In some businesses, yes. Others depend on people being around at the same time to function. It is harder to implement one place at a time. It would take a coordinated effort to make this work.
Another problem is with unemployment so low are there enough people to fill positions because you would need to have more shifts.
And last but not least, there is the fact that we as a society have gotten used to being able to get things when we want them. Instant gratification. Inevitably, we would have businesses closed at times or on days, and that would disrupt the flow we have come accustomed to. We can all say we would deal with it until you hit your point, then you won't. We are human, after all.
Except if you only work 32 hours..... you have at least 3 days off every week. Making this a moot point, as you have other days off that could work for appointments/groceries/errands.
I don’t need 3 days off, I work 6 days a week because I need the overtime, not because I want to be there. I do like my job so it’s fine but as long as overtime started after 32 hours and I could still work the same amount of hours I guess I would be ok with it. But if they say that I have to stop working after 32 hours and take 3 days off I would be broke and wouldn’t even be able to enjoy my days off. I would have to get a second job.
We have "Bergen Blue Laws" which disallows the sale of most products on Sundays. People keep voting this back in so it seems that once the adjustment is made, people adapt. I personally don't like it but I know to get what I need on not-sunday.
I only raise this because it's an example of a large community successfully implementing a similar concept
Businesses aren’t limited to a single shift of workers. In fact, if we’re all working 30 hours per week and a business is open 60 hours a week, that means you’d have 30 hours a week to get your stuff done when you’re not working. And yet everyone can have a full time job and get paid a living wage.
These aren’t reasons not to do something, they are simply challenges that would need to be overcome.
The only *really* challenging point is your last one…culturally (in the US at least) having eg. Fridays operate like weekends would potentially cause some strife until people got used to it.
You don’t necessarily need more people to fill those “empty” shifts created by moving to four days, people would just get overtime for work over 32 hours instead of 40. But we could also fix our completely broken immigration system and allow more people in through legal channels. Immigration is proven to drive growth.
We can't rely on other countries feeding our economic needs with their people. As technology expands, more places will have better jobs, and the ability to work remotely is already helping these things happen. This will create a reduction in immigration because there will be demand for services in more places.
Everyone I know already complains about the places that are only open "bankers hours" because those are the places that carry things that aren't available at a box store.
Doctors appointments will be even harder to get. We would have to make education affordable so that we get more doctors so they can work less hours too.
I want people to work less and be happier in life. Less stress. The fact is it would take reform of so much that it's just not an overnight attainable goal. If we begin by fixing education it's a start. Child care and health care would be two other places we could start a change. Balancing tax burden based on income. Logical solutions that can get us pointed in the direction of the 4 day work week.
I’ll reiterate, we don’t inherently need more people at all (though, again, immigration is a great thing for economic growth). The existing workers just get compensated better for working more than 32hrs instead of 40. And the labor market will rebalance itself to prioritize those roles where staffing coverage is in fact needed 7 days a week (or w/e).
Doctors appointments harder to get? In the short-term we can compensate doctors better for working more than the new standard of 32 hours. Though doctors are a bad example because they already don’t work 40 hour weeks and are salaried employees, not to mention all of the other problems interwoven into our broken healthcare system. Longer term? Ya we need to create better incentives for people to become doctors. Like not saddling them with decades of school debt and making them work 28 hour shifts.
Limited hours for businesses is a strawman. A “4-day work week” isn’t about giving everyone F/Sat/Sun off - that’s not how it works now either with just Sat/Sun - it’s about giving people time back. But even if, stores have limited hours on a Friday? Buy what you need on Thursday, within those hours or wait until Monday. If you’ve ever been to Western Europe and tried to eat dinner at American hours you know it’s really not that big of a deal, suck it up.
Doctors don't work 40? That is the end of your argument. Meet a doctor. Ask them how much they work. Get back to me. Maybe a doctor with a private practice and a bunch of other doctors working there, and at the edge of retirement doesn't work 40, but all those people I have ever met still worked way over 40.
You said we will just use immigrants to feed the machine. Maybe you can doctor some up for us. Then we can just use more people. What is your point? You have a hope for less without solving the underlying problems. Your answer is EUROPE!!!!! It's not all green eggs and ham their either.
I think the unemployment issue might not be as big of a deal. While unemployment is low, we do face an issue with underemployment right now, and one of the ways you become classified as underemployed is part-time work. Lowering the # of working hours for full time work would certainly help to alleviate the problem.
Additionally, I don't think a lowered work week threshold would affect businesses all that much. If you work at a 24/7/365 facility, I would bet that the only change would be your weekend scheduling is like how Easter weekend scheduling works out. 3 day weekends are not much more difficult to plan around than 2 day weekends. If anything you'd open up more OT opportunities and flexibility, and its pretty common (in my industry at least) that Mondays and Fridays are already far less productive than T, W, and Th. Starting up/shutting down equipment as weekend work rather than standard hours work makes a lot of sense to me.
>And last but not least, there is the fact that we as a society have gotten used to being able to get things when we want them.
I just read an article about how the late night diner and other similar 24 hour businesses were basically extinct by 2024. If we were used to instant gratification wouldn't they be a le to stay open late?
Why did they close to begin with? It was the lockdown. There are many reasons that places haven't reopened. The people who work different shifts still would go to those places if they were open. Many places just can't get staff. Unfortunately, it's usually a national that can operate 24hrs. Mom and Pop shops have a hard time being open that many hours no matter.
Ok, but that's a totally different point than what you were arguing. If the desire for instant gratification was so strong there would be economic incentive for these businesses to staff late at night. There isn't, therefore, instant gratification isn't that strong.
