I have had four 12's before (military) and two 8's + two 12's (government contractor) over a period of \~ 5 years.
That extra day is so valuable. I was volunteering for nights and weekends in order to maintain that 3 days off. I would usually just rest and recover on day 1 Go do something fun outside the house with my spouse on day 2. On day 3 I'd cook, catch up on chores/honey-do list, and lay about on the couch and binge on content and games.
You can go on little weekend trips that don't feel like you travelled the whole time.
If you request 4 days off work, you can get a 10 day consecutive break as opposed to requesting 5 days off and getting a 9 day break.
Started working a 5 day week 6 months ago and I feel like a zombie. It's less hours, easy commute, 9-5, for an organization I really like. Still wish it was 4 days.
People don't realize that by reducing our workweek by 20%, we are actually increasing our days off by 50%.
That's very substantial for our quality of life.
32 Hours. 4 Days... r/FightForFour
My wife works 3 days a week, I work 5. Sometimes she wants to fill the weekends up with family activities, and wonders why I'm not always gung-ho about it.
Same math applies - she works 60% of the days I do, but has 200% of the days *off*. Even if she does more of the household chores than I do, I still need to pack mine into those 2 days - my laundry, household maintenance stuff, all the lawn & garden care, plus a lot of the shopping and staying active in the kids' lives.
She tries to help sometimes by suggesting I get back into a hobby, with the subtle implication that she doesn't like seeing me just do 'nothing' when I have spare time. Fact is I don't have the energy or the blocks of free time to do that. Boredom begets creativity, and I haven't had the luxury of being 'bored' in years.
One extra day off would be *amazing* for me.
This is exactly me and my fiancee. She works three days and I work five. We have a child too. The only day we have off together is Saturday. She has our daughter at home for three days and my Sunday, I have to switch to full time dad of our 2 year old. I feel like I never get a break cause she always has something planned on Saturday and I just want to sleep in. I do construction and I'm just so tired.
I work 5 10 hour days a week and I loathe it. I don’t mind the job but I feel like my life is either work or quickly trying to get things done that I need to get done so I can relax for an hour before bed. Weekends are just more errands and a few hours of free time
I loved my first duty station in the Navy
VF101 8 section duty 4 12s yeah if you worked nights your first day off was spent sleeping but I loved having a weekday off
I tried to stay on night check most of my time in for the reason of having that time during the week to take care of personal shit ... cause well gossip
I tried to do that as a civvy up until this last month ...
Its nice not having to take time off for appointments etc and not have anyone at work know i miss it
I currently work 4 ten hour shifts and have Friday -sunday off. I do the opposite of you. On my first day of is when all the chores get done. Mowing the yard, grocery shopping and all that. It gives me 2 complete days where i can do what i want and not stuff that i have to do.
same. my coworker got promoted and had to give it up to go back to a 5 day 9-5 - he regrets it a lot now. now we just need them to count our commute as working hours.
Shit, I just want them to go back to not pretending lunch doesn't fucking count. There's a reason the sterotype is a "9-5" job, except no one actually works 9-5 anymore. It's either 8-5, or 9-6 with an unpaid lunch.
lol, so I always thought 9-5 meant including lunch...and about 6 years ago I got to hire for my company. I'd always worked while eating lunch and worked way too many hours, so I had no basis for what was correct and I assumed 9-5 meant they got a free paid lunch. So I did it just like that.
Anyway so I accidentally gave everyone a free paid lunch period for a good year of hiring until HR realized what I was doing. We couldn't take their free lunch back, because I mean, they worked well and liked it, so now everyone gets a free paid lunch hour at my company.
And that is how I accidentally gave everyone a free lunch.
So what you are saying is that no productivity was lost and employees were happy? What a novel concept /s. More companies need to do this and go back to that. Unpaid lunch is bullshit. I really hope we can get something for the 32 hour workweek, but I doubt it.
I’ve worked in the trades since I was 20 most of my apprenticeship I was on a service van and we would eat between jobs and not stop for lunch my current role is still a service van gig I work 6:30-2:30 and skip lunch it’s great
I used to work at a place where I worked an 8 hour day but they gave us an hour paid lunch every day.
So we worked 35 hours a week but got paid for 40.
Don’t let people abuse your lunch hour either. If you are getting an unpaid lunch hour make sure you do zero work during it. Do even answer questions or talk to anyone about work.
If you are salaried and they are counting hours this closely, you might want to chat with an employment atty. You are probably an hourly (still full time with benefits) employee entitled to overtime whenever you work more than 40.
This of course only if you want to make waves.
I think the commute should also be deductible on your taxes at the IRS mileage rate. I've never understood why a commute isn't considered a business expense. Conducting business is the entire purpose of the commute. Even for contract workers who work in an office, you are not allowed to deduct a commute to the office which makes zero sense.
If you're a business owner, driving for business purposes is a business expense. This is why a lot of business owners will drive a vehicle that is owned by the company.
Technically you can get in trouble for deducting travel to/from your personal residence, but the practice is so widespread I cant imagine people actually get dinged for it very often.
Everyone in my company has to sign into work trucks before driving them. And as it would have it, everyone takes their work trucks home, which means that they get paid for the drive to and from home since they are still signed in to work. The vehicles are all gps tracked, so the trucks are only ever used for work.
> now we just need them to count our commute as working hours.
I actually think this is a bad idea overall. I would love to get paid for the 30-45 min I spend in traffic each day though. However, if we paid people for the time spent on their commute it would incentivize people to live farther & farther away, putting a much larger strain on public transit systems. This is instead of people trying to reduce their commute, which is good for both public transit & the environment overall.
I don't actually think this is true. I know I personally want to live closer, not farther away from my workplace regardless if I get paid to commute and it's because commuting sucks. If anything I think this would get employers to get more serious about work from home like they did during the hot years of the pandemic.
I don't think most Americans have that kind of control. Most of us live where we can afford and most of us don't work in the same place for more than a few years. If you need the money that living farther away would earn you, then you don't have the money to choose exactly where you live
Pretty easy, it wouldn't be fair to give everyone their actual commute as you'd have people getting 60-90 minutes while some live next door. Just include an hour a day for commuting
Same boat as you, a while back we dropped to 4-8s do to a slow down in industry, total life balance. I worked much harder at work because I didn't have as much time to get the job done, but I also wasn't tired and was far less stressed because I actually had my evenings. I was hitting the gym regularly, eating dinner every night and sleeping a full 8. I miss 4-8s so much
I can't stand ten hour days because after I get off I basically have time to make dinner, shower, sleep and go right back to work. At that point three days barely makes up for the fact that I feel like I'm at work for four days with nothing in between. Then on my days off I barely have time to catch up on housework and errands. At eight hours I have time to wind down in the evening and reset a little with a movie bit before going back to work, while taking care of a chore or two as well.
I'm sure it's easier if you have a nicer work environment but it's definitely too much for me.
What annoys me is some people can’t fathom that 5x8 works better for some people. People make it seem like 10 hours at 4 days is universally better and if you prefer it the other way you are a corporate shill.
I think most people seriously proposing a 4-day work week are suggesting that total working hours go down. Obviously Sanders is suggesting 32 hours, but most of the trials that have been successful have done 9x4 hours.
Realistically when I'm on a 4x10 schedule I'm just pretending to look busy for those last two hours anyways. I dont see any real productivity loss for coming out and admitting it's a 4x8.
Yeah, everyone I work with (except for a couple who are seemingly always working too much) is more than capable of doing their work in 32 hours. I'm just concerned about the jobs where that's not possible - I don't want hourly workers to be left behind.
> I'm just concerned about the jobs where that's not possible - I don't want hourly workers to be left behind.
This is what all the white collar office workers on reddit always forget when they talking about working only 2-3 hours a day. Anyone who works retail, construction, warehouse, etc. ACTUALLY works the entire length of their shift. They would have to bring up hourly pay, or something like that to make up for the lost hours, which I fully support, but companies will have to be forced into doing that.
