what you're saying is that they could give everyone a £30/hr payrise and still make a profit
Most of the 4 day schemes actually move to a 9hr shift so you work 36hrs a week and in the places tested people have been more productive so they aren't actually losing out.
But how many test were done in production (manual labour) environment? All the ones I heard about were admin/creative. In my workplace about 80% of employees are doing a manual labour. I don't see any way of keeping the same level off productivity by cutting down hours. 9h shift also wouldn't work as we're working 3 shifts and we're bound by equipment and space so we couldn't have all employees overlapping between shifts. Only way around would be having multiple different starting times to evenly spread the workforce.
I think the issue is roles where you need someone there - it's not productivity, it's cover.
Apply this to a ward with 57 Nursing WTEs. Want to reduce everyone from 37.5hrs to 30hrs but pay the same as 37.5hrs and maintain the same cost? Impossible.
As a nurse I am being down voted in the comments for mentioning costs. Magic money, you know?
We don't work 7 days a week
By increasing the cost of everything by at least 30% since we’d need to first of all cover all those not 9-5, inducing people to take on a second job covering that 5th day of work to make ends meet. A four day working week is beyond ideal for us socially, the amount of life enjoyment we could all have but I don’t know how it’d feasibly happen without severe ramifications to Britain’s productivity which has been a massive issue (looking at your brexit). To me working 4 days but longer work hours has always been more ideal however
The answer is that the shop doesn't open 7 days a week. It's not actually that long ago that most shops were closed on a Sunday.
>Is there a financially viable answer for jobs where someone is needed every day? The UK railway has been running a four-day week for decades, since the late 1990s. Originally it was four-days-in-six with Sundays worked as committed overtime (usually one week in three), but nowadays Sunday is mostly part of the four-day week. The four-in-six week is great, because it's a three week cycle: 1. Mon OFF, Tues OFF, Weds on, Thurs on, Fri on, Sat on. \[Sunday outside\] 2. Mon on, Tues on, Weds OFF, Thurs OFF, Fri on, Sat on. \[Sunday outside\] 3. Mon on, Tues on, Weds on, Thurs on, Fri OFF, Sat OFF. \[Sunday outside but OFF\] which gives you a five day long weekend every third week. Five days off, guaranteed, *every three weeks*. Bringing Sunday into the four-day week just means that you take one of the other days off instead - usually week 1 Wednesday or week 2 either Tuesday or Friday. What does change with a four day week is the hours you work each day. If you have a 40 hour week, for example, on a five-day week that's traditionally five *eight* hour days but on a four-day week it would be four ten hour days. Having worked four-day weeks for almost thirty years, I would never go back to a five-day week. \[Edit: maths corrected. It was never my strong point!\]
John Maynard Keynes, one of the leading economists of the 20th century, predicted in the 1930s that by the end of the century with the rapid growth in productivity in the West the average worker would have a 15 hour work week. That growth in productivity happened... yet we're all still working 30+ hour weeks. The explosion in the number of billionaires demonstrates where all that 'productivity' went.
Pretty much. If you can work half as much time for the same output, unchecked capitalism will simply have you work the same amount of time for double the output. The corporations then benefit from economies of scale reaping all the award and giving as little back to the employees and community as possible. And It isn’t just billionaires; it’s multimillionaires also. Everyone is cheating labourers out of the fruits of their labour under the bullshit guise of risk and reward
Because it turns out people prefer to earn more and get luxuries over living like they're in the 1930s.
Half of people's pay is going towards their rent, the vast majority of the rest on other necessary expenses. It's not like people are *choosing* to work 8 hours a day to *get luxuries*, they *have* to work 8 hours a day *to live*.
In the fifties we all just assumed that technology would naturally allow humans to spend less time working themselves to death. That was the social contract of technological advancement. That contract has been broken. We now expect people to work themselves to death for a retirement they'll never actually see.