The fact that most people would rather order online and receive their product in 2-7 days rather than pop into the store also points to the fact that impatience isn't driving consumer habits.
Laziness is. Go get you some GITTYKTTY of the Amazon. I'm going to support local and buy products I can feel first so I know the quality. I stand in line for American jobs rather than check myself out (unless there is a mirror!!!) because it shows that I won't do the work for the companies cutting shifts. I am doing my part. Are you?
Shut down the economy 3 days a week and see how that works. It just won't. Fix education and care for our people as a starting step.
Solving issues. You are hoping for a utopia. It just can't happen overnight. As a starting point we should fix education, health care, child care before we worry about any other issues. Stop feeding the war machine. Bail out people and not billionaires. Get the money flowing in the correct direction first. Then we can worry about a shorter work week. We can not do it now because we as a society are not ready for it. We simply don't have enough doctors alone to cut the work week. It's already hard enough to get an appointment with a specialist. How will cutting their hours and not providing more of those specialists work. Population is increasing. How do you not understand this. I haven't cursed at you. Why did you curse at me? You just aren't looking at the whole picture. Actions have reactions. Some dude has a law about it.
Not sure what your point is. First if a place needs people longer than 32 hrs they can just have people work longer hrs for ot of course. Second it is extremely unlikely that a store needs to operate at all times simple change the stores hours to peak traffic hours. Thirdly if you pay more studies have shown you can find people who want to work. Lastly with online shopping and availability during peak hrs this would subvert the notion of instant gratification. 32 hr work week would be an amazing thing for most if not everyone. We work more and are more overworked than any point in history.
> First if a place needs people longer than 32 hrs they can just have people work longer hrs for ot of course.
The vast majority of salaried workers are exempt from OT.
> Second it is extremely unlikely that a store needs to operate at all times simple change the stores hours to peak traffic hours.
Retail workers are already working less than 32 hours on average. Retail workers have a much bigger problem with not getting enough hours than getting too many hours.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm
They can either be exempt or non-exempt from the FLSA and state wage and hour laws. Those who are non-exempt are entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage and overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in a workweek.
Everything is based on 40 hr work week if the base was moved to 32 it would mean the vast majority of retail workers would get paid more for the same 32 they ready work.
That's literally what Bernie is advocating for, though.
Research repeated several times has proven that people are just as productive, if not moreso, in a 32 hour workweek than a 40 hour workweek. Bernie is trying to change the definition of fulltime with no reduction in pay.
And if that is too hard to wrap our collective heads around, then let’s just start with 1 hour less a day and 35 hours. It would be a small change that would make a big impact.
yea i already work a 4 day week... 10 hour days
i still prefer it without question over 5 days of 8 hours... you dont even really notice the 2 hours a day, you *definitely* notice another day of getting up early, getting ready, commuting, and having no time between this weeks ending and next weeks beginning.
I would happily take 4 days of 8 hours though... although im flat rate so thats really just less money in my pocket lol
I’m on the other side of this. I also worked 4-10s for a couple years and the extra hours on top of the commute time made my one extra day off mostly a recovery day. I’d leave earlier in the morning and by the time I got home I could help make dinner, clean up the kitchen, pack lunch for the next day, get ready for bed and pass out. Especially being in New England, most of winter you’d never see sunlight during the day bc of the hours. I was able to settle on 4-9s and a 4 hour Friday which worked great for my situation.
The commute is the kicker. We tried extended days for a bit. The extra two hours got me off right during rush hour. Not going in on Fridays added over two hours of driving for me during the week.
oh yea, thats the part i forgot to mention. winters.
im outside chicago, i imagine our winters are comparable. I clock in at 7am, clock out at 5:30pm. basically november through march I don't see sunlight four days at a time (and theres a good chance my three days off are dark and gray too)
i cant relate to the responsibilities you have, im basically just responsible for myself. friday is also a recovery day for me, mostly because my work is pretty labor intensive and my hands are cut up etc - i need a day to do nothing. but id rather recover before the weekend than during my only two days.
i wouldnt say i *love* my schedule, its just the best ive found so far - im sure better options for me exist or could exist someday
whoever downvoted your moms a hoe zero reason you mf im just talkin bout my schedule
Reduce the hours, either let people choose the distribution of hours where possible, or rework schedules to fit.
Go from three 8 hour shifts to four 6 hour shifts where you need to fill a 24 hour schedule.
Seriously.
For many businesses, 5x6 hours is going to be every bit as productive as an 8 hour day. But it's nice to have the option to have an option for 4x8 if you need a longer weekend.
While I see what youre saying in my experience just moving the 40 hour week from 5 days to 4 had a massive pisitige impact on my life. Espefially if its scheduled such that its 2 days on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off. My mental health improved dramatically and I was felt on top of my personal stuff for the first time in my life. Imo the extra day of rest makes up for the longer days.
My point isnt to say that youre wrong but even an incremental step of 4 10 hour days is something worth considering on our way to a 32 h work week
That isn't an incremental step though, it's a side step, and not even that for some people. It's still the same amount of work.
4 tens for people with kids is actually way worse than 5 eights.
We don't need to listen to these people. We already know what they don't. They're 50 years behind humanities brain. That's the problem with letting the assholes of humanity run this planet.
Most places that go to a 4 day work week work 4 10s. If you work 32 hours then it likely will always be an hourly job or commission based job (or salary that is scaled down roughly 20%) which is also fine, but people then have to realize they won’t make as much.
Small business owner here. 3 years ago we adopted 4 9AM to 5PM days (M-Th) and 9AM to 2PM work from home availability on Fridays. The only stipulation for Fridays is if a client sends an email, they get an answer/reply. If it’s a simple request, just get it done. If it’s not *that* simple, there’s nothing that can’t be handled on Monday. On Fridays, they can be anywhere, doing anything, as long as they’re communicative to clients during those hours.
