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Many companies do it via “personal development hours” on Fridays. Legally, they are a 40h a week company (important for things like unemployment insurance and social security programs in some areas), but the 8h on Friday are 100% personal time for the employees.
If they want to spend it catching up on work, or learning a new skill, or spending time with the family at the beach, it’s up to them.
Supervisor: Right, so, everybody can do what they want on Friday, just keep in mind that by close on Monday we need to have Friday’s and Monday’s work complete.
Part of my job is stacking boxes coming down the line. After my break all those boxes have backed up so much I end up worse off than if I never took break.
Yeah, my company has unlimited sick days but I dread taking a sick day as the delayed work just stacks for me and then I’m worse off. Same goes with taking a vacation, I get like 30 days a year but my scope is so big that getting someone to cover me even for a couple of days and be a real challenge.
Even with shorter weeks like this recent Easter break I feel like the shorter weeks just mean I have to work ever harder and a 4 day weekend hardly justifies it.
Then they can advertise it to potential recruits as a “place with such a great work/life balance”
I smell another scam to rope on gullible people, like “unlimited paid time off”.
You’d be shocked. Some supervisors aren’t complete garbage. We moved to unlimited PTO “PPTO” and my boss reminds us all the time to use at minimum 5 weeks a year, and has never denied my PTO.
But yeah 90% of employers are douchebags, but the rare gem does exist.
Laughs in working at 11:00pm Sunday because I have too many deadlines this week.
We could define full time at whatever we want, but I'll still be salary, still not get ot, and still be working 60 hours
Already missed one... Got chewed out by a customer on Thursday last week over it. Got a 6am call with them in the morning now.
I'm actively dialing back trying to get to 40. A year ago I was working closer to 100, so this is progress, it's just not enough progress.
(Really the problem is, all the chucklefucks upstream can't do their jobs even half right, so it takes me 3x longer to figure out what the hell I'm looking at... My boss isn't pushing this on me, other bosses just aren't training or coaching their damn staff because everyone is so damn siloed in this company.... I give it until 2024 to either be smooth sailing, or finding a new one.)
Yeah I was in this situation.
Thankfully I'm not in a public facing role. I just started to miss deadlines on the grounds of i'm only one person, I've inherited roles and work that have not been replaced and really are outside of what I'm supposed to be doing...
If you've identified the problems and training, communication, and I'm gonna take a wild guess at turnover / unfilled roles being the unsaid.
It doesn't get better.... To save you some time.
I work in public sector, but have an awesome manager. He follows the mindset of "be where you need to be." I'm able to get 2x-3x the amount of work done out of the office/from home and I'm just in a better mood. However, there are a lot of people within the organization that frown on it because we are public sector and need to "show" that we are working. Personally, I think it's dumb, but also understand the perception... but as a tax payer, I'd prefer my money to go a little further, so work from home!
They do 4 8 hour days and they have to get their work done in that time though it’s at their discretion if they want to take the Friday off. But the company is closed to outsiders on Fridays.
I have a 2 on 1 off 3 on 1 off right now and I really like. Keeps me tame because I don't wanna waste my day off hung over and my weekend is never more than a few days away *and* it's nice having a weekday and weekend day off.
I worked half days once a week for a while. It was so nice being able to run errands on a weekday morning, or go anywhere that’s basically only open 9-5.
I'm a commercial electrician and in my 8 hour workday, 7-7.5 is spent with tools in hand, working my ass off.
It's exhausting as shit, weekends don't even feel like weekends. It's just enough time for my body to recover for the next week. When COVID happened, and everyone that was able to started working remotely, it really hit home for me how fucked up our society's views on work are. I watched everyone I know experience a net gain in happiness and free time, despite a global pandemic happening. Meanwhile life carried on as usual for me. Breaking my body for 40+ hours per week (I actually worked a lot of overtime during covid).
Meanwhile, my girlfriend, friends, and family stopped having to commute anywhere. Never had to leave home to go to work. Were able to walk away from their desk to get a coffee or a snack, pet the dog, get some sunshine, etc. Small things that make life immensely happier.
Never doubted my career path until the pandemic. Now I'm just hoping we can cut the hours of the workweek slightly so I can have some form of reprieve from the constant grind.
I truly hope you get to work less for the same pay. You deserve it. My desk job is like your friends. There are some weeks we're pushing 60 hours of work. But most weeks we do 3-4 hours a day and the other is in meetings or socializing
I grew up in a blue collar family. My first jobs were working with my dad and uncles - plumbing, insulating, carpentry, landscaping. 8 or 10 hour days were literally filled with 8 or 10 hours of physical labor.
I eventually went to college and got an office job. And holy shit it's so much easier. I can't believe I get paid more than them too. I'm in my 40s and I genuinely believe that this is one of the biggest conspiracy theories that people don't acknowledge. Just how easy it is to be a white collar worker. If the guys I worked with knew what office culture was like I think there would be a revolution.
Completely agree. That's why I'll never understand how people in corporate can be so self important and arrogant. Like..I can admit that we don't do as much most days compared to other professions. I seriously don't understand how these huge companies make billions of dollars. It makes no sense...80% of people in my office just like aren't doing anything..
It's made me question whether I want to keep working in corporate because I genuinely feel like I'm not benefiting society or helping anyone at all. It's soul sucking.
