Don't Slave Your Life Away: Why America Should Embrace a 4-Day Work Week

[Freeper]

But don't you dare call them lazy, they want to work 32 hours and get paid for 40 at top wages.

xchrom (84,721 posts)

Don't Slave Your Life Away: Why America Should Embrace a 4-Day Work Week


 
http://www.alternet.org/books/dont-slave-your-life-away-why-america-should-embrace-4-day-work-week

 

The Perpetual Workday

Jill Andresky Fraser’s book White-Collar Sweatshop details the movement of factory floor, scientific-management-style techniques into the office. Overall real wages scarcely budged in the 1990s, and earnings for college-educated workers actually declined by more than 6 percent. We might surmise that the lack of salary increases were offset, in part, by noncash benefits, but these too were extracted from the compensation package. “Lunch hour? An anachronism. Commuting time? A good chance to return phone calls. Sleep? Never mind if you were up until 2am on the phone with a client across the globe. Be at the office at eight.

"These days, workers are expected to be on call 24/7—24 hours per day, seven days per week,” writes Fraser. Seen in this light, innovations like flex time or working from home are in fact strategies to bring new sorts of workers—think women—into the job market and to subject them to a new set of (frequently electronic) rules and controls.

Think about it. Fifteen years ago, would you have taken a job if you had to be available every day, respond to messages from your boss late at night, and maintain contact with the office while on vacation? You would probably have taken a pass. But today just about any job, especially the good ones, exhibit precisely this oppressive 24/7 character.

It’s a corrosive double whammy: At the same time as technology has redefined labor by converting craft occupations into assembly line piecework, new gadgets have allowed our less inviting piecework tasks to follow us home, invading our bedrooms, filling family time, distracting us on holiday. This change in the character of work took place very quickly. As technology critic Jaron Lanier observed, “It’s as if you kneel to plant the seed of a tree and it grows so fast that it swallows your whole village before you can even rise to your feet.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021914846

I have to admit the 4 day work week I had years ago was pretty cool, only I had to work 10 hours a day, but it was worth the trade off. The DUmmies on the other hand bitch about 8 whole hours at work so I can't see them doing 4 tens.

randome (8,559 posts)
2. Definitely in favor of working fewer hours. That would be progress.

Life should be getting BETTER for us all, not worse and not simply staying the same.

Here's a hint, if you have the attitude that work hours need to be shortened, you will never have a better life.
There are very few, if any successful people who only work 40 hours a week.

xchrom (84,721 posts)
4. indeed. i would suggest as well that there needs to be significant pay rises as well. nt

Typical DUmmy,  they want to put in less work and get paid more in order to do so. 

Viva_La_Revolution (26,487 posts)
6. great article, but everyone working Mon-Thurs will not work, obviously

We should have 4 workdays in blocks of 2. 8 hour shifts =32 hours = living wage.
that could work around every schedule, and fewer hours equaling full time will create more job openings.

Or they could hire people who are actually willing to work.

[Skul]

randome (8,559 posts)
2. Definitely in favor of working fewer hours. That would be progress. Less from this idiot would run into negative numbers.
Life should be getting BETTER for us all, not worse and not simply staying the same.

Two simple words, DUmbass.
 

[GOBUCKS]

DUmpmonkeys don't have to worry about long work weeks.

As soon as the jug-eared muslim's healthcare scam kicks in, very few DUmmies will be allowed to work more than 25-28 hours a week.

[Big Dog]

DUmpmonkeys don't have to worry about long work weeks.

As soon as the jug-eared muslim's healthcare scam kicks in, very few DUmmies will be allowed to work more than 25-28 hours a week.

Exactly. Thanks to O, the 29 hour work week will be the "new normal". Should make this DUmmy ecstatic!

[BlueStateSaint]

Exactly. Thanks to O, the 29 hour work week will be the "new normal". Should make this DUmmy ecstatic!

IIRC, Obamacare counts any employees who work 28 hours a week, which would mean that 27 will be the 'new normal.'

[Carl]

You DUmbasses always yearn to escape from society but then demand it sustain you.

Two words...**** off

[ReaganForRushmore]

But, But, But......the article says that wages stagnated in the 1990's and that quality of work suffered as globalization demanded flexibility.

It must have been those evil, greedy republicans that caused all that angst, all that stress. If only we had a democrat in the White House. excuse me...what?

All this happened under Bill Clinton and Al Gore, never mind.

DUmmie mode off.

[vesta111]

But don't you dare call them lazy, they want to work 32 hours and get paid for 40 at top wages.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021914846

I have to admit the 4 day work week I had years ago was pretty cool, only I had to work 10 hours a day, but it was worth the trade off. The DUmmies on the other hand bitch about 8 whole hours at work so I can't see them doing 4 tens.

Here's a hint, if you have the attitude that work hours need to be shortened, you will never have a better life.
There are very few, if any successful people who only work 40 hours a week.