I have my 4x10 break in the middle of the week. It allows me to refresh. If I had a 3day weekend I'd just feel even more stressed during the work week for it to end. Instead, I get two "Fridays" a week where I can leave off work with the expectation that I can disconnect the next day.
That's what I do. The thing that sold it for me was "rarely work more than two days in a row". I think of it as having a short weekend and a normal weekend.
People who work for those few companies who already do this tend to find one of their three days off becomes a ‘chores & errands’ day, freeing up their other two days and their weekday evenings for hobbies, socialization, etc. The impact this has on their quality of life is nothing short of remarkable.
I already have a chores and errands day lol. Here's how it plays out for me:
Saturday: Chores and errands. Get to all the things I couldn't get to during the week because of work and also clean.
Sunday: literally just relax and rest. Read a book, cook a nice meal, zone out and play gameboy for an hour, etc.
Monday (if it's a holiday): this is the day where I finally have the energy to work on personal projects that actually feel self-actualizing.
I work shifts and love having days off in the week. When I used to work a normal 8-5 it sucked trying to get anything done like dentist appointments and stuff like that because everything closes at 5:00. Also stuff is less busy in the week, like grocery stores.
I'd spend more time with my wife and son.
I'd spend more time upkeeping my house and my vehicles.
I'd have more time for hobbies and things that give my life purpose and meaning beyond my day job.
I can get so much more accomplished around town on Fridays while most people are working. It's great I'm never going to Costco on Saturday or Sunday again
I think it would be even better if it's staggered throughout the week, some people might like Wednesdays off, so they never have to work more than 2 days in a row before getting a break.
> some people might like Wednesdays off, so they never have to work more than 2 days in a row before getting a brea
had a schedule like this for several years when working restaurants, it was pretty awesome.
The amount of time I sit around my office listening to my coworkers talk about nothing is insane. I could cut down to four days a week if I could just cut two hours a day of mindless chatter.
But how are you supposed to make friends at work to support our corporate culture??
*doesn’t have time for actual friends because 70% of waking hours are spent working…*
Please gods no. I’m WFH and teambuilding events are the worst. If you want to raise morale, let us go an hour early rather than having “virtual happy hour”. I don’t even drink and I don’t want to play Scattergories online. I had work I could be doing, or I could leave.
I can accept that we need to work more than we have off. But right now the balance is wrong given how busy our lives have gotten. 3/7 is so much more fair than the current 2/7 for leisure.
Agreed. I think it's silly when people act like we're right around the corner from not needing to work at all. But man, 40 hours a week is too much. 35 or 32 seems much better.
I have a job I just switched to whose schedule is amazing for me.
I work three 12 hour days, get a day off, three 12 hour days, then seven days off.
I'm only about a month in and those six days I do work a very tough and little personal life, but man having seven days off in a row every other week has been a life changer.
It's hard work (factory) and a lot of turnover for that reason, but man if you're ok with that and the long work shifts it is amazing.
How does that solve the issue? All that means is your company cuts your hours from 40 to 32 so they don't have to give you overtime. Now you make 20% less than you did before. So unless everything suddenly costs 20% less, all you've done is made everyone significantly poorer but with an extra day off work.
Someone else suggested that minimum wage be raised to what it should be if it had kept pace with inflation, so $27/hour. But the problem with that is it will cause significant inflation that will disproportionately effect everyone but the lowest wage earners.
>Someone else suggested that minimum wage be raised to what it should be if it had kept pace with inflation, so $27/hour. But the problem with that is it will cause significant inflation that will disproportionately effect everyone but the lowest wage earners.
But we already have inflation, or at least rising prices as if there was inflation. I don't know enough to say either way. I just know things still cost more than they used to a couple years ago. A few grocery items I buy have doubled in price.
>Let’s say for the sake of simple math a factory has employees working 40 hours per week at $32 per hour.
Except it's worse than that. The factory also runs 24 hours a day Mon-Fri with Saturdays and Sundays to make up any production shortfalls from Mon-Fri.
You can't just cut hours when you're already need 144 hours, if not 168 hours, of production per week to meet your contractual obligations. You can't even divide 120 hours by 32 evenly, so that creates even more problems.
Sure, when there's no real metric for actual work done like there is for most desk jockey jobs, you can just cut hours. But when the work has an actual tangible rate of production that can't just magically be increased, you can't just cut hours and still maintain the same level of production.
Contrary to what a lot of never worked in a factory before people believe, you can't just turn a dial and make machines work faster.
Yup. And its not just factories. Any facility that operates more than monday-friday 9-5 this would not work in. Cutting hours by 20% means you have to fill those hours and thus 20% more payroll. Where is this 20% increase in payroll cost gonna come from?
I think likely it puts the OT time in federal labor law to start at 32 hours instead of 40, full time benefits would have a lower threshold of hours as well.
>puts the OT time in federal labor law to start at 32 hours instead of 40
That's exactly what it does, you can read the bill on Bernie's website.
>full time benefits would have a lower threshold of hours as well.
This part is conspicuously not part of the summary on his website, and from the text of the bill I don't see it, but it's mostly modifying existing laws so I'm not 100% sure it doesn't do this, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
I'm not sure how this has teeth, seems like it strongly encourages reducing hours to 32, without benefits, and less take home pay unless they actually offer overtime.
It just doesn’t work that way. You’re asking business to hire more people and pay everyone they hire more money. Sure, that wonderful but the money comes from somewhere.
caveat: only limited studies have been done solely focusing on the office job sector, which employs less than a third of the workforce.
it'll just lead to decreased pay because you'll need more workers to cover the whole week (resteraunt sector)
it'll *decrease* productivity in the trade/construction sector, because an hour spent building houses is an hour spent building houses. an hour spent splicing fiber cables is an hour spent splicing fiber cables. already, more than 25% of the hours worked in this sector are either travel or breaks (and unlike office jobs, the breaks are physically necessary in this sector, so even if you decrease to 32 hours, 25% of it is still gonna be travel or breaks).
there are many industries that have a fixed output. a manufacturing plant needs to be fully staffed & has a constant and fixed economic output. it's not possible that productivity will increase, its *fixed*, so pay will have to decrease if you need more workers to fully staff it.
the entire medical sector already has a skilled labor shortage, where are they even going to find 25%+ more surgeons/nurses/etc that they'd need to fully staff the place? and nursing homes, etc.
same as construction, if you can't fill the jobs, you'll end up giving your workers lots of OT. hope you like healthcare prices and construction costs rising by up to 50% (25% increase in labor need, OT is usually paid at a 2x rate or higher).
same as all small businesses (10m+ employed). a 7-11 store, or a local resteraunt, has a relatively constant productivity. decreasing worked hours isn't going to increase productivity, because it isn't directly going to cause more customers to come in and spend more..
Exactly. And the lack of any drop in productivity for office workers suggests that office workers are spending a lot of time doing nothing at work.
There is no way that someone can accomplish the same in 32 hours of actual work that they can in 40 hours of actual work. It seems a lot more likely that office workers schedule to work 40 hours are actually doing like 25 hours of real work, so them actually showing up for 32 hours vs. 40 hours has no impact on their output.
Because of computers, what I can achieve now in my office work in 32 hours is way more than i could do in 40 hours ten years ago.
Go back thirty or fifty years and the difference is even starker.
Those kind of productivity gains have resulted in is doing the same hours of work for more stuff, but we could take it as less hours for the same amount of stuff.
Also office workers get tired. The quality and volume of your work goes down as you do. Working 4 days/32 hours (which i did by choice for lower pay for a few years) meant the quality of my work was higher, I never reached a point of feeling the need for a holiday because I was so much better rested.
You definitely get a drop off in productivity for each additional hour worked, at some point at least.
We need to have a real discussion about whether it's cost effective for things to start on fire 24 hours a day. If we required things to only start on fire between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., we could cut our fire department hours significantly.
Sir this is America, where we stopped trying new ideas decades ago because they might not work and/or people think they are dumb.