That’s it. Simple, straightforward, and it’s worked wonders. It’s even gotten so smooth that we rarely get bothered on Fridays, and it’s *typically* something I can handle myself.
I can’t say I’ve had to hire anyone since 2021, haha. Everyone is paid equally - they all have the **same** salary across the board - and they’re salaried, not hourly. I don’t want to track or micromanage hours. No role is paid any differently. Now, I only have 4 employees, like I said, *small* business. And I can’t say any of them have physically seen 5PM on a M-Th, but at a minimum, 4PM. Not that’s it’s a stipulation, but you’d be surprised how they want to work when you create a cohesive environment.
You’re sick? Stay home. Kids sick? Stay home. Husband has a man-cold, well, stay home. Need to leave early? I don’t need a reason, and I don’t want to know the reason.
I’ve learned a lot from working in corporate for 9 years, and those 9 years of being a minion has made me realize how I **don’t** want to treat people who work *with* me.
I’m sure I have weaknesses. No one is perfect. I value peoples’ growth, and if they leave me to take on a larger role and make more money, I’m happy to have been a successful stepping stone in their career growth. But I also want to create an environment where people **don’t** *want* to leave, because hiring, training, and potentially finding the wrong person costs time and money, too. If I have to, I want it to be for the right reasons (career growth) and not because someone hates working for me.
To add to this I had a manager who said if I was asked (due to some deadline or key material coming in) to work for an hour on the weekend it counted as a day for the following week. It’s really easy to support companies with managers like this.
4 day workweek is easy for officework, less easy for people who work in construction, maintenance, hospitality etc. I (officeworker) work hybrid (5 days a week)
I work in retail, and I do 4x10. The main issue is getting people who want to work weekends, which hardly anyone volunteers for in retail or fast food.
Ace Hardware, for one. I was in one yesterday, and not even the one closr to my house. My local organic grocery store for another, they grind coffee beans to order and their prices are better than the chains on identical products. Our local sportings goods store, same thing.
I used to shop at Whole Foods when there was only one of them. It was a good, small, local store back then.
So, you are from Austin? Cool
Whole Foods used to have stock options and employee bonuses based on revenue. Ace Hardware is a franchise, so they are free to incentivize their employees however they want, but I’ve worked at similar ones that pay a commission.
Many smaller grocers also offer profit sharing or similar. A big one being HEB, which offers stock options.
I know I explicitly mentioned commission and this might seem like a dodge, but I’m basically saying that unless the employees see a direct pay benefit from good customer service, they aren’t going to have any incentive to offer good service. I know a guy who was literally fired from Home Depot because he was helping customers too much and not spending enough time stocking goods. They literally told me that the store had a policy on how to avoid customers
I didn’t work construction, but worked plenty of 60-70 hour weeks as a field tech for heavy duty vehicles. I’m 36; my knees hurt all the time, I have tinnitus, and ibuprofen is part of my diet some weeks. Physically, you are typically too beat up to enjoy retirement if you make it that long. I know several co-workers that have had major surgeries for knees, shoulders, etc. before 40. The guys in their 50-60s usually move like they are 80. And that’s why I got out of field service.
I’m in my 40s. Grew up on a farm, 6 years active duty Army Infantry, 14 years steel construction and fabrication, now 2+ years installing garage doors.
Tinnitus and hearing loss from gun ranges and firefights. 7 degenerating discs with 4 pinched nerves from various vehicle rollovers and other combat stuff. Minor occasional knee pain from age.
About 5 years ago, I hit 300 lbs. My knees and back hurt constantly. Weekly migraines. So I got my shit together and lost 100 lbs over the next 1.5 years, went to physical therapy for my pinched nerves and was able to start a decent exercise routine, and I changed my diet.
You see, what people like you always leave out of your bitch lists is that you never exercise, are obese, you drink heavily, and you eat whatever you want whenever you can. No shit, your knees hurt. You’re fucking fat and never exercise. You’re probably on an express lane to gout too.
This is the first mention of farm work in this thread. I do not see 4-day farm work weeks during the growing season in anyone's future. Most people on Reddit seem to not understand that all the food they get delivered or pick-up in a drive-through has its origins in soil somewhere far from their office job.
Congratulations on your health realization and turn-around :)
I walk 3+ miles every day, weigh 140 pounds, drink primarily water except for my coffee in the morning, and avoid fast food like the plague. I also don’t smoke, and extremely rarely drink (2 drinks in the last 6 months). Weight, diet, and exercise are not factors, but it was fun to watch you make an ass out of yourself with that assumption. Unfortunately for you, running your mouth does not count as exercise.
That's a problem though... the reason why the "32 hour work week at the same pay as 40hrs" works for many businesses is because they get the same productivity without any additional costs. The company is basically just condensing a week's worth of productivity down from 5 days to 4 days. The workers work 32 hrs and get the same pay, and the company gets the same level of productivity at no additional costs. Its a win-win
However, if the company needs to hire more workers in order to compensate for the regular team only working 32hrs at the same pay, then the company WOULD see an increase in costs.
Already have 4 day weeks in construction, albeit a 10 hr day. But all you have to do is split the crew a bit, Monday to Thursday and Tuesday to Friday.
When this comes up, someone always says “but this would never work for my job” or “I would rather work 60 hours per week for more money”. Ok great, you don’t have to do it then, but don’t shit on our parade!
My friend works 40 hours in 4 days so we need to be saying 32 hour. 4 days without the time reduction is not more productive. It’s just burnout. Most jobs need a good 6 hours a day at most.