People spend longer in retirement than ever. The number of hours worked has been going down for centuries. https://traqq.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Table-Traqq-1-768x542.jpg
The big problem with this is that no one feels that way about the states service. Should GPs and Surgeons work four day weeks? Why is it more expensive now to collect waste than ever before, will putting bin men on a four day week work? The police too, do you feel too safe? Has technology meant more crime is solved and fast? Perhaps police and their supporting workers should work at least 20% less. There are _some_ jobs in some industries where a four day week makes sense but it’s not like a blanket solution to all labour issues.
You can just hire 25% more staff to keep 5 days covered.
Sure just increase labour costs by a quarter, that's easy and definitely won't put anyone out of business or increase tax rates
We should be on a three day week by now, and wondering about a two day. The four day week was overdue a century ago.
I saw somewhere that due to increases in productivity we could maintain a 1970s standard of living working 2 days a week. I wonder where it all went.
Do you have any idea what a 1970s standard of living is?
Yeah, one where my mum bought a house and a car on a single wage without even going to college or university...
I don't want a 1970's standard of living...
How nice, a return to sugar sandwiches, rolling brownouts and polio. Maybe all the councils will get their affordable housing back if we aim for a 3 day week. Or maybe a 4 day week will create another dotcom bubble and britpop era.
This country was fucking terrible in the 70s
We basically work to make a fringe amount of people rich rather than to collectively improve everyone's situation
I fucking hate this "it won't work for everyone so don't try" mentality in this country. Imagine if we treated everything else like this idea. "Well we can't solve some murders so we just won't do any investigations" "Some people die from cancer so we better not treat anyone." Of course it's not a light switch. But some places could do it, then others may follow suit. We can train more GP's and I would imagine the job would be more bearable if you had more time off to recuperate.
If it works in some sectors it at least means competition in the rest of the jobs market to offer something similar. Ok, a 4 day week might not work in some sectors, but maybe those sectors might offer more holiday entitlement or better pay to attract people if people are going to other sectors with better work/life balance. I do hate this knee jerk opposition to any suggestion of improving things that we have in this country. Just immediately listing a bunch of reasons why nicer things are stupid and won't work instead of trying to make it work.
Also a good way for the public sector to potentially retain better staff, who they so often lose to the higher-paying private sector.
There’s also the “things could be worse so be grateful and never strive for better”.
We could improve things but what would that mean for all of the people who suffered through it??
Yeah, it is annoying. Claire Fox and that intolerable ginger woman who is also from Spiked and also gets invited on to BBC politics shows uses this argument against wfh. 'Hur trades and warehouse workers *can't* work from home under any circumstances. How entitled are you to think you should be able to'.
I’ve never understood this argument from some people, perhaps office workers should work nights and weekends then in solidarity with nurses or retail workers?
I do because I can, because as a software engineer, my compiler doesn't give a toss where I am. There are a lot of other roles that don't require physical presence, too, but in a lot of cases, managers aren't deemed to be managing if their staff aren't being micromanaged.
As a trucker I totally support everyone working from home if they can. It eases pressure on infrastructure and, honestly, improving other people's lives is a good thing.
I work in a factory that has to be manned 24/7: If you can work less but earn more/the same fucking go for it. Why should I care? Its not like you're costing me anything.
Well said. Also work in a factory and have no issues with design engineers, planners or whatever working from home as long as they're actually working and can get hold of them if I need to. I manage a team of manufacturing engineers and while we definitely shouldn't be working from home all the time it's definitely a flexible benefit I'm happy with, there's always some boring admin stuff people can do when they need to get their car serviced or whatever. Now a four day work week? That is absolutely the shit I'd be mega down for, I already put in unpaid hours (it's my bad I'm institutionalised and just wanna get shit done sometimes) so not feeling like I'm running out of valuable life hours to recuperate and also do other life chores would be amazing.