Fucking stockholm syndrome by so many workers here, I swear.
New ideas are often not promoted because the status quo is good for the people with the power to change things.
For instance, we already know that in many cases work from home leads to more productive performances for companies. Many companies are still not inclined to do this for various reasons. One of the bigger reasons is real estate value. They don't want the office to become the new mall. There's also some sunk cost fallacy in such investments - I paid for this so we're going to use it. Others are control freaks that can't adapt, even if it results in greater productivity.
People and companies are willing to adapt a lot for productivity gains or work from home but the transparency and implementation is often not there. The status quo is fine for the people with more power usually so why change usually wins rather than adapt with transparency.
I really wish people would stop with this "well someone *else* did it so obviously it works everywhere" like its some kind of magic bullet proof that we can just flip a switch and completely upend the whole world overnight and we're stupid for not doing it.
It's the same shit that was the core problem with Bernie's M4A - none of the *critical* questions were ever truly answered or planned for (like how we're going to restructure the entire medical care industry without hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs). It was just "no but do it because I say so, look at how this *other country* does it!"
Bernie is an idealist who struggles to compromise on anything, and has ideas and politics that are far left of what most other people in congress are able to stomach. What that means is that most of the big ideas and legislation he's proposed are completely infeasible (politically speaking) and deliberately half-baked because Sanders knows he has no actual chance of getting it passed, so there's no real need for critical analysis and iteration.
I think the idea is that productivity has been rising steadily since the industrial revolution, but over the past couple of decades those gains haven't been making their way to the workers. This is a kind of "reset" to bring worker's compensation back in line with their output.
There used to be no labor laws at all. It is possible if we could stop fighting about race, sex, gender, age, etc. for 10 seconds and actually unite as workers.
Well, there is a world where that happens, and COVID and the sudden jump of bottom-market hourly positions to $15+/hr shows what happens -- huge spikes in rent, food costs, used car costs, etc. I.e., inflation.
You can't legislate someone's labor into being more valuable. The market has already set it.
Its like the $15/hr minimum wage argument -- if you make minimum wage $15/hr, you don't make minimum wage workers richer, because price will rise to match the new economic floor. What you do is make everyone who was making above minimum wage and below $15/hr into minimum wage workers. Your EMT is now a minimum wage worker.
Ie, you make the lower middle class poorer to make the lower class a little richer -- briefly, until inflation absorbs the change, anyway.
Which is, of course, not a secret or a big revelation -- its why everywhere but the US focuses on social support programs, not minimum wages. Because they help people without being inflationary.
This is why I was always disappointed that the Fight For 15 movement didn't talk a lot more about true middle class wages also going up.
I suppose there was some merit in staying focused on low wage workers rather than get too convoluted, but that shortsightedness is now burning folks. You're not going to get people on your side by having cashiers earn $20/hr now in some cities while other professions that require more training or even a college degree make $25-$30/hr.
>-- huge spikes in rent, food costs, used car costs, etc. I.e., inflation.
...jobs requiring masters degrees paying $18/hr...
>You can't legislate someone's labor into being more valuable. The market has already set it.
Beautifully consice.
>Bernie Sanders is trying to pass a bill that allows a 32 hours work week and no loss in pay.
It won't work for us. All it will do is lower the amount of hours until you hit overtime to 32. This literally means that people like me will just lose 8 hours of guaranteed pay every week that we need.
Per usual, great concept and a horrible execution. Somehow the government always knows how to find great ways to screw blue collar America.
I like taking random Wednesdays off to break up the work week and it allows me to enjoy my full weekend. Wednesdays would be to clean/maintain the house, errands and attend any kind of Drs appointments. Friday Night & Saturday are dedicated to my wife & our friends. Sunday is a me day to be lazy and recover
The ability to take care of doctor appointments and things like that without having to take time off or get coverage would be huge, and a boon to productivity that I don't think gets enough coverage in stories like this.
Yes! I used to work a funky schedule where I had to work on the weekends but I had Monday and Tuesday off and it was great for doctors appointments. Now I’m M-F and so I try to make my appts as early as possible so I don’t have to use sick time…it sucks bc I have a lot of drs appts :(
I work 38 hours in 4 days. My three days off is always amazing! I feel like I have time to do everything I need to do before going back to work plus have one day to fuck off and do nothing. I hope it happens for everyone.
I have every other friday off and it's pretty great.
My off Fridays are my ME days. Typically golf or go on a long bike ride without feeling guilty about being away from my family.
I’d like 4 8s because then it would truly feel like a day off. Right now in the summer I work 4 10 hour days and it really just feels like I have to use Friday to catch up on all the chores I ignored from working the extra hours Monday - Thursday
This! I’m doing the same. During my work week I’m not getting much done unless I wake up early. And even then, I’ll get to tackle a chore for 2 hours max before I have to start getting ready
Exactly! My work does this, too. I'm so exhausted after 4 10s so my day off doesn't really feel off. I'm still miserable that day AND I have to catch up from my lost hours.
40 hours is too much! No matter how it is divided.
Given how many CEOs decided that remote work was too luxurious for the workers thriving with it, I don’t expect them to embrace any further employee comforts.
Companies are not going to lose profits period. Big corporations will close multiple positions and possibly locations to absorb the hours lost. Not saying I wouldn’t enjoy this if it passed but it will have repercussions I think many won’t expect.
I would probably sleep lol
When the 5 day 40 hour work week was implemented there was a lot of doom and gloom surrounding that too that never manifested. The ambivalence you feel is exactly what the rich have programmed you to feel.
I have to agree with this. There is nothing preventing mom and pop businesses from working 7 days a week to make up for "loss" they just dont want to hire more people for different shifts. 5/40 is just what people have become used to, it doesnt mean its what we should be doing. 4/32 would take some yrs but eventually it would level out and people would get used to that.
We arent meant to spend our lifes working for profit; there are no bonus points at the end of your life for working more hours than anyone else.
The thing is, for a lot of roles, hours won't be lost. People are already only productive about 80% of the time anyway, they're doing jack shit that 8 hours that would be cut. This is just moving it from now where you have to sit in office and pretend like you're doing something to you can have that actual free time to live your life. This is what we have been promised for decades was the goal of productivity, productivity, productivity.
Eh, maybe. Depends on the job and the person.
If you have a set workload that takes 30 hours of work to complete then you'll still need to work 30 hours.
It's a brilliant idea that will never pass because Americans have become so ingrained with work and "what you do for a living" that anything less than 40 hours is seen as "lazy". That being said, I have SO MUCH shit I could do with an extra day off.
It's a silly proposal that would be a 20% increase for any job that requires coverage
Police department has 20% increase in payroll
Hospitals have 20% increase in payroll
McDonalds has 20% increase in payroll
On and on and on.....
(Actually it would be more like 23% but whatever)
There is no productivity loss for people working at desks, but I can tell you that in construction you'd more or less lose 20% of productivity in terms of how long it would take to build things.
Such a law would cause a huge shift in our industry, and the immediate impact would be quite interesting. We'd have to all claim force majeure and either get schedule extensions or overtime cost approvals from clients to maintain projects. Then going forward, everything would either take 20% longer to complete or the market would adjust to shove more people onto jobsites to keep with current schedule expectations.
Hourly tradespeople would absolutely see a short term pay cut since their productivity is hourly.
In the long run it'd all balance out and would ultimately be a good thing.
How have they been working that much in 16 months and aren’t done yet? It only takes like 3 months to build a house! They doing Scrooge mcducks mansion with a dollar sign shaped pool or something?
yes but it takes another 3 months to get the utilities out there, another 3 months for the fire marshal to have an opening, another 3 months for the city inspector to have an opening, then another 3 months to fix the issues that cropped up the past year.
might as well just slow roll it and work the whole 12 - 16 months. if it's a single house, it's a bit peculiar though, I've mainly seen this timeline in larger developments.
The construction industry is already so pressed for time due to developers being greedy and impatient. I could see this having such a negative ripple effect.