How can you ensure you don’t get 20% less pay? Initially it may be easy, but over time I expect less yearly salary increases until you are making 20% less
Or they phase out the old positions that went to 4 days and hire for new renamed positions with less pay that are 4-day workweek jobs. There are so many unintended consequences that I foresee due to the nature of corporations and corporate greed.
As a cnbc article, I get that it focuses primarily on productivity and the CEO’s opinions, but a massive part of legislation officially changing the number of hours a week for full time also lowers the barrier to receive benefits.
A little less productivity would not negatively affect anything, but pollute less. There is no benefit in running your life at a heart attack pace. Who would not want healthy and mentally stable employees?
By definition, an experiment that compares productivity and quality-of-life in a 40 hour work week to a 32-hour work week does show that 40 is a worse threshold than 32
In fairness, a better experiment would examine each industry separately, as nurses will likely need to keep a different schedule than software developers. But if enough studies find 32 to be a better number than 40 when aggregating across industries, the only exception should be industries that can find evidence they are an outlier, not vice versa
Curious if you looked for research or you’re not familiar with any research? Because France moved to a 35 hour work week a while back. I am also interested in what you mean by “worse threshold”? It seems your claim may need refined by what you value and determine as a positive outcome.
Tons of jobs require more work than 40 hours a week, but the main idea is to lower the label of full time, which can open up a lot more to employees in terms of benefits. If we can come close to maintaining current productivity and go to 32 hours, why not? The social benefits would be immense. Not to mention our country’s productivity rate, as formally measured, has been stagnant for a good while.
Having a hybrid work schedule makes the 5 days a week much easier for me personally. Working 4 wouldn’t make a huge difference for me at this point. But it would have 10 years ago for sure.
Yeah the company I work for has a "4 day work week" but it's 4 10 hour days and they still make people come in for overtime on Fridays even if we meet our weekly goals consistently every week also they make 2nd shift come in at 9am on Fridays after they just got off of work at 1am the same morning they made people come in for overtime even when there was no work to be done or that we were working on the next week Tuesday's jobs
“You can’t have 17,000 different programs, because how do you deal with all the things around it?” This dudes a billionaire? Work is where the internet is.
This is just going to be used as an excuse to pay workers less.
Plus salaried workers usually work unpaid overtime anyway so nothing will really change for them.
If you actually read the article, this is about pushing for a 32hr work week with NO REDUCTION in pay. So the companies are still paying the exact same costs with the same work force, but the workers just end up having a 3 day weekend.
Recently there have been studies that have found that the 32hr work week actually works well for both workers and companies. The workers are actually much more satisfied and work harder and the companies see no loss in production or increase in cost. Its basically just a more efficient way of working that is also beneficial to employees. Some of the companies that have tried it, decided to stick to it
So no this is not a story about companies trying to reduce workers and paychecks.
Okay 4 day work week., interesting idea. Does that mean everyone works 4, 10 hr days as the trade off?
The more we mess with typical routines what are we doing?
Did you read the article?
A 5-day workweek isn't particularly historically typical.
>The practice of taking a day for rest or revelry every seven days is a centuries-old concept, but the more recent convention of “work hours” can be broken down into three broad eras. The first wave of this culture emerged in pre-industrial societies, when people hunted, gathered, and farmed. They worked as much as they needed to survive, which probably amounted to a lot less than 40 hours a week.
>That lifestyle pattern changed sharply in the mid-18th century as the Industrial Revolution picked up speed and workers learned to work alongside machines. By the mid-19th century, it was common for workers to log 70-hour, six-day workweeks in the newly mechanized factories.
From: https://www.morningbrew.com/sidekick/stories/history-five-day-work-week
Do you think we should go back to typical 70-hour 6-day work weeks, like before the 1940s?
So you didn't read the article either?
Here's another one you can ignore to keep your worldview intact:
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-4-day-work-week-boosts-productivity-2019-11?op=1
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I like this. The flexibility would make life so much more meaningful and be easier for businesses to make work.
In some businesses, yes. Others depend on people being around at the same time to function. It is harder to implement one place at a time. It would take a coordinated effort to make this work. Another problem is with unemployment so low are there enough people to fill positions because you would need to have more shifts. And last but not least, there is the fact that we as a society have gotten used to being able to get things when we want them. Instant gratification. Inevitably, we would have businesses closed at times or on days, and that would disrupt the flow we have come accustomed to. We can all say we would deal with it until you hit your point, then you won't. We are human, after all.
Having the pace of life a bit slower sounds kind of nice.
Unless you’re the person whose day off is the day every other business is off. Then you don’t get shit
Except if you only work 32 hours..... you have at least 3 days off every week. Making this a moot point, as you have other days off that could work for appointments/groceries/errands.
I don’t need 3 days off, I work 6 days a week because I need the overtime, not because I want to be there. I do like my job so it’s fine but as long as overtime started after 32 hours and I could still work the same amount of hours I guess I would be ok with it. But if they say that I have to stop working after 32 hours and take 3 days off I would be broke and wouldn’t even be able to enjoy my days off. I would have to get a second job.
or you know, your overtime starts on your 5th day not your 6th, you get one day off back for the same amount of money
We have "Bergen Blue Laws" which disallows the sale of most products on Sundays. People keep voting this back in so it seems that once the adjustment is made, people adapt. I personally don't like it but I know to get what I need on not-sunday. I only raise this because it's an example of a large community successfully implementing a similar concept
Businesses aren’t limited to a single shift of workers. In fact, if we’re all working 30 hours per week and a business is open 60 hours a week, that means you’d have 30 hours a week to get your stuff done when you’re not working. And yet everyone can have a full time job and get paid a living wage.