Typical DUmmy,  they want to put in less work and get paid more in order to do so. 

Or they could hire people who are actually willing to work.

Utter CRAP, we were sold on the 10 hour work days, told Fridays was when we could make our Doctors appointments and tend to needed family matters.

Sounded good until we found that extra 2 hours on our feet caused us to sleep in on Fridays.  That extra 8 hours on our feet was dragging us down.  

About 3 weeks into this new plan we were told that mandatory overtime was coming, another 8 hours on Friday and some time into Sat.    There went any any time on a Friday for the Doctors appointments and gone was our Saturdays.  

Yes the money was good but, with no time to shop, and Sundays taken up with paying bills and sleeping off 56 hours on our feet, we wanted to go back to the 5 day 8 hour day, as family life was more important then money at that point.

At no time was the overtime by volunteer, you came in or was fired. Hells Bells , those with children with a doctors appointment had to cancel with a 2 days notice or request a vacation day that nominally paid 10 hours now to receive the 8 hours flat pay.

Manwhile the overtime was being taxed to the point that one was actually making only a few dollars above minimum wage even at time and a half.

Too much over time put us into another tax bracket that was not in our best interests.    

Lets see we have 24 hours a day 8 to sleep, 8 to work and 8 to tend to life.  Take 2 hours a day out of that and  2 hours has to be deducted form somewhere.  Work 40 hours and no problem, but when one has to work 50+ that is another, well you do the Math.  

Is the money worth it, if volunteers yes if mandatory that is for the people that work to say.   All goes back to just how much money one wants to make, not required to make and taxed on.  
 

[98ZJUSMC]

You DUmbasses always yearn to escape from society but then demand it sustain you.

Two words...**** off

 Exactly.  

[98ZJUSMC]

Utter CRAP, we were sold on the 10 hour work days, told Fridays was when we could make our Doctors appointments and tend to needed family matters.

Sounded good until we found that extra 2 hours on our feet caused us to sleep in on Fridays.  That extra 8 hours on our feet was dragging us down.  

I'll take 4 tens over 5 eights anytime.

[zeitgeist]

I had a 4/40 gig going for several years but ended up with a 24/7/7 on-call gig.  With the 4/40 I use to love the Monday Holiday mini vacays.  With proper planning of days off it was possible to greatly stretch the amount of time off one had.  The extra two hours a  day?  No problem for a desk jockey.  I do get Vesta's bitch about a production worker who has to stand all day but that is easily rectified though ergonomics and job rotation schedules.  (Job rotation is a concept I hardily endorse as it minimizes repetitive motion injury and ensures all line employees are cross trained).

Today's Dilbert pretty much sums up the DU's Wally world view:



 

[Dori]

One company I know has an every other Friday off work schedule.  They work 9 hrs Mon-Thur and one Fri 8 and the next Fri off.

[Freeper]

Utter CRAP, we were sold on the 10 hour work days, told Fridays was when we could make our Doctors appointments and tend to needed family matters.

Sounded good until we found that extra 2 hours on our feet caused us to sleep in on Fridays.  That extra 8 hours on our feet was dragging us down.  

About 3 weeks into this new plan we were told that mandatory overtime was coming, another 8 hours on Friday and some time into Sat.    There went any any time on a Friday for the Doctors appointments and gone was our Saturdays.  

Yes the money was good but, with no time to shop, and Sundays taken up with paying bills and sleeping off 56 hours on our feet, we wanted to go back to the 5 day 8 hour day, as family life was more important then money at that point.

At no time was the overtime by volunteer, you came in or was fired. Hells Bells , those with children with a doctors appointment had to cancel with a 2 days notice or request a vacation day that nominally paid 10 hours now to receive the 8 hours flat pay.

Manwhile the overtime was being taxed to the point that one was actually making only a few dollars above minimum wage even at time and a half.

Too much over time put us into another tax bracket that was not in our best interests.    

Lets see we have 24 hours a day 8 to sleep, 8 to work and 8 to tend to life.  Take 2 hours a day out of that and  2 hours has to be deducted form somewhere.  Work 40 hours and no problem, but when one has to work 50+ that is another, well you do the Math.  

Is the money worth it, if volunteers yes if mandatory that is for the people that work to say.   All goes back to just how much money one wants to make, not required to make and taxed on.  
 

I probably shouldn't mention the job that I had where we worked a minimum of ten hours a day five days a week, and  some weeks we worked 11 hours all week then came in on Saturday and did another 8 to 10 hours. And we were on our feet the whole time. Plus I drove an hour and a half to get to work and another hour and a half to go home.

I may have just given you a stroke by mentioning all that. 

[md11hydmec]

I work 3 13hr shifts.  I love it!  Have 4 days off, its great.

[Freeper]

I work 3 13hr shifts.  I love it!  Have 4 days off, its great.

That is sure to give Vesta a major stroke.

[Evil_Conservative]

It's people at the DUmp that assure me I will have plenty of job security.