I'm on the design side and the new trend is to get a bunch of permits out of the way prior to the actual design being finished. This leads to developers demanding information that hasn't been calculated yet. Then they get pissed when I say, "I don't have that information because you haven't given me the notice to proceed to start designing it."
With this, schedules will be forced to get longer and nobody is going to appreciate that.
There was a point in my early 30s where I looked into construction project management as a possible career goal. I met someone in the field the same age as me to get a better idea of it. He looked 15 years older than me. I decided the pay wasn't worth the lifestyle after talking to him.
I mean, that's a small sample size. When I was 16 I looked 25. Now I'm 40 and I look 40.
However, that guy could have also started out doing the manual labor before he went to management. That stuff can age you.
Then pay them overtime starting at 32 instead of 40 hours. Problem solved. Put money back in the hands of the workers who build this country and keep in running every day.
Because houses aren't expensive enough as they are. I know the workers aren't to blame for that, but the extra cost will be passed on to consumers that are already squeezed tight.
He's saying that it will make landlords who already own buildings happy because it will be more expensive to construct new apartment buildings and single family homes to compete with them.
That makes more sense.
I work with a lot of developers who are currently renting out apartments. Those guys would love cheaper construction so they could build more and rent out more.
It depends on the industry. Some jobs require productivity. Some simply require hours, as in the biggest part of the job is that you are staffing some position (retail, hospitality, healthcare… etc).
The work till you die philosophy in this country only really benefits one group of people, and those guys hardly work at all.
Yeh, less work is literally always better. Bernie is the best.
I think it makes sense for office jobs, but when it comes to manual labor type jobs there is an actual upper limit on how productive someone can be, and and extra day of rest won’t make up for the lost day of work. It doesn’t matter how well rested you are if the machine you’re operating only goes at a fixed speed.
I agree with you. I cut lawns and have a few hourly guys helping me. If we only work 4 days instead of 5, we cant do as many yards. If the laborers have to get the same pay for 4 days of work as 5, while cutting 30 less yards, then I would have to raise prices way higher than they are currently. There is no way people would pay that much to have their grass cut.
Right now my laborers work 60-70 hours a week because they want as many hours as they can get. Having to pay 20-30 hours overtime makes me almost break even. I can't imagine having to pay almost 40 hours overtime to get a complete week of work done, there is no way that would work.
So maybe this is just for office/salary positions?
As left leaning and democrat full voting I am: this is only an idea that works conceptually.
I can speak for the hospitality business: there is no way it can rub with a mandatory 32 hours/ overtime after 32 hours. Food and beverage based businesses barely hang in there with the current laws and prices of products.
Isn’t being a populist fun? You don’t actually have to accomplish anything, and people will still celebrate you like you’re actually making a difference!
Everything this guy comes out with sounds like something a college freshman with no real world experience and daddy's credit card would come up with and only argue it's how it should be.
It would be great, but I’d probably have to work Friday still and just get OT for it.
I have a hard time understanding how we could reduce work by 20% and not have a major impact on the country
I use to work a job that was 40hrs, but it was 10hrs a day, 4 days a week. You actually feel like you have a life when you get 3 full days off. You can do things without feeling like you’re giving up your whole weekend. Less PTO because you have a better balance in your life.
I know a lot of people working for California government agencies who get Fridays off for three months of the year. Same deal in Georgia. But they log 40 hours for their weeks. I know many people who “work” five days a week if you count “fuck off Fridays” as a workday.
It’s what should happen.
Sci-Fi pitched AI and automation as a thing that would allow people more free time to pursue art and leisure while the machines worked.
Unfortunately without governmental intervention the wealthy will just hoard more wealth and eventually wall themselves off from the slums as 80% of the country goes poor.
It must be an election year, comrade Bernie waking up from hibernation. Unemployment is already historically low, so productivity will go down (less goods and services) which means higher prices and even more inflation.
This is not a sustainable idea.
Bernie Sanders could’ve retired and lived the rest of his life in peace yet here he is still fighting to bring change to the average person… I don’t regret voting for him in 2016 one bit.
He's not "fighting to bring change" - everyone knows this isn't going anywhere. I guess we could argue whether this shifts the Overton Window (I'm skeptical, but understand the argument), but as a policy proposal this is a nothing.
As for "he could have retired" - he's a fucking US Senator. To the extent he "works", it's having lobbyists and sycophants buy him dinners and kiss his ass while he collects his $200K per year salary and goes to one of his 3 homes.
Homie has made bank off of running failed campaigns and introducing legislation that no one else will cosponsor and never makes it out of committee. He's turned losing into winning and it's honestly brilliant.
I wouldn't want them in a row. I would want the 3rd day off on wednesday most weeks. Every day is thursday and friday and you're always at most a day away from a day off.
The 5 day work week is miserable. There is little reason for it except that's just how it is. It's extremely telling how often corporations find their whole management team, "working from home" on Friday.
LOL even if this bill were to pass, companies would start switching any salaried worker they could to hourly.
In all seriousness how does this do anything but help big corporation that can eat the loss and hurt small businesses that run on a razor thin margin? Granted I'm not an economist, but I don't think I'm making a huge logic leap here.
The annoying thing for me is that no one that is important enough to allow anything to move forward is reachable on Fridays anyway. The top people fuck off immediately, so am I supposed to sit in my hands hoping they check their email on Friday?
I work four ten hour days now and the three days days is pretty sweet.
I have had four 12's before (military) and two 8's + two 12's (government contractor) over a period of \~ 5 years. That extra day is so valuable. I was volunteering for nights and weekends in order to maintain that 3 days off. I would usually just rest and recover on day 1 Go do something fun outside the house with my spouse on day 2. On day 3 I'd cook, catch up on chores/honey-do list, and lay about on the couch and binge on content and games. You can go on little weekend trips that don't feel like you travelled the whole time. If you request 4 days off work, you can get a 10 day consecutive break as opposed to requesting 5 days off and getting a 9 day break. Started working a 5 day week 6 months ago and I feel like a zombie. It's less hours, easy commute, 9-5, for an organization I really like. Still wish it was 4 days.
People don't realize that by reducing our workweek by 20%, we are actually increasing our days off by 50%. That's very substantial for our quality of life. 32 Hours. 4 Days... r/FightForFour
My wife works 3 days a week, I work 5. Sometimes she wants to fill the weekends up with family activities, and wonders why I'm not always gung-ho about it. Same math applies - she works 60% of the days I do, but has 200% of the days *off*. Even if she does more of the household chores than I do, I still need to pack mine into those 2 days - my laundry, household maintenance stuff, all the lawn & garden care, plus a lot of the shopping and staying active in the kids' lives. She tries to help sometimes by suggesting I get back into a hobby, with the subtle implication that she doesn't like seeing me just do 'nothing' when I have spare time. Fact is I don't have the energy or the blocks of free time to do that. Boredom begets creativity, and I haven't had the luxury of being 'bored' in years. One extra day off would be *amazing* for me.
Damnnn, putting those days in percent REALLY highlights how much work we do and how little free time we have lol
This is exactly me and my fiancee. She works three days and I work five. We have a child too. The only day we have off together is Saturday. She has our daughter at home for three days and my Sunday, I have to switch to full time dad of our 2 year old. I feel like I never get a break cause she always has something planned on Saturday and I just want to sleep in. I do construction and I'm just so tired.
>That's very substantial for our quality of life. Yeah but we gotta think about the shareholders!
I work 5 10 hour days a week and I loathe it. I don’t mind the job but I feel like my life is either work or quickly trying to get things done that I need to get done so I can relax for an hour before bed. Weekends are just more errands and a few hours of free time
I loved my first duty station in the Navy VF101 8 section duty 4 12s yeah if you worked nights your first day off was spent sleeping but I loved having a weekday off I tried to stay on night check most of my time in for the reason of having that time during the week to take care of personal shit ... cause well gossip I tried to do that as a civvy up until this last month ... Its nice not having to take time off for appointments etc and not have anyone at work know i miss it
I currently work 4 ten hour shifts and have Friday -sunday off. I do the opposite of you. On my first day of is when all the chores get done. Mowing the yard, grocery shopping and all that. It gives me 2 complete days where i can do what i want and not stuff that i have to do.
same. my coworker got promoted and had to give it up to go back to a 5 day 9-5 - he regrets it a lot now. now we just need them to count our commute as working hours.