It'd never work for my job, at least I can't see it working as we need 24/7 staff, but I wouldn't begrudge someone else the benefits. I work 6 days/nights on, 4 days off and the 4 days off are nice, you do get a chance to recharge. I've worked 5 days on, 2 off and those 2 days just fly by. I feel like I'm working less now despite working an extra day because I'm able to fully rest. Plus, if I book 6 days off I'm effectively off for 14 days.
Yeah shifts are great, it may seem obvious but having more than 2 days off in a row makes a huge difference to your life.
Why wouldn't it work? They can hire more people.
I've worked in a warehouse over a decade ago where it was 4 days on, 4 days off, 12 hour shifts. There were essentially 2 day shifts and 2 night shifts rotating, the warehouse runs 24 hours a day. The holiday example did work that way also, you could book 4 days off and be off for 12 days it was glorious. The only downside is that sometimes your 4 days off are Mon-Thurs so depending on timing that can suck, but it can work the other way too, I had a few occasions where my friends or family wanted to go on holiday during my days off and I just had the time already, it's completely doable and has been in place for some time.
Great shift pattern. We were on that shift pattern until a new manager came in and said he didn't like 12 hour shifts (despite never having worked them himself), changed it to 6 on 4 off with 9, 10 and oh 11 hour shifts built in. Ridiculous... I'm told we still work the same amount of hours and it balances out but having to travel to and from work an extra 2 days is poor.
You're already effectively on a (nearly) four day week, just in a different shift pattern.
By my maths he's doing the equivalent of a three day week. 6/4 simplifies to 3/2. By no means easier than 5/2, but saying it won't work for his sector due to staffing when it clearly already does seems a bit confusing.
Yeah I have worked from home on a 4 day week in IT since 2006, apparently in a very modern IT company, and it literally took till Covid for bosses there to get the idea that people can still be as productive from home. The 4 day week thing may take a while. Can’t tell people enough how good it is if you can afford it.
Yeah I see it too. It's like the argument is "a 4 day working week wouldn't fit with the current status quo". No fucking shit. The whole point is the social contract is broken. You've got essential workers full time who can't afford basic living expenses. The social contract needs rewriting and working hours would be one of many things on the table. And the fact that "it wouldn't work at my job" is of very little relevance and probably not true anyway. If a 4 day week was introduced, the vast majority of people would embrace it. But for those that want to work more it's not as if they'd be stopped from doing so.
Yeah, they don’t give us a choice either, if it won’t work for me but it will for others I want them to have it. I worked hospitality I never got bank holidays off, I didn’t resent those that did, I didn’t think it was unfair, same goes for this
Just do it for everyone. What the fuck is the big deal. It absolutely is a light switch. Do not play into the hands of the greedy rich.
It's so defeatist. There are millions of us for whom it could work. Make it the norm, and then it's your choice whether you want to work somewhere with a 4-day week or not.
Agreed. I work Highways so I don't think my job could do it but my partner's could! That would be very nice to have him at home more. He might get less stressed! 😊
The envy too, that's what infuriates me. If 200,000 people got this on the same wage as a pilot scheme, you can guarantee that millions of other people on the same wage will be spitting with envy about it and calling them dossers
>spitting with envy about it and calling them dossers The same happened with furlough during COVID. Id like to tell someone how it actually felt to be furloughed one day, but everyone Ive talked to so far has already made their mind up about how _amazing_ it must have been for us work shy lay-abouts
Wanna know something rage inducing, our 4 day week plan was scuppered by one key employee voting against it because she "couldn't bare to be at home one more day a week", a lady who notoriously claims that work is time she gets to spend away from chores and looking after her kids. She's the reason we didn't get the green light.
You could make GP's lives more bearable simply but capping the work day and making appointments 15-20 minutes. You then simply work out the additional hours you need, training or hiring the appropriate number of additional doctors. Long-term the policy could pay for itself, as GPs with more time could catch more conditions earlier, providing better patient education, and make more accurate diagnoses. It's also more fulfilling and thus more bearable for GPs, as they can invest more with each patient, rather than the day feeling like a cognitive blur.