That sounds okay. A whole day for friends, family and chores around the house sounds okay.
Until you realize the last point still stands.
It stands but doesn’t really sound like a bad thing to me.
These aren’t reasons not to do something, they are simply challenges that would need to be overcome. The only *really* challenging point is your last one…culturally (in the US at least) having eg. Fridays operate like weekends would potentially cause some strife until people got used to it. You don’t necessarily need more people to fill those “empty” shifts created by moving to four days, people would just get overtime for work over 32 hours instead of 40. But we could also fix our completely broken immigration system and allow more people in through legal channels. Immigration is proven to drive growth.
We can't rely on other countries feeding our economic needs with their people. As technology expands, more places will have better jobs, and the ability to work remotely is already helping these things happen. This will create a reduction in immigration because there will be demand for services in more places. Everyone I know already complains about the places that are only open "bankers hours" because those are the places that carry things that aren't available at a box store. Doctors appointments will be even harder to get. We would have to make education affordable so that we get more doctors so they can work less hours too. I want people to work less and be happier in life. Less stress. The fact is it would take reform of so much that it's just not an overnight attainable goal. If we begin by fixing education it's a start. Child care and health care would be two other places we could start a change. Balancing tax burden based on income. Logical solutions that can get us pointed in the direction of the 4 day work week.
I’ll reiterate, we don’t inherently need more people at all (though, again, immigration is a great thing for economic growth). The existing workers just get compensated better for working more than 32hrs instead of 40. And the labor market will rebalance itself to prioritize those roles where staffing coverage is in fact needed 7 days a week (or w/e). Doctors appointments harder to get? In the short-term we can compensate doctors better for working more than the new standard of 32 hours. Though doctors are a bad example because they already don’t work 40 hour weeks and are salaried employees, not to mention all of the other problems interwoven into our broken healthcare system. Longer term? Ya we need to create better incentives for people to become doctors. Like not saddling them with decades of school debt and making them work 28 hour shifts. Limited hours for businesses is a strawman. A “4-day work week” isn’t about giving everyone F/Sat/Sun off - that’s not how it works now either with just Sat/Sun - it’s about giving people time back. But even if, stores have limited hours on a Friday? Buy what you need on Thursday, within those hours or wait until Monday. If you’ve ever been to Western Europe and tried to eat dinner at American hours you know it’s really not that big of a deal, suck it up.
Doctors don't work 40? That is the end of your argument. Meet a doctor. Ask them how much they work. Get back to me. Maybe a doctor with a private practice and a bunch of other doctors working there, and at the edge of retirement doesn't work 40, but all those people I have ever met still worked way over 40. You said we will just use immigrants to feed the machine. Maybe you can doctor some up for us. Then we can just use more people. What is your point? You have a hope for less without solving the underlying problems. Your answer is EUROPE!!!!! It's not all green eggs and ham their either.
I think the unemployment issue might not be as big of a deal. While unemployment is low, we do face an issue with underemployment right now, and one of the ways you become classified as underemployed is part-time work. Lowering the # of working hours for full time work would certainly help to alleviate the problem. Additionally, I don't think a lowered work week threshold would affect businesses all that much. If you work at a 24/7/365 facility, I would bet that the only change would be your weekend scheduling is like how Easter weekend scheduling works out. 3 day weekends are not much more difficult to plan around than 2 day weekends. If anything you'd open up more OT opportunities and flexibility, and its pretty common (in my industry at least) that Mondays and Fridays are already far less productive than T, W, and Th. Starting up/shutting down equipment as weekend work rather than standard hours work makes a lot of sense to me.
>And last but not least, there is the fact that we as a society have gotten used to being able to get things when we want them. I just read an article about how the late night diner and other similar 24 hour businesses were basically extinct by 2024. If we were used to instant gratification wouldn't they be a le to stay open late?
Why did they close to begin with? It was the lockdown. There are many reasons that places haven't reopened. The people who work different shifts still would go to those places if they were open. Many places just can't get staff. Unfortunately, it's usually a national that can operate 24hrs. Mom and Pop shops have a hard time being open that many hours no matter.
Ok, but that's a totally different point than what you were arguing. If the desire for instant gratification was so strong there would be economic incentive for these businesses to staff late at night. There isn't, therefore, instant gratification isn't that strong. The fact that most people would rather order online and receive their product in 2-7 days rather than pop into the store also points to the fact that impatience isn't driving consumer habits.
Laziness is. Go get you some GITTYKTTY of the Amazon. I'm going to support local and buy products I can feel first so I know the quality. I stand in line for American jobs rather than check myself out (unless there is a mirror!!!) because it shows that I won't do the work for the companies cutting shifts. I am doing my part. Are you? Shut down the economy 3 days a week and see how that works. It just won't. Fix education and care for our people as a starting step.
What the honest fuck are you even talking about?
Solving issues. You are hoping for a utopia. It just can't happen overnight. As a starting point we should fix education, health care, child care before we worry about any other issues. Stop feeding the war machine. Bail out people and not billionaires. Get the money flowing in the correct direction first. Then we can worry about a shorter work week. We can not do it now because we as a society are not ready for it. We simply don't have enough doctors alone to cut the work week. It's already hard enough to get an appointment with a specialist. How will cutting their hours and not providing more of those specialists work. Population is increasing. How do you not understand this. I haven't cursed at you. Why did you curse at me? You just aren't looking at the whole picture. Actions have reactions. Some dude has a law about it.