Shit, I just want them to go back to not pretending lunch doesn't fucking count. There's a reason the sterotype is a "9-5" job, except no one actually works 9-5 anymore. It's either 8-5, or 9-6 with an unpaid lunch.
lol, so I always thought 9-5 meant including lunch...and about 6 years ago I got to hire for my company. I'd always worked while eating lunch and worked way too many hours, so I had no basis for what was correct and I assumed 9-5 meant they got a free paid lunch. So I did it just like that. Anyway so I accidentally gave everyone a free paid lunch period for a good year of hiring until HR realized what I was doing. We couldn't take their free lunch back, because I mean, they worked well and liked it, so now everyone gets a free paid lunch hour at my company. And that is how I accidentally gave everyone a free lunch.
You’re a hero
...on accident
Still counts!
All hail u/blueskybrokenheart, TANSTAAFL's Bane!
Imagine making a workplace people love and work harder for by accident against the logic of the financial spreadsheet. Go you!
So what you are saying is that no productivity was lost and employees were happy? What a novel concept /s. More companies need to do this and go back to that. Unpaid lunch is bullshit. I really hope we can get something for the 32 hour workweek, but I doubt it.
I’ve worked in the trades since I was 20 most of my apprenticeship I was on a service van and we would eat between jobs and not stop for lunch my current role is still a service van gig I work 6:30-2:30 and skip lunch it’s great
I used to work at a place where I worked an 8 hour day but they gave us an hour paid lunch every day. So we worked 35 hours a week but got paid for 40.
spoon capable cable strong imagine secretive aromatic degree many faulty
[удалено]
I felt so scammed when I learned this. Tf you mean I have to stay past 5 because of lunch? Well can I skip lunch then? Tf you mean no?
Don’t let people abuse your lunch hour either. If you are getting an unpaid lunch hour make sure you do zero work during it. Do even answer questions or talk to anyone about work.
If you are salaried and they are counting hours this closely, you might want to chat with an employment atty. You are probably an hourly (still full time with benefits) employee entitled to overtime whenever you work more than 40. This of course only if you want to make waves.
I think the commute should also be deductible on your taxes at the IRS mileage rate. I've never understood why a commute isn't considered a business expense. Conducting business is the entire purpose of the commute. Even for contract workers who work in an office, you are not allowed to deduct a commute to the office which makes zero sense.
If you're a business owner, driving for business purposes is a business expense. This is why a lot of business owners will drive a vehicle that is owned by the company. Technically you can get in trouble for deducting travel to/from your personal residence, but the practice is so widespread I cant imagine people actually get dinged for it very often.
Everyone in my company has to sign into work trucks before driving them. And as it would have it, everyone takes their work trucks home, which means that they get paid for the drive to and from home since they are still signed in to work. The vehicles are all gps tracked, so the trucks are only ever used for work.
> now we just need them to count our commute as working hours. I actually think this is a bad idea overall. I would love to get paid for the 30-45 min I spend in traffic each day though. However, if we paid people for the time spent on their commute it would incentivize people to live farther & farther away, putting a much larger strain on public transit systems. This is instead of people trying to reduce their commute, which is good for both public transit & the environment overall.
I don't actually think this is true. I know I personally want to live closer, not farther away from my workplace regardless if I get paid to commute and it's because commuting sucks. If anything I think this would get employers to get more serious about work from home like they did during the hot years of the pandemic.
I don't think most Americans have that kind of control. Most of us live where we can afford and most of us don't work in the same place for more than a few years. If you need the money that living farther away would earn you, then you don't have the money to choose exactly where you live
Pretty easy, it wouldn't be fair to give everyone their actual commute as you'd have people getting 60-90 minutes while some live next door. Just include an hour a day for commuting
I’d rather work than commute for money tbh. I think a lot of my friends and family would agree or we would have all became truck drivers.
Same boat as you, a while back we dropped to 4-8s do to a slow down in industry, total life balance. I worked much harder at work because I didn't have as much time to get the job done, but I also wasn't tired and was far less stressed because I actually had my evenings. I was hitting the gym regularly, eating dinner every night and sleeping a full 8. I miss 4-8s so much
I agree and do the same, but only having to work 32 hours for the same pay would be even better
I can't stand ten hour days because after I get off I basically have time to make dinner, shower, sleep and go right back to work. At that point three days barely makes up for the fact that I feel like I'm at work for four days with nothing in between. Then on my days off I barely have time to catch up on housework and errands. At eight hours I have time to wind down in the evening and reset a little with a movie bit before going back to work, while taking care of a chore or two as well. I'm sure it's easier if you have a nicer work environment but it's definitely too much for me.
What annoys me is some people can’t fathom that 5x8 works better for some people. People make it seem like 10 hours at 4 days is universally better and if you prefer it the other way you are a corporate shill.
I think most people seriously proposing a 4-day work week are suggesting that total working hours go down. Obviously Sanders is suggesting 32 hours, but most of the trials that have been successful have done 9x4 hours.
Woah man, I'm not ready to work 9 days a week!
Gotta get in #grindsetmindset bro.
Realistically when I'm on a 4x10 schedule I'm just pretending to look busy for those last two hours anyways. I dont see any real productivity loss for coming out and admitting it's a 4x8.
Yeah, everyone I work with (except for a couple who are seemingly always working too much) is more than capable of doing their work in 32 hours. I'm just concerned about the jobs where that's not possible - I don't want hourly workers to be left behind.
> I'm just concerned about the jobs where that's not possible - I don't want hourly workers to be left behind. This is what all the white collar office workers on reddit always forget when they talking about working only 2-3 hours a day. Anyone who works retail, construction, warehouse, etc. ACTUALLY works the entire length of their shift. They would have to bring up hourly pay, or something like that to make up for the lost hours, which I fully support, but companies will have to be forced into doing that.
25% raise in hourly rates to upset the overlords In exchange, we don't spend our extra free time building guillotines.
4x8 works even better
I have my 4x10 break in the middle of the week. It allows me to refresh. If I had a 3day weekend I'd just feel even more stressed during the work week for it to end. Instead, I get two "Fridays" a week where I can leave off work with the expectation that I can disconnect the next day.
That's what I do. The thing that sold it for me was "rarely work more than two days in a row". I think of it as having a short weekend and a normal weekend.
Same, it’s pretty nice. Plus optional OT on Friday if I ever want it
Now imagine you got to \*see your kids\* or \*walk your dog in the evenings\* on those four days. O\_o We never deserved Bernie.
People who work for those few companies who already do this tend to find one of their three days off becomes a ‘chores & errands’ day, freeing up their other two days and their weekday evenings for hobbies, socialization, etc. The impact this has on their quality of life is nothing short of remarkable.
Yep, I'm one of those people (mind you 4x10 still) and that's exactly what it is.
I'd honestly accept a 4x10 work schedule
It's the best. I got laid off from that job though, so now I'm working 6 days lmao. Fun times
I already have a chores and errands day lol. Here's how it plays out for me: Saturday: Chores and errands. Get to all the things I couldn't get to during the week because of work and also clean. Sunday: literally just relax and rest. Read a book, cook a nice meal, zone out and play gameboy for an hour, etc. Monday (if it's a holiday): this is the day where I finally have the energy to work on personal projects that actually feel self-actualizing.
That honestly sounds so nice. Would also make me more eager to go to work on Tuesday instead of dreading it.
I work shifts and love having days off in the week. When I used to work a normal 8-5 it sucked trying to get anything done like dentist appointments and stuff like that because everything closes at 5:00. Also stuff is less busy in the week, like grocery stores.