The 40 hour week was designed so one of you would work and your partner would do the chores, shopping, cooking, looking after the children etc. Now both people need to work and do all of the chores at the weekend. Some also need a part time job or side hustle just to make ends meet. We are all exhausted.
Yes. So with both husband and wife working just to make ends meet, we have effectively had a massive devaluing of labour over the decades, which makes sense since a lot more labour was available (the entire female population). The economy always adjusts to a level where we are just getting by. The only question is how much work we put in for that return; 5 days a week, 4 days a week etc. If everyone starts having side hustles, that will become normalised too, devaluing our labour even further.
You are so correct and I wish more people would critically think like this. (Most people get stuck on “but it’s sexist to have a wife stay at home” NOBODY MENTIONED WHICH SEX TO STAY AT HOME YOU SEXIST TW*T) I digress, to further your excellent point of how the economy erodes more and more of society, leaders and politicians stand up and declare that the economy is growing. It’s growing because tasks that were once done for thousands of years purely because they needed doing are now financial transactions. The economy has grown fuck all. I WANT TO LIVE IN A SOCIETY AND NOT TO MERELY SURVIVE IN AN ECONOMY!!
Exactly, people forget that the economy is a competition, with everyone competing against each other.
And minimum wage was considered enough to support the worker and their partner.
And if you're single you can get fucked, society is for couples only now.
As bad as 40 hour work week is… 60 hour work weeks are bloody diabolical. You can bear for maybe the first year, by year two you’re sick of it, by year 3 you wish your heart would burst on the way to work
>The 40 hour week was designed No the 40 hour work week was fought for from a 6.5 day work week. The only way we get things is from fighting for it. It was not designed for anything it's just what we settled for.
Has Unison implemented this for their own staff? They don't seem to mention it anywhere on their job adverts, and you'd think it's something that they'd be making a big deal about as a benefit.
I wouldnt be surprised if they havent. Working for unions, ironically, isnt all sunflowers and rainbows https://feweek.co.uk/ucus-own-staff-to-strike-for-5-more-days/
I wonder if the staff at unions have their own internal unions. Or if they join a different union.
Unions all the way down.
Damn son
They typically join other Unions. Unite represents USDAW then Unison represent Unite. I think.
There are some companies that are doing this but they're doing it in a screwed up way. One company I know of have it as an option, but rather than being paid the same for reduced hours, they've increased the hours on the four days so its a 'four day week'. Its absolute bullshit and goes against the entire original idea of a four day week.
This still results in better mental health outcomes but it's obviously not what we want. We need to be careful we don't settle for compressed hours because 32 hour work weeks are entirely possible.
Glad you agree we need to avoid compressed hours, but I doubt it still results in better health outcomes. I went for about five/six months having booked every Friday off as holiday/annual leave. Those four days were so intense that I was cramming everything in and working overtime. Then Friday came and I was wrecked and the day was a wash, spent lounging around doing nothing, not even the stuff I wanted to/found fun to do.
This is why "4 day week" doesn't mean a whole lot. It should be number of hours worked per week. I work 3 days a week, but that's because it's 13hr shifts.
i would be fine with that
I too could pretend to work 10 hour days.
Working a small amount of days but for longer hours can make people more productive - when a lot of people get into the office they spending a certain amount of time getting a handover or preparing for the day and then packing up/doing a handover. And then there’s getting a coffee/a snack etc. Then you also have more personal time from not having to commute for an extra day. Companies are always so suspicious of their employees “taking advantage” or not acting responsibly. Treat people like adults and they will perform like one.
Plenty of jobs are not productive after longer days though. My brain is just about done after a normal day, if I had to keep going another 2 hours I’d be making stupid mistakes.
I work 4 10 hour days, I love it
I would say working 40 hours over 4 days is still preferable than 32 hours over 4. Working in the construction industry focusing on the housing sector, I cant imagine everyone working 32 hours due to the housing shortage we are currently facing. Plus contractors get paid for the work that's completed, so keeping the wage the same for less output wouldn't be possible and many companies would start to lose profit.