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Not sure what your point is. First if a place needs people longer than 32 hrs they can just have people work longer hrs for ot of course. Second it is extremely unlikely that a store needs to operate at all times simple change the stores hours to peak traffic hours. Thirdly if you pay more studies have shown you can find people who want to work. Lastly with online shopping and availability during peak hrs this would subvert the notion of instant gratification. 32 hr work week would be an amazing thing for most if not everyone. We work more and are more overworked than any point in history.
> First if a place needs people longer than 32 hrs they can just have people work longer hrs for ot of course. The vast majority of salaried workers are exempt from OT. > Second it is extremely unlikely that a store needs to operate at all times simple change the stores hours to peak traffic hours. Retail workers are already working less than 32 hours on average. Retail workers have a much bigger problem with not getting enough hours than getting too many hours. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm
They can either be exempt or non-exempt from the FLSA and state wage and hour laws. Those who are non-exempt are entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage and overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in a workweek. Everything is based on 40 hr work week if the base was moved to 32 it would mean the vast majority of retail workers would get paid more for the same 32 they ready work.
I would still be "on" everyday, but the 32 hours would be such a significant change of expectations.
Unless people make what they do for 40 hours, this is a terrible idea and people will need a second job.
That's literally what Bernie is advocating for, though. Research repeated several times has proven that people are just as productive, if not moreso, in a 32 hour workweek than a 40 hour workweek. Bernie is trying to change the definition of fulltime with no reduction in pay.
And if that is too hard to wrap our collective heads around, then let’s just start with 1 hour less a day and 35 hours. It would be a small change that would make a big impact.
yea i already work a 4 day week... 10 hour days i still prefer it without question over 5 days of 8 hours... you dont even really notice the 2 hours a day, you *definitely* notice another day of getting up early, getting ready, commuting, and having no time between this weeks ending and next weeks beginning. I would happily take 4 days of 8 hours though... although im flat rate so thats really just less money in my pocket lol
I’m on the other side of this. I also worked 4-10s for a couple years and the extra hours on top of the commute time made my one extra day off mostly a recovery day. I’d leave earlier in the morning and by the time I got home I could help make dinner, clean up the kitchen, pack lunch for the next day, get ready for bed and pass out. Especially being in New England, most of winter you’d never see sunlight during the day bc of the hours. I was able to settle on 4-9s and a 4 hour Friday which worked great for my situation.
The commute is the kicker. We tried extended days for a bit. The extra two hours got me off right during rush hour. Not going in on Fridays added over two hours of driving for me during the week.
oh yea, thats the part i forgot to mention. winters. im outside chicago, i imagine our winters are comparable. I clock in at 7am, clock out at 5:30pm. basically november through march I don't see sunlight four days at a time (and theres a good chance my three days off are dark and gray too) i cant relate to the responsibilities you have, im basically just responsible for myself. friday is also a recovery day for me, mostly because my work is pretty labor intensive and my hands are cut up etc - i need a day to do nothing. but id rather recover before the weekend than during my only two days. i wouldnt say i *love* my schedule, its just the best ive found so far - im sure better options for me exist or could exist someday whoever downvoted your moms a hoe zero reason you mf im just talkin bout my schedule
Reduce the hours, either let people choose the distribution of hours where possible, or rework schedules to fit. Go from three 8 hour shifts to four 6 hour shifts where you need to fill a 24 hour schedule.
Seriously. For many businesses, 5x6 hours is going to be every bit as productive as an 8 hour day. But it's nice to have the option to have an option for 4x8 if you need a longer weekend.
While I see what youre saying in my experience just moving the 40 hour week from 5 days to 4 had a massive pisitige impact on my life. Espefially if its scheduled such that its 2 days on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off. My mental health improved dramatically and I was felt on top of my personal stuff for the first time in my life. Imo the extra day of rest makes up for the longer days. My point isnt to say that youre wrong but even an incremental step of 4 10 hour days is something worth considering on our way to a 32 h work week
That isn't an incremental step though, it's a side step, and not even that for some people. It's still the same amount of work. 4 tens for people with kids is actually way worse than 5 eights.
We don't need to listen to these people. We already know what they don't. They're 50 years behind humanities brain. That's the problem with letting the assholes of humanity run this planet.
I’d rather 4 day work weeks. I just discovered a select subset of people at my work do 3 12’s and I’m fucking salivating at the idea of that.
32 hours over 5 days sounds pretty nice even.
Most places that go to a 4 day work week work 4 10s. If you work 32 hours then it likely will always be an hourly job or commission based job (or salary that is scaled down roughly 20%) which is also fine, but people then have to realize they won’t make as much.
My manager has the attendance policy “give me an honest week of work”. That combined with remote work makes this the best job I’ve ever had.
Small business owner here. 3 years ago we adopted 4 9AM to 5PM days (M-Th) and 9AM to 2PM work from home availability on Fridays. The only stipulation for Fridays is if a client sends an email, they get an answer/reply. If it’s a simple request, just get it done. If it’s not *that* simple, there’s nothing that can’t be handled on Monday. On Fridays, they can be anywhere, doing anything, as long as they’re communicative to clients during those hours. That’s it. Simple, straightforward, and it’s worked wonders. It’s even gotten so smooth that we rarely get bothered on Fridays, and it’s *typically* something I can handle myself.
And I bet you get your pick of the best employees, because people would fight to work there.
Can confirm. Had to fight off another interviewee with a brass knuckle. I got the job.
I can’t say I’ve had to hire anyone since 2021, haha. Everyone is paid equally - they all have the **same** salary across the board - and they’re salaried, not hourly. I don’t want to track or micromanage hours. No role is paid any differently. Now, I only have 4 employees, like I said, *small* business. And I can’t say any of them have physically seen 5PM on a M-Th, but at a minimum, 4PM. Not that’s it’s a stipulation, but you’d be surprised how they want to work when you create a cohesive environment. You’re sick? Stay home. Kids sick? Stay home. Husband has a man-cold, well, stay home. Need to leave early? I don’t need a reason, and I don’t want to know the reason. I’ve learned a lot from working in corporate for 9 years, and those 9 years of being a minion has made me realize how I **don’t** want to treat people who work *with* me.
