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Four-Day Work Week Proposal by UK Government Raises Issues, Says Econ Professor (fastcompany.com) 84

Posted by EditorDavid from the TGIT dept.
Workers get the right to request a four-day workweek under a new proposal by the U.K. government. But a professor of economics at the University of Leeds argues "There remain problems, however" — starting with the fact that "under current laws, employers can still resist the requests of workers, if they want to." There is also the problem of unevenness in the effect of the law. While workers in well-paid jobs have bargaining leverage to assert their legal rights, others in lower-paid jobs face minimal protection and risk direct exploitation... [A]dvancing the case for a four-day working week is likely to be more difficult if it is seen as benefiting only one section of society (one that already enjoys strong rights and privileges)....

Another problem is the scope for compressed hours — working a five-day week of around 40 hours in four days. Under the new proposal, workers requesting and getting a four-day working week will still be required to put in the same hours. Longer work days may be welcomed by some — for example, they may cut down on childcare costs. But they risk undermining the benefits of a shorter working week. Indeed, they may threaten the health of workers by creating heavier work days which they need longer to recover from. At worst, a three-day weekend may be needed to recover from a four-day working week with longer days.
While a four-day work week could improve the quality of life and help address climate change, the analysis argues that the government's proposal ultimately raises issues about the "purpose and potential" of a four-day working week, possibly suggesting other policy changes that may also be needed. "It is important that low wages are addressed alongside work-time reduction."
  • "If the government is serious about achieving a four-day working week to raise productivity and improve employee wellbeing, it needs to encourage trials in the public sector... "
  • "The government also needs to target a future date, say 2040, for the realisation of a four-day working week. This could be facilitated by establishing a partnership of unions and employers to identify barriers to a four-day working week and ways to overcome them."

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Four-Day Work Week Proposal by UK Government Raises Issues, Says Econ Professor More

Four-Day Work Week Proposal by UK Government Raises Issues, Says Econ Professor

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  • We're not asking employers we are telling them. The things you take for granted as the comforts of daily life people fought and died for. Hopefully we're a bit more civilized this time around and we can avoid overt violence.

    • Actually, all the 5-day work week accomplished was making it so people who are trying to hustle to make ends meet have to get two shitty low-paying jobs rather than just telling their primary employer they're willing to work more hours at their regular pay rate (which would be illegal for the employer to do, since anything over 40 hours is required to be paid as overtime). More pay sounds great on paper, but most of us who have had to work such jobs have certainly heard the phrase "overtime isn't approved.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • That's not how the 4 day week is supposed to work. It's supposed to be 32 hours over 4 days, as TFS points out.

          Exactly. People stop being productive when the work day gets long. And ten hour days are too long to be productive.

          (In fact, I think eight hour days are too long-- my real productive work is done in about four hours; the rest is just make-work and wasted time.)

          • Exactly. People stop being productive when the work day gets long. And ten hour days are too long to be productive.

            "People"?
            You have made a massive blanket statement. I challenge the factuality of your claim.

            Instead of unfactual broad generalizing and then making legislation which prohibits any people from doing what some people aren't good at, I think you should work to create a system where some people who are good at a thing and are willing to do it can, without being unduly exploited.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

            my real productive work is done in about four hours; the rest is just make-work and wasted time.)

            But it does mean you can put the new cover sheets on the TPS reports, right?

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 09, 2024 @05:34AM (#64773594)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          Objections to the 32 hour working week are brought to you by people who believe that 2 women can have a baby in 4 1/2 months.

          On the average, that's true.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dhobbit ( 152517 )

          This is such a false argument. Outside specific jobs reducing the work week by 8 hours will have zero impact on company profits. Or imagine this crazy idea. Happy people do better work. Maybe instead of focusing on corporate profits we focus on worker health. The current system is WAY broken, favoring $$$ over people. And it's presented as the natural order of things. When in fact the natural order is that most people want to do something meaningful but we've built a system that favors the rich and we're to

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by chefren ( 17219 )

        Actually in the 1950s and 1960s US, a blue-collar family man in a good job could support his entire family (housewife and children) while paying off the morgage on his house while working 5 days per week. Things have gone downhill since then, the 5 day work week did not cause people to have to work multiple jobs, that's really a 21st century think (before that, those housewives had to start earning first, and only later was also that not enough).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          ^This^

          The immediate causes are
          1) Inflation
          2) Wealth gap expansion

          The proximate causes are easy to spot too:
          1) perpetual warfare
          2) corporate welfare masquerading as social welfare, see: "the great society"
          3) Actual corporate welfare, globalism, "free" trade, tax heavens and domicile shopping etc.