[Freeper]

It's people at the DUmp that assure me I will have plenty of job security.

They may be giving you job security, but they will be raising your tax bill because they are entitled dammit!. 

[Big Dog]

IIRC, Obamacare counts any employees who work 28 hours a week, which would mean that 27 will be the 'new normal.'

According to this article at breitbart.com, 30 hours is the cutoff.

[Doc Savage]

4 day would week would be great.  Right now, most, not all of the under 30's that we hire believe that when you have a 8-5 work day, you walk in the door at 8 and leave when the second hand hits 5.  So, by the time they actually are ready for work, after getting a cup of coffee, hitting the head, discussing what happened on the bachelor last night, it is close to 9.

Then of course it the discussion about what lunch is going to be.  So at 1145, I hear, "I have to run an errand, can I leave a little early for lunch"?  OK, sure, 10 minutes, ok.  but of course, because they run an errand it is a sure bet that traffic will be bad or the line at the post office was out the door so they are back late from lunch which they did not have time to eat, so the afternoon is spent scrounging for chow.

At 1630, it is time to start packing up for the end of the day.  Oh, we blocked Face Book and banned cell phones so that added some productivity.

Why start a 4 day work week that will equate to 3.25 productive work days at the most.  I just love the bitching on the days that we do have to stay after 5 or once a year when we do inventory after hours.  It is like we are asking them to give up their first born.

I would love to see these chumps that advocate a 4 day work week start their own business and see what they would think about it then. 

[franksolich]

According to this article at breitbart.com, 30 hours is the cutoff.

I think the common usage is "28" although the real figure's "30," because one has to account for unanticipated extra time, such as when employees clock in fifteen minutes early and clock out fifteen minutes late.

[Freeper]

4 day would week would be great.  Right now, most, not all of the under 30's that we hire believe that when you have a 8-5 work day, you walk in the door at 8 and leave when the second hand hits 5.  So, by the time they actually are ready for work, after getting a cup of coffee, hitting the head, discussing what happened on the bachelor last night, it is close to 9.

Then of course it the discussion about what lunch is going to be.  So at 1145, I hear, "I have to run an errand, can I leave a little early for lunch"?  OK, sure, 10 minutes, ok.  but of course, because they run an errand it is a sure bet that traffic will be bad or the line at the post office was out the door so they are back late from lunch which they did not have time to eat, so the afternoon is spent scrounging for chow.

At 1630, it is time to start packing up for the end of the day.  Oh, we blocked Face Book and banned cell phones so that added some productivity.

Why start a 4 day work week that will equate to 3.25 productive work days at the most.  I just love the bitching on the days that we do have to stay after 5 or once a year when we do inventory after hours.  It is like we are asking them to give up their first born.

I would love to see these chumps that advocate a 4 day work week start their own business and see what they would think about it then. 

Where I work we have to hit the clock by 5, if for some reason we have to stay late we have to leave early the next day. I got yelled at for 20 minutes of overtime once.

[Evil_Conservative]

4 day would week would be great.  Right now, most, not all of the under 30's that we hire believe that when you have a 8-5 work day, you walk in the door at 8 and leave when the second hand hits 5.  So, by the time they actually are ready for work, after getting a cup of coffee, hitting the head, discussing what happened on the bachelor last night, it is close to 9.

Then of course it the discussion about what lunch is going to be.  So at 1145, I hear, "I have to run an errand, can I leave a little early for lunch"?  OK, sure, 10 minutes, ok.  but of course, because they run an errand it is a sure bet that traffic will be bad or the line at the post office was out the door so they are back late from lunch which they did not have time to eat, so the afternoon is spent scrounging for chow.

At 1630, it is time to start packing up for the end of the day.  Oh, we blocked Face Book and banned cell phones so that added some productivity.

Why start a 4 day work week that will equate to 3.25 productive work days at the most.  I just love the bitching on the days that we do have to stay after 5 or once a year when we do inventory after hours.  It is like we are asking them to give up their first born.

I would love to see these chumps that advocate a 4 day work week start their own business and see what they would think about it then. 

I don't understand why people can't get to work 10-15 minutes early to ensure they are able to start work at the designated time.  I try my best to get into work 10 minutes early because there are days I have to start a new pot of coffee.  I'd rather start work at 7:57am then start it at 8:22am.

[Dori]

I think the common usage is "28" although the real figure's "30," because one has to account for unanticipated extra time, such as when employees clock in fifteen minutes early and clock out fifteen minutes late.

I can just see all the Obamacare auditors coming in and finding an employee on the clock, even one time, at 30 hrs and one minute and then throwing a huge fine on the company.   It's coming......

[Freeper]

I can just see all the Obamacare auditors coming in and finding an employee on the clock, even one time, at 30 hrs and one minute and then throwing a huge fine on the company.   It's coming......

Oh no doubt it is.

[md11hydmec]

That is sure to give Vesta a major stroke.