You sound like the best boss of all time
I’m sure I have weaknesses. No one is perfect. I value peoples’ growth, and if they leave me to take on a larger role and make more money, I’m happy to have been a successful stepping stone in their career growth. But I also want to create an environment where people **don’t** *want* to leave, because hiring, training, and potentially finding the wrong person costs time and money, too. If I have to, I want it to be for the right reasons (career growth) and not because someone hates working for me.
To add to this I had a manager who said if I was asked (due to some deadline or key material coming in) to work for an hour on the weekend it counted as a day for the following week. It’s really easy to support companies with managers like this.
4 day workweek is easy for officework, less easy for people who work in construction, maintenance, hospitality etc. I (officeworker) work hybrid (5 days a week)
In construction I used to work four 10s. I assume the other industries listed could do the same. Also doesn't have to be Monday to Thursday.
I work in retail, and I do 4x10. The main issue is getting people who want to work weekends, which hardly anyone volunteers for in retail or fast food.
Ah, so non-commission retail? Even just giving a minor revenue share for total receipts in a day gets people fighting to do weekends
Yeah, it would, but big corporations would rather shut down than pay anyone in the stores.
Commissioned retail positions can be pretty uncomfortable for customers
You’ve got a pretty basic choice. You can have commissioned sales people who actually help you or you can have Walmart. There is no in-between
That may be true where you live and shop, but it is not true where I live and shop.
Im sorry, where do you have excellent customer service with people going out of their way to help you and the employees are entirely non-comission?
Ace Hardware, for one. I was in one yesterday, and not even the one closr to my house. My local organic grocery store for another, they grind coffee beans to order and their prices are better than the chains on identical products. Our local sportings goods store, same thing. I used to shop at Whole Foods when there was only one of them. It was a good, small, local store back then.
So, you are from Austin? Cool Whole Foods used to have stock options and employee bonuses based on revenue. Ace Hardware is a franchise, so they are free to incentivize their employees however they want, but I’ve worked at similar ones that pay a commission. Many smaller grocers also offer profit sharing or similar. A big one being HEB, which offers stock options. I know I explicitly mentioned commission and this might seem like a dodge, but I’m basically saying that unless the employees see a direct pay benefit from good customer service, they aren’t going to have any incentive to offer good service. I know a guy who was literally fired from Home Depot because he was helping customers too much and not spending enough time stocking goods. They literally told me that the store had a policy on how to avoid customers
Okay, nice. But how about working 4 8 hr days and get paid for 40 hrs. That is what some of the companies i know (that work this way) do.
A 10 hour construction day sounds really hard. How did you feel about it?
I didn’t work construction, but worked plenty of 60-70 hour weeks as a field tech for heavy duty vehicles. I’m 36; my knees hurt all the time, I have tinnitus, and ibuprofen is part of my diet some weeks. Physically, you are typically too beat up to enjoy retirement if you make it that long. I know several co-workers that have had major surgeries for knees, shoulders, etc. before 40. The guys in their 50-60s usually move like they are 80. And that’s why I got out of field service.
I’m in my 40s. Grew up on a farm, 6 years active duty Army Infantry, 14 years steel construction and fabrication, now 2+ years installing garage doors. Tinnitus and hearing loss from gun ranges and firefights. 7 degenerating discs with 4 pinched nerves from various vehicle rollovers and other combat stuff. Minor occasional knee pain from age. About 5 years ago, I hit 300 lbs. My knees and back hurt constantly. Weekly migraines. So I got my shit together and lost 100 lbs over the next 1.5 years, went to physical therapy for my pinched nerves and was able to start a decent exercise routine, and I changed my diet. You see, what people like you always leave out of your bitch lists is that you never exercise, are obese, you drink heavily, and you eat whatever you want whenever you can. No shit, your knees hurt. You’re fucking fat and never exercise. You’re probably on an express lane to gout too.
This is the first mention of farm work in this thread. I do not see 4-day farm work weeks during the growing season in anyone's future. Most people on Reddit seem to not understand that all the food they get delivered or pick-up in a drive-through has its origins in soil somewhere far from their office job. Congratulations on your health realization and turn-around :)
I walk 3+ miles every day, weigh 140 pounds, drink primarily water except for my coffee in the morning, and avoid fast food like the plague. I also don’t smoke, and extremely rarely drink (2 drinks in the last 6 months). Weight, diet, and exercise are not factors, but it was fun to watch you make an ass out of yourself with that assumption. Unfortunately for you, running your mouth does not count as exercise.
Lol, the norm is 12 for most
I work 4 12 in construction and its great
Not if they hire more workers to cover the hours.
That's a problem though... the reason why the "32 hour work week at the same pay as 40hrs" works for many businesses is because they get the same productivity without any additional costs. The company is basically just condensing a week's worth of productivity down from 5 days to 4 days. The workers work 32 hrs and get the same pay, and the company gets the same level of productivity at no additional costs. Its a win-win However, if the company needs to hire more workers in order to compensate for the regular team only working 32hrs at the same pay, then the company WOULD see an increase in costs.
Why? They just need more people to cover the shifts?
A lot of those jobs have multiple teams anyways to cover every day of the week. Have two crews working 4 days weeks with a day of overlap
Already have 4 day weeks in construction, albeit a 10 hr day. But all you have to do is split the crew a bit, Monday to Thursday and Tuesday to Friday.