          Neoliberalism, and neoconservatism are literally undermining everything 19th century progressives fought for, and middle 20th century conservatives have sought to protect. Sadly the public is thoroughly brainwashed;

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 )

      I don't remember Henry Ford dying in September 1926 in order to adopt a 5-day, 40-hour workweek for workers in his factories.

      Who died for the subsequent Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938?

  • I had an optional 4 day work week in the 1970's. Instead of 9 to 5 the job was 8 to 6 or something like that. I liked the extra day off. I also only had to travel to and from work 4 days a week, so I actually ended up with less time devoted to work. But it was a paper pushing job that didn't involve any physical labor or actually much mental labor either. So I was no more worn out than with a shorter day. But there is also no reason to require the days be 4 in a row. You could have two days on, a day off,

    • Re:Not a New Idea (Score:4, Interesting)

      by smoot123 ( 1027084 ) on Monday September 09, 2024 @02:24AM (#64773354)

      I had an optional 4 day work week in the 1970's. Instead of 9 to 5 the job was 8 to 6 or something like that.

      Bully for you. I seem to remember this was sort of a thing in the 80s and early 90s. It kind of faded away. I don't know about you but by eight hours in, I'm really slowing down and wouldn't get that much productive done in the remaining two hours. Maybe when I was younger.

      Thing is, no one but your and your boss are in a position to decide whether this is a good idea or not. I've had a number of jobs which involved working with people in different timezones (and Israel, which doesn't work Fridays but does work Sundays). Working strictly 9-5 is a problem when I'm trying to get on the phone with Bangalore, Tel Aviv, US east coast, US west coast, and China. Lots of other jobs require a set of people all be working at the same time (think a production line) so in those jobs, a fixed schedule is more or less mandatory.

      So here's my radical idea: let's all butt out. Let companies and employers work out the best work schedules, using whatever definition of "best" they want. There shouldn't be tax or labor rules biased in favor or against 9-5 x 5, 8-6 x 4, or 6-6 x 7, or any other schedule someone might come up with. There's no one right answer for every situation so we shouldn't try to mandate one.

      • No, that's a stupid idea and it will end in the mandatory work day for everyone being all day every day.

        • No, that's a stupid idea and it will end in the mandatory work day for everyone being all day every day.

          Let me ask you this: how much would someone have to pay you for you to literally never leave your place of work?

          How likely is it that every single company will require that and not one company will say "Guess what? We only require 23 hours a day." How likely is that to start a race to the bottom where the million companies operating in the US all compete against each other to get the best workers?

          Personally I find it very unlikely, so unlikely that I think any workday and workweek regulations are probably c

      • So here's my radical idea: let's all butt out. Let companies and employers work out the best work schedules, using whatever definition of "best" they want. There shouldn't be tax or labor rules biased in favor or against 9-5 x 5, 8-6 x 4, or 6-6 x 7, or any other schedule someone might come up with. There's no one right answer for every situation so we shouldn't try to mandate one.

        Freedom? But ... but ... that wouldn't result in consistently perfect outcomes, like our current system of micromanaging regulation does!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dhobbit ( 152517 )

          Our (the United States) current system is far from micromanaging regulation. It's regulation based on 1 of 2 things.

          1. Some life long bureaucratic just doing their job. For better or worse.
          2. Regulation passed to help some group of rich donors get more rich while moving money away from the rich donors of the opposition.

          Stop listening to rich people telling you how bad your life would be without them. Because the real answer is it would be pretty awesome.

          Anyone telling you how rich they are and how good at b

      • How far shall we butt out? Slavery was prevalent throughout history until a couple hundred years ago...

        • How far shall we butt out? Slavery was prevalent throughout history until a couple hundred years ago...

          I'm a big fan of "no physical coercion". Other than that, if you and I agree to a deal, I have difficulty seeing why anyone else has a say in the matter.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by dhobbit ( 152517 )

        I absolutely don't want companies or employers operating without oversight. When we tried that in the United States we had employers hiring snipers to shoot striking workers, factory towns where workers effectively got paid in housing and food but never actually built any wealth or retirement, and working conditions so bad deaths and injuries were common and left the victim and their families without a source of income because the company would just fire the injured worker. And in all of this, labor had no

        • When we tried that in the United States we had employers hiring snipers to shoot striking workers...

          (Checks notes) Yeah, I'm pretty sure murder is illegal in every US state.

          ...factory towns where workers effectively got paid in housing and food but never actually built any wealth or retirement,

          We hear the same stories about sweatshop labor in east Asia today. If conditions are so bad, why, I wonder, do people flock to these jobs? Doesn't that strike you as odd? I assert because bad as the conditions seem to you and I, the alternatives are far worse. The story was the same then as it is now. People flock to dangerous or miserable seeming jobs because their next best choice is to barely survive working a poor farm.