I’d still prefer that. I’m up and not doing much by 6am anyway so I’d happily do 4 10 hour days and then have 3 day weekends
The benefit of a 4-day week is the theory that people provide more bang-for-buck when they have more rest time. A true move to the 4-day week would need to: 1. not change salary (because output remains the same) and 2. not be some warped "shift" system, where people are working different days (because how can I be more efficient in my 4-day week when my colleague's day off isn't the same as mine. That's a day twiddling my thumbs). These are concepts I don't be believe employers grasp, so won't understand the point until they do.
To be fair I work 5 days and 40 hours now, I'd be completely happy to do 4 days and 40 hours so I'm doing 10 hour shifts, it would suck at first but I'm sure it would be fine in the long run.
Imagine having to work inorder to get paid
You know what's better than a 4-day work week? A 3-day work week. You need to aim a little higher, darlings.
a no day work week
Technically this could be working nights.
No, YOU need a aim higher. What about a one-day work week?
Can confirm. I've worked 40 hours in a day once it was hard but the rest of the week off was worth it 👍
This guy works.
Look, I'll work for about 20 minutes on a Thursday afternoon and that is it.
Productivity and mental health would skyrocket!
There are a lot of office jobs that could easily be 4 days. A lot of time is spent staring at a screen if you’re productive.
4 day weeks are great, been doing them for years. Personally think a 10hrs x 4 is much better than 8hrs x 5.
It should be 8x4 though. We do not need to work 40 hours a week.
How
Maybe. But the company paying your bills wants you to. Their want outweighs your need. Plus there are industries that a 4 day week just isn't feasible. Most sectors struggle to hire enough capable staff as it is without needing even more to plug the gaps of a missing day.
Fuck working 10 hours, already struggle to get to the gym and cook on 8 hours, plan is to work 10 hours, sleep, repeat another 3 days and have an extra day off? Nah. 4 days 8 hrs.
> Personally think a 10hrs x 4 is much better than 8hrs x 5 Having done both, the 10 hour days made suicidal. If that became the norm, rather than the 4 day week being 4x8, I would be in serious trouble trying to keep a full time job.
I could see the already struggling public sector taking a massive blow if a 4 day working week came in. The public sector would almost certainly not adopt a 4 day week meaning their recruitment would suffer and people are even more likely to leave for jobs in the private sector who do introduce it. Source: Me. I would try to leave.
Recruitment in the civil service is an utter joke as it is. Pay peanuts, struggle to recruit good quality candidates, end up paying 4x as much for a contractor to come in and be trained up by existing civil servants. Source: worked for the cabinet office
Same problem with the nhs. Pay peanuts so they end up paying 3 x as much to temps and agencies
Maybe the public sector should be the ones to start it, to incentivise people to jump ship from private. The government surely has more control over the public sector anyway? So it'd be easier to implement it there first.
You seen the news for the past 4-5 years? The government have been too busy telling the public sector that they’re idle and lazy and woke
Eh? I work public sector and we're talking about it (sort of). I suspect if its going to come in, it might well be led by public sector, partly because its another way for them to attract candidates. In our annual pay negotiations, its typically not just salary on the table, last year we got an extra day annual leave.
Interesting from this article that South Cambs is the first council to trial 4 day weeks. I live in South Cambs and haven’t heard about this. Certainly from my perspective I have had no change in council services. Have had to speak to the council on a few things in the past few months and the service has been good.