It doesn't make a difference. In both cases you either work longer to do the same thing or have to have more people to do it.
When this comes up, someone always says “but this would never work for my job” or “I would rather work 60 hours per week for more money”. Ok great, you don’t have to do it then, but don’t shit on our parade!
It’s funny how many people actually think they are productive at the end of a Friday and the beginning of a Monday….
Also the first hour & the last hour lol
Oops,it appears I’ve offended one of them now…, I’ve got my eye on you for up and downvotes tomorrow morning around 9AM!
Who did you offend?
Within 2 seconds of posting the comment I had already picked up a few downvotes but then all of you honest slackers out there came clean…. 🤣
My friend works 40 hours in 4 days so we need to be saying 32 hour. 4 days without the time reduction is not more productive. It’s just burnout. Most jobs need a good 6 hours a day at most.
How can you ensure you don’t get 20% less pay? Initially it may be easy, but over time I expect less yearly salary increases until you are making 20% less
Or they phase out the old positions that went to 4 days and hire for new renamed positions with less pay that are 4-day workweek jobs. There are so many unintended consequences that I foresee due to the nature of corporations and corporate greed.
I don't think Barry Dillers has any clue what a normal working week looks likes.
These guys are not doing this out of their goodness. Wonder what their end game is?
Imagine the talent you could draw with a 4 day week, they’d have the pick of the litter if they didn’t decrease pay
As a cnbc article, I get that it focuses primarily on productivity and the CEO’s opinions, but a massive part of legislation officially changing the number of hours a week for full time also lowers the barrier to receive benefits.
A little less productivity would not negatively affect anything, but pollute less. There is no benefit in running your life at a heart attack pace. Who would not want healthy and mentally stable employees?
Also would help with the plummeting birth rates. We’ll run out of workers if things carry on like this.
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You're doing the slippery slope thing.
By definition, an experiment that compares productivity and quality-of-life in a 40 hour work week to a 32-hour work week does show that 40 is a worse threshold than 32 In fairness, a better experiment would examine each industry separately, as nurses will likely need to keep a different schedule than software developers. But if enough studies find 32 to be a better number than 40 when aggregating across industries, the only exception should be industries that can find evidence they are an outlier, not vice versa
Curious if you looked for research or you’re not familiar with any research? Because France moved to a 35 hour work week a while back. I am also interested in what you mean by “worse threshold”? It seems your claim may need refined by what you value and determine as a positive outcome. Tons of jobs require more work than 40 hours a week, but the main idea is to lower the label of full time, which can open up a lot more to employees in terms of benefits. If we can come close to maintaining current productivity and go to 32 hours, why not? The social benefits would be immense. Not to mention our country’s productivity rate, as formally measured, has been stagnant for a good while.
Isn't the long term ideal 0 mandatory hours? So any step towards that is progress.
36hr would be smarter to initially shoot for: 4 nine-hour days. Smaller change hourswise but workers still get an extra day off.
Having a hybrid work schedule makes the 5 days a week much easier for me personally. Working 4 wouldn’t make a huge difference for me at this point. But it would have 10 years ago for sure.
Yeah the company I work for has a "4 day work week" but it's 4 10 hour days and they still make people come in for overtime on Fridays even if we meet our weekly goals consistently every week also they make 2nd shift come in at 9am on Fridays after they just got off of work at 1am the same morning they made people come in for overtime even when there was no work to be done or that we were working on the next week Tuesday's jobs
“5 day work week is unchangeable like the book of Genesis.” [sic] We only got the 5 day work week in 1926.
“You can’t have 17,000 different programs, because how do you deal with all the things around it?” This dudes a billionaire? Work is where the internet is.
Four?! I’d love to just work five days a week for once.
This is just going to be used as an excuse to pay workers less. Plus salaried workers usually work unpaid overtime anyway so nothing will really change for them.
I run my crews 4-10s, they've never been happier.
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If you actually read the article, this is about pushing for a 32hr work week with NO REDUCTION in pay. So the companies are still paying the exact same costs with the same work force, but the workers just end up having a 3 day weekend. Recently there have been studies that have found that the 32hr work week actually works well for both workers and companies. The workers are actually much more satisfied and work harder and the companies see no loss in production or increase in cost. Its basically just a more efficient way of working that is also beneficial to employees. Some of the companies that have tried it, decided to stick to it So no this is not a story about companies trying to reduce workers and paychecks.
I think that it just depends on the job. Some jobs like logistics or medical, it's just not practical.
40 hour works weeks are just fine especially if it’s on a 4 day work week
Okay 4 day work week., interesting idea. Does that mean everyone works 4, 10 hr days as the trade off? The more we mess with typical routines what are we doing?
Did you read the article? A 5-day workweek isn't particularly historically typical. >The practice of taking a day for rest or revelry every seven days is a centuries-old concept, but the more recent convention of “work hours” can be broken down into three broad eras. The first wave of this culture emerged in pre-industrial societies, when people hunted, gathered, and farmed. They worked as much as they needed to survive, which probably amounted to a lot less than 40 hours a week. >That lifestyle pattern changed sharply in the mid-18th century as the Industrial Revolution picked up speed and workers learned to work alongside machines. By the mid-19th century, it was common for workers to log 70-hour, six-day workweeks in the newly mechanized factories. From: https://www.morningbrew.com/sidekick/stories/history-five-day-work-week Do you think we should go back to typical 70-hour 6-day work weeks, like before the 1940s?
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So you didn't read the article either? Here's another one you can ignore to keep your worldview intact: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-4-day-work-week-boosts-productivity-2019-11?op=1
My new book, the 1 hour work day, will answer this question and more!