          And that's m

      • You know, America tried this already.

        This is how we had people falling into meat grinders, children being mangled at their 14 hour a day, 7 day a week jobs, and all that.

        "Oh, but people will leave employers that try that!"

        This makes two assumptions: 1) that there are tons of other jobs available, and 2) that the other employers won't pull the same shit. Both of which assumptions are proven wrong, over and over again.

        • This is how we had people falling into meat grinders, children being mangled at their 14 hour a day, 7 day a week jobs, and all that.

          I don't have time to look this up now but I'm pretty sure all of those examples are legends and stories made up to make a point. Specifically, the stories in The Jungle were sensationalist exaggerations of typical conditions. People did not routinely fall into meat grinders followed by a shrug by supervisors.

          Beyond that, to state the obvious, conditions have changed since 1900. We're all a lot richer now, even the very poor, so it's very unlikely anyone would accept those working conditions. In 1900, workin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      The nine day fortnight is the standard here these days.

    • TFS makes mention of 10 hour days, which totally defeats the point of a shorter workweek if you're still expected to put in 40 hours. It's a tolerable thing to do when you're young and if you're lucky enough to not have a particularly long commute, but it can quickly become miserable if you end up with only about 4 hours per day when you're not either at work or asleep.

      Of course, this is basically just the flipside of what often happens with scheduling for part-time jobs, where instead of getting an extra

  • I know everyone is different, but I don't work 40 hours a week because a lot of the time I have nothing to do or I choose to socialize for hours with my coworkers, who also didn't have much to do. I imagine it's similar in many fields. So "compressed" hours would be great in that regard

  • This seems to me just a headline grabbing stunt by our Government, something our Governments (both Labour and Tory) are good at - come up with something that sounds good but ultimately has clauses in it that means it makes no difference at all / is totally pointless.

    It basically gives me the right to ask my employer to give me a 4 day compressed work-week - but it also gives my employer to tell me to go fish with no consequences - so what exactly is the point of this exercise? I already had the right to as

  • Two separate ideas being confused (Score:3)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Monday September 09, 2024 @03:35AM (#64773412)

    One is the claim that in certain white collar jobs such as in IT the same amount of work will be achieved in four eight hour days as in five. There is some empirical evidence for this

    https://www.scambs.gov.uk/your... [scambs.gov.uk]

    The other is that some people's circumstances mean that four ten hour days are better than five eight hour days.

    Let's be clear: there are many jobs that cannot be squeezed into a shorter time period; everything from shop staff to nurses on a ward to bus and train staff. Add in the intuitive rejection of the idea that the work can be squeezed into a shorter period, and it's understandable that the issue is fraught...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      What is the aim here?

      Is it to reduce the number of trips to work or is it to reduce the number of hours worked?

      Also with many hourly workers having a fortnightly pay and schedule period, why does it have to be weekly?

      Here's my suggestion: (for people who have to be onsite)

      After 60 hours per fortnight you are classed as full-time and qualify for benefits.
      After 72 hours per fortnight you get overtime (paid time and a half)
      People who have to commute get an extra hours pay per day, but this does not count towar

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      The problem with a lot of things like IT work is not that there is more work than one could do in 32 hours vs 40 its that, this isnt true for the rest of the business which probably to some degree needs the lights on five days a week.

      If something does happen or needs attention immediately, even if it can be done remotely you don't want the IT guys required to effect it 3 phone calls and 30min away from getting started. You want to a warm chair.

      This is of course true for many other classes of administrative

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The missing component here is wages.

      Okay, a shop needs to be open for 8 hours a day. A supermarket will have quite a few people working there at any given time. Maybe they can employ 20% more staff, give everyone a 4 day week, and maintain wage levels.

      Some people will try to tell you that adding an extra member of staff will push up prices, but they say that about the minimum wage too. It can be true sometimes, but often it's not, and even if it is we should consider if the benefits outweigh the costs. Afte

  • This was suggested once (Score:3)

    by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Monday September 09, 2024 @04:02AM (#64773450)

    at a place I once worked. A medium-sized local government council.

    The engineers in management figured out that they could actually improve the productivity of field crews by going to four-day weeks with more hours per day .

    There's fixed costs (hours) at the beginning and end of each day - prep the tractors, dozers and all the other gear needed to patch roads (for example) and then transport them to the site, then pack up at the end of each day, transport them back to the depot, washdown, refuel, maintenance, etc.