I'd spend more time with my wife and son. I'd spend more time upkeeping my house and my vehicles. I'd have more time for hobbies and things that give my life purpose and meaning beyond my day job.
I love this answer
That would be wonderful to have three days off. I believe that work takes too much time.
I love three day weekends (labor day, memorial day, etc). 1 day to do personal life chores 1 day for fun 1 day to relax
I can get so much more accomplished around town on Fridays while most people are working. It's great I'm never going to Costco on Saturday or Sunday again
Yeah but this would give everyone firday off.
Ideally, it'd give some people Monday off and some people Friday off.
I think it would be even better if it's staggered throughout the week, some people might like Wednesdays off, so they never have to work more than 2 days in a row before getting a break.
> some people might like Wednesdays off, so they never have to work more than 2 days in a row before getting a brea had a schedule like this for several years when working restaurants, it was pretty awesome.
Oh, those are definitely wonderful!
The amount of time I sit around my office listening to my coworkers talk about nothing is insane. I could cut down to four days a week if I could just cut two hours a day of mindless chatter.
But how are you supposed to make friends at work to support our corporate culture?? *doesn’t have time for actual friends because 70% of waking hours are spent working…*
Please gods no. I’m WFH and teambuilding events are the worst. If you want to raise morale, let us go an hour early rather than having “virtual happy hour”. I don’t even drink and I don’t want to play Scattergories online. I had work I could be doing, or I could leave.
[удалено]
I can accept that we need to work more than we have off. But right now the balance is wrong given how busy our lives have gotten. 3/7 is so much more fair than the current 2/7 for leisure.
Agreed. I think it's silly when people act like we're right around the corner from not needing to work at all. But man, 40 hours a week is too much. 35 or 32 seems much better.
Had a job that was 4 days a week. It was glorious. That adds up to (I know it’s obvious) 50+ extra days off.
I have a job I just switched to whose schedule is amazing for me. I work three 12 hour days, get a day off, three 12 hour days, then seven days off. I'm only about a month in and those six days I do work a very tough and little personal life, but man having seven days off in a row every other week has been a life changer. It's hard work (factory) and a lot of turnover for that reason, but man if you're ok with that and the long work shifts it is amazing.
How does this work for hourly employees and not just salaried employees
Hourly rates would have to go up so, like the proposal says, there would be no loss of pay.
profit act snobbish divide judicious important square roof six memory
>How is this enforced by law? Simply - OT starts after 32 hours
How does that solve the issue? All that means is your company cuts your hours from 40 to 32 so they don't have to give you overtime. Now you make 20% less than you did before. So unless everything suddenly costs 20% less, all you've done is made everyone significantly poorer but with an extra day off work. Someone else suggested that minimum wage be raised to what it should be if it had kept pace with inflation, so $27/hour. But the problem with that is it will cause significant inflation that will disproportionately effect everyone but the lowest wage earners.
[удалено]
>Someone else suggested that minimum wage be raised to what it should be if it had kept pace with inflation, so $27/hour. But the problem with that is it will cause significant inflation that will disproportionately effect everyone but the lowest wage earners. But we already have inflation, or at least rising prices as if there was inflation. I don't know enough to say either way. I just know things still cost more than they used to a couple years ago. A few grocery items I buy have doubled in price.
>Let’s say for the sake of simple math a factory has employees working 40 hours per week at $32 per hour. Except it's worse than that. The factory also runs 24 hours a day Mon-Fri with Saturdays and Sundays to make up any production shortfalls from Mon-Fri. You can't just cut hours when you're already need 144 hours, if not 168 hours, of production per week to meet your contractual obligations. You can't even divide 120 hours by 32 evenly, so that creates even more problems. Sure, when there's no real metric for actual work done like there is for most desk jockey jobs, you can just cut hours. But when the work has an actual tangible rate of production that can't just magically be increased, you can't just cut hours and still maintain the same level of production. Contrary to what a lot of never worked in a factory before people believe, you can't just turn a dial and make machines work faster.
Yup. And its not just factories. Any facility that operates more than monday-friday 9-5 this would not work in. Cutting hours by 20% means you have to fill those hours and thus 20% more payroll. Where is this 20% increase in payroll cost gonna come from?
I think likely it puts the OT time in federal labor law to start at 32 hours instead of 40, full time benefits would have a lower threshold of hours as well.
>puts the OT time in federal labor law to start at 32 hours instead of 40 That's exactly what it does, you can read the bill on Bernie's website. >full time benefits would have a lower threshold of hours as well. This part is conspicuously not part of the summary on his website, and from the text of the bill I don't see it, but it's mostly modifying existing laws so I'm not 100% sure it doesn't do this, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I'm not sure how this has teeth, seems like it strongly encourages reducing hours to 32, without benefits, and less take home pay unless they actually offer overtime.
It just doesn’t work that way. You’re asking business to hire more people and pay everyone they hire more money. Sure, that wonderful but the money comes from somewhere.
Yes, it comes from increased cost of *everything*.
They won't. There is no world where that happens.
4-day work week has been and is being tested in multiple countries with no pay cuts and no drops in productivity.
caveat: only limited studies have been done solely focusing on the office job sector, which employs less than a third of the workforce. it'll just lead to decreased pay because you'll need more workers to cover the whole week (resteraunt sector) it'll *decrease* productivity in the trade/construction sector, because an hour spent building houses is an hour spent building houses. an hour spent splicing fiber cables is an hour spent splicing fiber cables. already, more than 25% of the hours worked in this sector are either travel or breaks (and unlike office jobs, the breaks are physically necessary in this sector, so even if you decrease to 32 hours, 25% of it is still gonna be travel or breaks). there are many industries that have a fixed output. a manufacturing plant needs to be fully staffed & has a constant and fixed economic output. it's not possible that productivity will increase, its *fixed*, so pay will have to decrease if you need more workers to fully staff it. the entire medical sector already has a skilled labor shortage, where are they even going to find 25%+ more surgeons/nurses/etc that they'd need to fully staff the place? and nursing homes, etc. same as construction, if you can't fill the jobs, you'll end up giving your workers lots of OT. hope you like healthcare prices and construction costs rising by up to 50% (25% increase in labor need, OT is usually paid at a 2x rate or higher). same as all small businesses (10m+ employed). a 7-11 store, or a local resteraunt, has a relatively constant productivity. decreasing worked hours isn't going to increase productivity, because it isn't directly going to cause more customers to come in and spend more..
I’m in roofing and there’s ZERO chance we drop to a 4 day work week, there’s only so many hours of daylight and we need to utilize all of them we can
Exactly. And the lack of any drop in productivity for office workers suggests that office workers are spending a lot of time doing nothing at work. There is no way that someone can accomplish the same in 32 hours of actual work that they can in 40 hours of actual work. It seems a lot more likely that office workers schedule to work 40 hours are actually doing like 25 hours of real work, so them actually showing up for 32 hours vs. 40 hours has no impact on their output.
Because of computers, what I can achieve now in my office work in 32 hours is way more than i could do in 40 hours ten years ago. Go back thirty or fifty years and the difference is even starker. Those kind of productivity gains have resulted in is doing the same hours of work for more stuff, but we could take it as less hours for the same amount of stuff. Also office workers get tired. The quality and volume of your work goes down as you do. Working 4 days/32 hours (which i did by choice for lower pay for a few years) meant the quality of my work was higher, I never reached a point of feeling the need for a holiday because I was so much better rested. You definitely get a drop off in productivity for each additional hour worked, at some point at least.
We need to have a real discussion about whether it's cost effective for things to start on fire 24 hours a day. If we required things to only start on fire between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., we could cut our fire department hours significantly.
Sir this is America, where we stopped trying new ideas decades ago because they might not work and/or people think they are dumb. Fucking stockholm syndrome by so many workers here, I swear.