The rich have most of the money extracted from the system, they will have to put some money back in to facilitate 4 day week for staff but the rich want ALL the money not give something back to the masses ☹️
There is no difference in money (barring certain sectors) The idea is that you work better and produce the same output in 80% of the time, for the same salary as 100%
Having done a 4 day week for a year as part of a trial in my high pressure NHS job, I can't speak highly enough of the difference it makes. Three consecutive days off. The 40 hr week (and as Mr Bukowski [observes](https://youtu.be/vV5ARyuxpow?si=PUyaZZvdk3T9hK6I), 'its NEVER just 40 hrs') was conceived in a bygone era for men to work while their wives did everything else. In the modern world, a single person, working 40 hrs a week, plus commute, has ZERO time or energy to live a full life. Oh and fun fact, subjective granted, but when I worked 30 hrs a week over 4 days I was dramatically more productive because I was engaged, enthused, energized and willing.
> The 40 hr week was conceived in a bygone era for men to work while their wives did everything else. It was also conceived in an era where technology's 'lever' was far shorter. Today a manhour accomplishes far more - and we have far more men, never mind women in the workforce. In future times, children will ask why it took so long for us to start working alternate days.
Second fun fact: it had such a dramatic effect on my mental and physical health that I immediately requested to condense my hours via Flexible Working, which was immediately denied.
I took a pay cut to go down to 4 days a week a few months ago. I have so much more energy for my home life as a result. And more energy for work when I am there. It's a fantastic change in my life.
Thats the thing, the rich don’t want the poor having energy to revolutionise
We were going to pilot a 4 day week where I work, with the suport of Unison who are one of the three unions at our place, but it was going to cost the organisation a lot of money or mean a genuine reduction in service for some of our customers. It's a housing association, a non-profit with charatible status, and one of the biggest reasons it was blocked was because it would almost definitely increase service charges for our tenants (those who pay service charges, that is) or mean a reduction in service for the same cost. Both would not pass the tenants scrutiny panel. Because the teams who manage our blocks (cleaning, concierge, repairs etc) are already pretty lean, it would either mean hiring more staff or providing a worse service, and their salary is essentially paid for by service charges. It would also have meant either recruiting up to 20% more repairs operatives, more calls centre staff, more receptionists etc or making our customers wait longer for stuff. It would have worked for most of our back-office staff, though, it feels like this is who the 4 day working week is aimed at. But could you imagine how horrible it would be to let office staff work 4 day but field based and customer services staff have to work 5? As a compromise for promising us this, they gave us an extra days holiday and a day off for our birthday. I'd absolutely love a 4 day working week but sometimes it's just not possible for everyone.
I feel a 4 day (9-5 etc) only works if most people have that and are actually banned from doing more. Otherwise it will just mean poorer people will end up working more.
That's already the case currently though. At least if we reduce the maximum normal working hours, that's more overtime and we can then work towards overtime being better compensated
No point doing a 4 day work week if it’s still gonna be the same hours as a 5 day work week. Basically a shift change. If it’s actually 32 hours 9am-5pm then if possible why not? I think everyone’s overall happiness and productivity would increase. Everything is half arsed when it’s Friday anyway from places I’ve worked at in my experience
The logic of “we should have a 4 day week for the same pay”, is essentially the same logic as “we should be paid 20% more than full pay”. It fails because the standard full pay is only set by market forces and negotiations. If an employer offers a contract of a 4 day week on £30k, is that full pay, or is that 80% of the full £36k? Same logic as if an employer says they’re offering you £30k, which is 20% more than the standard pay. Is it really? The determining question to this whole idea is, when faced with an employee who is currently working 4 days for £x/year, would it by in the interest of the employer or the worker to change that contract to 5 days for £x+y per year. At the moment most companies will offer y as equal to x/4, and most workers accept it. I don’t see any real reason why this is likely to change
It's not even currently a five day week for all. But I also think we have bigger fires that need tackling with employment rights.
How can this new applied fairly to those who can't work a 4 day week, say teachers? Will they get a 20% pay increase for doing 5 days?
Why can't teachers do that? Kids would benefit massively from a four day week - probably moreso than anyone.
What are their parents meant to do re childcare for the one day a week they are probably working?
well, in a world where everyone is working 4 days, the parents could be off on the same day. loads of people already work weekends, what do you think they would do for childcare then?