    So you'd only get about 4-5 hours of actual roadwork done in a day.

    They proposed a four-day work week of approx 10 hours per day. The fixed hours at start and end stayed the same, but you got 7-8 hours of roadwork done. The ratio of fixed non-productive hours to productive hours got better. The road crews, faced with a three-day weekend every week, were completely in favour, including the union. Same pay, same total hours worked per fortnight, better productivity.

    The council vetoed it, saying the public wouldn't like the idea of road crews only working four days a week.

    So, there'll always be *someone* objecting to this sort of arrangement, despite the clear benefits.

  • The point of a four day week is that a 40 day week is too long. The mistakes made by such a long working week exceed the return. The primary benefits come not from fewer days but from less fatigue.

    Research has found that fatigue also sets in after working 7 hours in a day, so adding hours will result in greater fatigue and more mistakes, which will result in worse results.

    The optimum work week seems to be 4 days/week, 7 hours/day. Anything in excess of that is at company's own risk.

  • It's pretty clear that in much of the developed world, a sort of stagnation for the middle and lower classes has kind of set in and while migration seems to be a very touchy topic and politically difficult, it doesn't really appear like as if any developed country has a political system prepared to say outright that they're not going to be bringing in migrants. That is to say, migration brings along a sudden demand for infrastructure and jobs.

    Getting people to work less may be an attempt to try to make more

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dhobbit ( 152517 )

      Maybe this is about getting more labor into the labor market. But I think the more likely is over the last 40 years the global economy has expanded more than in the previous 1 hundred thousand years. The overwhelming majority of that increase in wealth is going to an increasing smaller portion of the population. I think the working classes are getting fed up and working fewer hours for the same pay is a good smart at pulling some of that wealth back.

      Another growing driver for this could also be the transiti

  • [A]dvancing the case for a four-day working week is likely to be more difficult if it is seen as benefiting only one section of society (one that already enjoys strong rights and privileges)....

    'fraid so. This isn't just "seen as", it is mostly for the "social media specialist" or whatever who already gets their three months maternity leave and whatever else is in the basket of vote buying benefits.

  • Will they get paid the same for this four-day work week?

  • So...you want a 4 day work week.
    But not 40 hours, though? Really, you just want to work 4x 8 hour days, less if possible?
    Oh and we should also "deal with low pay" right ? Not that we pay you proportionally to the work you do, you actual want more than we were paying you for that old 5 day 40 week as well?
    What next, you want to watch youtube videos, er, I mean work from home in your jammies all day? Wait, no, you already HAVE that....

    • Yes, that is correct. I don't know what else our energy and technology is for?

      • I don't know about you, but I live in a VASTLY better world than even 50 years ago.
        Cellphones
        Internet
        Computers
        Cheap international flight
        The world is generally a much safer place
        All sorts of major diseases around the world are largely suppressed or declining.
        Life spans are longer, quality of life is higher in all meaningful ways

        I don't know what the hell you were expecting? Let me know when you get that anticipated magical pony and ride off under the rainbow?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dhobbit ( 152517 )

      100%. But to clarify. I want a system that favors quality of life over corporate profits. A system that favors worker health physical AND mental over C level bonuses. There is no reason the average CEO should make thousands of times the lowest paid employee.

      For the record I've had a work from home programming job for almost 5 years (started pre-covid) now and have to say it's fine. I often find it more stressful than going to the office. When I went to the office, I was "working" while I was there. Now I'm

      • "There is no reason the average CEO should make thousands of times the lowest paid employee."
        Sure there is, supply and demand.

        Go ahead, start a company. You as the founder are free to pay yourself nothing, if you like. But then what happens when your successful business needs THE NEXT person to run it? Feel free to offer that job to the most qualified individual at, say, $50,000 a year. See what you're able to get. I'm sure your business that employs hundreds, maybe THOUSANDS of people who count on fee

  • Back in the '90s, I worked something called Nine 80s. We'd work eight 9-hour days, one 8-hour day, and have a three day weekend every other week. As we had four sysadmins, that meant one of us was off every Monday and Friday. Worked out great.

    But now? That was almost 30 years ago, I'm a lot older, I'm married now, and my health isn't the same, not to mention my wife's serious medical problems. 4x10, even getting that three day weekend every week, I'd spend the first day of that pretty much worthless
  • that 4 day week pattern and I don't (and they rely on a servie our output I produce)?

  • The trials have already happened , in the UK, and they worked

    Yes it was for the same 40 hours, and most workers were happy with this

    It is not for everyone, and not for every job, and it is optional

    Very small companies do not need to do it, as they will not have enough workers to cover

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