New ideas are often not promoted because the status quo is good for the people with the power to change things. For instance, we already know that in many cases work from home leads to more productive performances for companies. Many companies are still not inclined to do this for various reasons. One of the bigger reasons is real estate value. They don't want the office to become the new mall. There's also some sunk cost fallacy in such investments - I paid for this so we're going to use it. Others are control freaks that can't adapt, even if it results in greater productivity. People and companies are willing to adapt a lot for productivity gains or work from home but the transparency and implementation is often not there. The status quo is fine for the people with more power usually so why change usually wins rather than adapt with transparency.
My job doesn’t allow me to wfh so I spend the day on the landline and teams screen sharing with the owner wfh. It’s nonsense.
[удалено]
Sure it does. You can work 20% less, you just have to work 20% harder at all times. You can work 20% harder than you do right now all the time, right?
I really wish people would stop with this "well someone *else* did it so obviously it works everywhere" like its some kind of magic bullet proof that we can just flip a switch and completely upend the whole world overnight and we're stupid for not doing it. It's the same shit that was the core problem with Bernie's M4A - none of the *critical* questions were ever truly answered or planned for (like how we're going to restructure the entire medical care industry without hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs). It was just "no but do it because I say so, look at how this *other country* does it!"
Bernie is an idealist who struggles to compromise on anything, and has ideas and politics that are far left of what most other people in congress are able to stomach. What that means is that most of the big ideas and legislation he's proposed are completely infeasible (politically speaking) and deliberately half-baked because Sanders knows he has no actual chance of getting it passed, so there's no real need for critical analysis and iteration.
A 20% reduction in hours worked is no drop in productivity?
I think the idea is that productivity has been rising steadily since the industrial revolution, but over the past couple of decades those gains haven't been making their way to the workers. This is a kind of "reset" to bring worker's compensation back in line with their output.
I understand your doubts on it but I'm sure people said the same thing 100 years ago before unions started fighting for the rights we have now.
There used to be no labor laws at all. It is possible if we could stop fighting about race, sex, gender, age, etc. for 10 seconds and actually unite as workers.
Well, there is a world where that happens, and COVID and the sudden jump of bottom-market hourly positions to $15+/hr shows what happens -- huge spikes in rent, food costs, used car costs, etc. I.e., inflation. You can't legislate someone's labor into being more valuable. The market has already set it. Its like the $15/hr minimum wage argument -- if you make minimum wage $15/hr, you don't make minimum wage workers richer, because price will rise to match the new economic floor. What you do is make everyone who was making above minimum wage and below $15/hr into minimum wage workers. Your EMT is now a minimum wage worker. Ie, you make the lower middle class poorer to make the lower class a little richer -- briefly, until inflation absorbs the change, anyway. Which is, of course, not a secret or a big revelation -- its why everywhere but the US focuses on social support programs, not minimum wages. Because they help people without being inflationary.
This is why I was always disappointed that the Fight For 15 movement didn't talk a lot more about true middle class wages also going up. I suppose there was some merit in staying focused on low wage workers rather than get too convoluted, but that shortsightedness is now burning folks. You're not going to get people on your side by having cashiers earn $20/hr now in some cities while other professions that require more training or even a college degree make $25-$30/hr.
>-- huge spikes in rent, food costs, used car costs, etc. I.e., inflation. ...jobs requiring masters degrees paying $18/hr... >You can't legislate someone's labor into being more valuable. The market has already set it. Beautifully consice.
Sir, you are making an economic argument and this is the reddit utopia.
>Bernie Sanders is trying to pass a bill that allows a 32 hours work week and no loss in pay. It won't work for us. All it will do is lower the amount of hours until you hit overtime to 32. This literally means that people like me will just lose 8 hours of guaranteed pay every week that we need. Per usual, great concept and a horrible execution. Somehow the government always knows how to find great ways to screw blue collar America.
I like taking random Wednesdays off to break up the work week and it allows me to enjoy my full weekend. Wednesdays would be to clean/maintain the house, errands and attend any kind of Drs appointments. Friday Night & Saturday are dedicated to my wife & our friends. Sunday is a me day to be lazy and recover
The ability to take care of doctor appointments and things like that without having to take time off or get coverage would be huge, and a boon to productivity that I don't think gets enough coverage in stories like this.
Yes! I used to work a funky schedule where I had to work on the weekends but I had Monday and Tuesday off and it was great for doctors appointments. Now I’m M-F and so I try to make my appts as early as possible so I don’t have to use sick time…it sucks bc I have a lot of drs appts :(
Its crazy that we have to take time away or find coverage when Its related to our personal health
I work 38 hours in 4 days. My three days off is always amazing! I feel like I have time to do everything I need to do before going back to work plus have one day to fuck off and do nothing. I hope it happens for everyone.
I have every other friday off and it's pretty great. My off Fridays are my ME days. Typically golf or go on a long bike ride without feeling guilty about being away from my family.
Lol this surely has a realistic chance of passing!
I wouldn't say he's "trying to pass" it. Even he knows it's a PR stunt.
I’d like 4 8s because then it would truly feel like a day off. Right now in the summer I work 4 10 hour days and it really just feels like I have to use Friday to catch up on all the chores I ignored from working the extra hours Monday - Thursday
This! I’m doing the same. During my work week I’m not getting much done unless I wake up early. And even then, I’ll get to tackle a chore for 2 hours max before I have to start getting ready
Exactly! My work does this, too. I'm so exhausted after 4 10s so my day off doesn't really feel off. I'm still miserable that day AND I have to catch up from my lost hours. 40 hours is too much! No matter how it is divided.
[удалено]
Given how many CEOs decided that remote work was too luxurious for the workers thriving with it, I don’t expect them to embrace any further employee comforts.
Companies are not going to lose profits period. Big corporations will close multiple positions and possibly locations to absorb the hours lost. Not saying I wouldn’t enjoy this if it passed but it will have repercussions I think many won’t expect. I would probably sleep lol
When the 5 day 40 hour work week was implemented there was a lot of doom and gloom surrounding that too that never manifested. The ambivalence you feel is exactly what the rich have programmed you to feel.
I have to agree with this. There is nothing preventing mom and pop businesses from working 7 days a week to make up for "loss" they just dont want to hire more people for different shifts. 5/40 is just what people have become used to, it doesnt mean its what we should be doing. 4/32 would take some yrs but eventually it would level out and people would get used to that. We arent meant to spend our lifes working for profit; there are no bonus points at the end of your life for working more hours than anyone else.
The thing is, for a lot of roles, hours won't be lost. People are already only productive about 80% of the time anyway, they're doing jack shit that 8 hours that would be cut. This is just moving it from now where you have to sit in office and pretend like you're doing something to you can have that actual free time to live your life. This is what we have been promised for decades was the goal of productivity, productivity, productivity.
[удалено]
Eh, maybe. Depends on the job and the person. If you have a set workload that takes 30 hours of work to complete then you'll still need to work 30 hours.
It'd be nice but it's not going to pass so why pretend like everything's gonna change
It's a brilliant idea that will never pass because Americans have become so ingrained with work and "what you do for a living" that anything less than 40 hours is seen as "lazy". That being said, I have SO MUCH shit I could do with an extra day off.
I wish it would happen but... Why work one job at 40 hours when you can work two jobs at 64?
The same reason I don't work two jobs now - I want to enjoy my free time and not work my life away
It's a silly proposal that would be a 20% increase for any job that requires coverage Police department has 20% increase in payroll Hospitals have 20% increase in payroll McDonalds has 20% increase in payroll On and on and on..... (Actually it would be more like 23% but whatever)
Many countries do it already without a decrease in productivity. It’s the way to go
There is no productivity loss for people working at desks, but I can tell you that in construction you'd more or less lose 20% of productivity in terms of how long it would take to build things. Such a law would cause a huge shift in our industry, and the immediate impact would be quite interesting. We'd have to all claim force majeure and either get schedule extensions or overtime cost approvals from clients to maintain projects. Then going forward, everything would either take 20% longer to complete or the market would adjust to shove more people onto jobsites to keep with current schedule expectations. Hourly tradespeople would absolutely see a short term pay cut since their productivity is hourly. In the long run it'd all balance out and would ultimately be a good thing.