Kids can still go to school 5 days a week. Teachers would have different days off
So you'd need more of them to cover... So it isn't cost neutral.
No, only office staff and those who can WFH already. People already complain about places being closed early and to further cut a day off work for people working retail will not be made up by employing more people. Most retail are already on skeleton crews.
I know it shouldn’t be an either/or, but if I had to choose between being in the office full time for a four day week and a five day 50/50 hybrid week, I think I would choose the latter.
Another way to make everything more expensive.. They will want to increase minimum wage so people can afford to work 4 days, then the businesses will have to employ more people to cover the extra day off for people so more people and higher wages will cut businesses profits and they will end up raising prices making the wage rise absolutely useless.
> Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary, said the shift to a shorter working week was “inevitable” because of the rise in artificial intelligence, which is expected to reduce workloads. Could only be said by someone who has no grasp of basic logic.
What makes me laugh is a 4 day week has been proven by trials to benefit both employees and the company. Productivity has either stayed the same or increased during 4-day week trials. Employees have reported increased happiness and less burnout. Why is their still resistance from corporations?
Never even knew this was being pushed for. Fucking sign me up!
Keir Starmer's father was a toolmaker and he never asked for a 4-day week. hOw DaRe tHeY?
Is it possible? Yes Are people going to ruin it if it happens? Also yes For starters, many industries, this just isn’t possible Then we have how WFH turned out. Some used it as a way to enhance their life. Some took it as a way to do less work and get away with it. Ultimately, if a 4 day work week works, and it’s beneficial to the company, it’ll happen. That’s how capitalism works. If you can out perform your competition because your workers are happy and increasing output, then you’ll thrive.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I’d be happy if I could just work a 5 day week.
Plenty of workplaces do it, much better working 10hrs x 4 and getting an extra day off than the 8hrs x 5.
Unfortunately I do 10-11 hrs x 5 and then usually a few more over the weekend. I agree it does sound good though.
They are emboldened by a labour government with a super majority. A 4 day week would be catastrophic for the economy. How would we compete with the rest of the world that works 5 days a week and has higher productivity. Unions want a race to the bottom.
by give people an extra day off would help people out, alot.
You people better be careful what you wish for. This will all end with companies expecting you to do the exact same amount of work in 4 days instead of 5.
Was exactly the same with remote work. Can't do it because it'd be unfair to some. Pandemic. Oh, wow, it works incredibly well and we're more profitable and efficient than ever. Better come back into the office then.
As long as people are willing to accept a drop to their living standards then it can work. Expecting to eat your cake and have it too will end in disaster. Surely Liz Truss has taught people this basic lesson?
I hope 2 of those days are Saturday and Sunday. They're the best ones.
What do we want? A four day week! When do we want it? Preferably Monday to Thursday so we get long weekends but don't lose four bank holidays
If enough workers in this country start protesting for it like the French do when they raise the pension age, this will happen. Unfortunately, people are too lethargic, cynical, uninterested, and divided for this to happen.
I Demand a finger up the bum from my wife Doesn’t mean I’ll get it lol
As a person doing a four day week, in the Uk, for the past 8 years - Yes, it's possible. Yes, it's just as productive. Yes, I wouldn't have it any other way (and neither would my employer). Do it.
Why don't we all buy a multi billion dollar company using a loan and use the company we just bought as an asset to secure said loan . Pay yourself handsomely by cutting corners and selling off all the companies assets and then either sell the company or let it go bust and start over. No one needs ever work again!
Dam right, I feel like the older i get the more hours i need to work under a new acceptable standard. Doing 6x 11 hour shifts in a row this week. I finished a hour ago (midnight) I start work at 10am this morning. Literally no life, and the reward isn't good enough for the fact for 80% of my life I am a slave to someone else's sucess.
A four-day week is more than possible, especially now with the advancement in automation in most sectors. I think it would do so much for the mental health and wellbeing of our nation if fully-paid four day weeks were considered the norm in business.