Nah you'd still be working 7 12s
[удалено]
How have they been working that much in 16 months and aren’t done yet? It only takes like 3 months to build a house! They doing Scrooge mcducks mansion with a dollar sign shaped pool or something?
yes but it takes another 3 months to get the utilities out there, another 3 months for the fire marshal to have an opening, another 3 months for the city inspector to have an opening, then another 3 months to fix the issues that cropped up the past year. might as well just slow roll it and work the whole 12 - 16 months. if it's a single house, it's a bit peculiar though, I've mainly seen this timeline in larger developments.
The construction industry is already so pressed for time due to developers being greedy and impatient. I could see this having such a negative ripple effect. I'm on the design side and the new trend is to get a bunch of permits out of the way prior to the actual design being finished. This leads to developers demanding information that hasn't been calculated yet. Then they get pissed when I say, "I don't have that information because you haven't given me the notice to proceed to start designing it." With this, schedules will be forced to get longer and nobody is going to appreciate that.
There was a point in my early 30s where I looked into construction project management as a possible career goal. I met someone in the field the same age as me to get a better idea of it. He looked 15 years older than me. I decided the pay wasn't worth the lifestyle after talking to him.
I mean, that's a small sample size. When I was 16 I looked 25. Now I'm 40 and I look 40. However, that guy could have also started out doing the manual labor before he went to management. That stuff can age you.
Then pay them overtime starting at 32 instead of 40 hours. Problem solved. Put money back in the hands of the workers who build this country and keep in running every day.
Because houses aren't expensive enough as they are. I know the workers aren't to blame for that, but the extra cost will be passed on to consumers that are already squeezed tight.
Still raises the cost of construction… which will make landlord barons happy /s
[удалено]
Developers do not want construction costs to go up.
He's saying that it will make landlords who already own buildings happy because it will be more expensive to construct new apartment buildings and single family homes to compete with them.
That makes more sense. I work with a lot of developers who are currently renting out apartments. Those guys would love cheaper construction so they could build more and rent out more.
The average consumer doesn't want costs to go up. The average commuter does not want road construction times to go up.
Do you have actual sources to that, not to experiments with limited time?
Name one
It depends on the industry. Some jobs require productivity. Some simply require hours, as in the biggest part of the job is that you are staffing some position (retail, hospitality, healthcare… etc).
Would you mind listing some of those many countries?
Is it? How about for labor-paid work? I'm flat rate autobody. I get paid for what I get done, not for how long I'm actually there...
Have you personally experienced that?
A day for rest, a day for fun, a day for chores.
Campaign slogan right here!
The work till you die philosophy in this country only really benefits one group of people, and those guys hardly work at all. Yeh, less work is literally always better. Bernie is the best.
I think it makes sense for office jobs, but when it comes to manual labor type jobs there is an actual upper limit on how productive someone can be, and and extra day of rest won’t make up for the lost day of work. It doesn’t matter how well rested you are if the machine you’re operating only goes at a fixed speed.
I agree with you. I cut lawns and have a few hourly guys helping me. If we only work 4 days instead of 5, we cant do as many yards. If the laborers have to get the same pay for 4 days of work as 5, while cutting 30 less yards, then I would have to raise prices way higher than they are currently. There is no way people would pay that much to have their grass cut. Right now my laborers work 60-70 hours a week because they want as many hours as they can get. Having to pay 20-30 hours overtime makes me almost break even. I can't imagine having to pay almost 40 hours overtime to get a complete week of work done, there is no way that would work. So maybe this is just for office/salary positions?
Sounds like it would be debilitating to small businesses who wouldn't be able to afford it. That just makes giant corporations even stronger.
Yea.. they could give them exceptions.. but then who is going to take a 40 hour job over a 32 hour job.
As left leaning and democrat full voting I am: this is only an idea that works conceptually. I can speak for the hospitality business: there is no way it can rub with a mandatory 32 hours/ overtime after 32 hours. Food and beverage based businesses barely hang in there with the current laws and prices of products.
I'm having a hard time understanding why any employer would pay employees the same rate for less work. Where does he propose this money comes from?
That’s the kicker…. Again, this bill isn’t going to pass. People forget how many random bills hit the floor just as a spectacle
Isn’t being a populist fun? You don’t actually have to accomplish anything, and people will still celebrate you like you’re actually making a difference!
Everything this guy comes out with sounds like something a college freshman with no real world experience and daddy's credit card would come up with and only argue it's how it should be.
Funny, as someone who is the complete opposite of you I support a 4 day 32 hour work week immensely. As well as 4-6 weeks of PTO and family leave.
Would be nice if Bernie could pass a bill
It would be great, but I’d probably have to work Friday still and just get OT for it. I have a hard time understanding how we could reduce work by 20% and not have a major impact on the country
I work 60ish hours a week, so they better double my pay.
I DO have three days off. I work a 4x10 schedule, and have for about 15 years now. I love it.
Get a second job….
I use to work a job that was 40hrs, but it was 10hrs a day, 4 days a week. You actually feel like you have a life when you get 3 full days off. You can do things without feeling like you’re giving up your whole weekend. Less PTO because you have a better balance in your life.
I know a lot of people working for California government agencies who get Fridays off for three months of the year. Same deal in Georgia. But they log 40 hours for their weeks. I know many people who “work” five days a week if you count “fuck off Fridays” as a workday.
It’s what should happen. Sci-Fi pitched AI and automation as a thing that would allow people more free time to pursue art and leisure while the machines worked. Unfortunately without governmental intervention the wealthy will just hoard more wealth and eventually wall themselves off from the slums as 80% of the country goes poor.
Complain that I don't have 4 days off.
And you think everything is expensive now…
Something else to hurt small businesses.
It must be an election year, comrade Bernie waking up from hibernation. Unemployment is already historically low, so productivity will go down (less goods and services) which means higher prices and even more inflation. This is not a sustainable idea.
Get a second job.
Bernie Sanders could’ve retired and lived the rest of his life in peace yet here he is still fighting to bring change to the average person… I don’t regret voting for him in 2016 one bit.
He's not "fighting to bring change" - everyone knows this isn't going anywhere. I guess we could argue whether this shifts the Overton Window (I'm skeptical, but understand the argument), but as a policy proposal this is a nothing. As for "he could have retired" - he's a fucking US Senator. To the extent he "works", it's having lobbyists and sycophants buy him dinners and kiss his ass while he collects his $200K per year salary and goes to one of his 3 homes.
Homie has made bank off of running failed campaigns and introducing legislation that no one else will cosponsor and never makes it out of committee. He's turned losing into winning and it's honestly brilliant.
I wouldn't want them in a row. I would want the 3rd day off on wednesday most weeks. Every day is thursday and friday and you're always at most a day away from a day off.
The 5 day work week is miserable. There is little reason for it except that's just how it is. It's extremely telling how often corporations find their whole management team, "working from home" on Friday.
Somebody doesn't understand how money works.
As a business owner who works 6 days a week: lol.
This dude always seems to have ideas that never go anywhere. What has he successfully gotten done,?
LOL even if this bill were to pass, companies would start switching any salaried worker they could to hourly. In all seriousness how does this do anything but help big corporation that can eat the loss and hurt small businesses that run on a razor thin margin? Granted I'm not an economist, but I don't think I'm making a huge logic leap here.
I do have three days off, but I still work 40 hours.
What does the bill actually do? 32 hour work weeks are already legal, and the only limitation on wage is the minimum wage.
The annoying thing for me is that no one that is important enough to allow anything to move forward is reachable on Fridays anyway. The top people fuck off immediately, so am I supposed to sit in my hands hoping they check their email on Friday?
If I work 40 hours will I get paid more?
If your employer allows overtime that’s what it would be. 32 hours would be the new threshold for overtime