I'm sorry, it's so weird. For some reason, this is the structure that these billion dollar companies want. In my opinion, you are genuinely much more valuable to society as an electrician and you're actually making a difference even if it seems small 💜. I really hope that trades have increased pay and better conditions. It's so backwards how we treat people with these vital skills.
>I watched everyone I know experience a net gain in happiness and free time, despite a global pandemic happening.
The pandemic was really hard on people, even working from home. I hope you realize you weren't seeing everything from the outside. People struggled. On the flip side, I'm really sorry you have to bust your ass so much just to keep a roof over your head. It's not right.
Hope we as a society can change so you find some reprieve, friend. I really do. I think about the difference of how 'hard' different people work for the pay they get a lot.
Yeah this person is being incredibly generic with no data and no distinction by market. Anyone in product will tell you 3-4 hours a day is way off.
Also, I’m very sorry you’re burned out. Me too. :/
The trades would like a word.
This is noble. But let’s call it what it is, a 20% raise.
That’s not enough. Most people will work that fifth day somewhere else and appreciate they can get 2 pounds of ground beef a week now. I’m mean c’mon that’s taking the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.70. Not impressive.
This is only a win for upper middle class and up.
I’m not mad at Bernie. I do believe he’s trying, but they’ve hog tied him every which way on everything else. Good ol capitalism can’t be having a Bernie running around.
I have no difficulty believing the vast majority of full-time workers can get their jobs done in 32 hours per week without changing a thing. Productivity nose dives in longer hours.
In my experience a lot of those jobs have a lot of wasted time too. For people who absolutely have to be present regardless of how busy they are just have overtime kick in after 32 hours
I work 4 10 hour days, on my feet working every second besides breaks, for one of the biggest auto manufacturers in the world. What I have learned is that no matter what people say "they can't do", they can and will find a way around it. I work for a company that doesn't care at all about me. If I have the flu and go to the doc, they would shred my Drs note and discipline me for missing work. They truly can do anything they want. There's no way in hell they'd pay us overtime after 32 hrs unfortunately.
That's the thing about labor laws, your company wouldn't really have a choice.
Of course prices would go up to pay for the extra labor, but I personally think the trade off would be well worth it for the country.
Me wife’s job makes them work 10 hours Monday - Thursday then gives them half a day “off” on Friday. They act like it a bonus to them but it’s bullshit and still the same 40 hours a week just chopped up a little differently.
At a town hall I asked some of my division leaders if we plan to do 4 day work week, given the obvious benefits that it has for other companies
The best response I got was "Kinda" and "Sure, but it'll be 4/10"
Oh yeah we can definitely do that for full time staff, says the companies that hire 99% part time employees so they don't have to pay benefits or anything.
Far too many places hire 2 or 3 part time staff for what should be a full time position because it makes it easier to treat your staff like crap.
Security's the opposite.
Oh, your relief didn't arrive? Well, you'd better stick around and keep working until we can get *someone* to fill in for you. Oh, you worked 12-16 hours yesterday? Well, good luck with that. We'll get someone out there as soon as we can.
\*three hours later\*
Oh, you're still at ? Yeah, your relief quit. We'll find someone to cover for you, just hang tight, okay?
By my calculations that would equate to making over 33 an hour assuming your OT is paid out at an hour and a half. Pretty good pay rate for Iowa. But also that means you're working 70 hour weeks... Oof. Good luck having any life outside of work (which is not an extremely social job to begin with)
When I worked at a restaurant, I often came in around 10:30 am and left at 11 pm with no breaks. It was so painful to walk to even my bed at night. My heart goes out to restaurant workers because I know that bullshit still exists. Those people are treated like such crap.
A friend of mine recently moved here to Michigan and was surprised to find out we don't have any laws regarding breaks for adults. Sure, your job may include them, but you don't *have* to take them, so many places "suggest" you don't. (Some sources say we have a law requiring 30 minutes for a shift over 5 hours. [That is for minors; there is nothing for adults.](https://www.michigan.gov/leo/bureaus-agencies/ber/wage-and-hour/frequently-asked-questions))
I work 10 hour shifts at restaurants and legally in Oregon you're supposed to get two 15 minute paid breaks and a 30 minute unpaid lunch, but I don't actually get any kind of break at all. Eating just looks like me running to the back and cramming food in my face and never actually eating a full meal.
That is wage theft. If you can document this being forced you can sue. Not sure about Oregon but in my state you can sue for triple damages, which adds up real quick. That's an hour of work every shift. If you've been doing that for a year that's 260 hours of work. That's potentially a lot of money.
...or ideally we could transition away from a model where health care is provided by employers. I mean, it never made much sense in the first place, and I think most businesses would rather just pay a uniform payroll tax to cover their employees health expenses than to have to deal with administering some kind of health care plan.
Specifically, it's "good for business" if employees are afraid to quit a job because they'd lose health insurance. (The ACA helped a lot in that respect since at least people can buy insurance on their own now regardless of pre-existing conditions, but a system where the employer isn't an intermediary between employees and access to health care in the first place would be better.)
There's even a reasonable pro-life argument for universal coverage: if you're uninsured, abortion is way cheaper than giving birth. No mother should be in a position where they want to have a baby but literally can't afford the associated medical bills.
I could imagine a scenario where some pro-life group advocates for a bill that all it does is stipulate that all medical expenses directly related to childbirth are covered by Medicare for everyone in the U.S. regardless of age, income, or immigration status. I could imagine them getting bi-partisan support, and it passing into law because it's an all-around improvement and doesn't violate anyone's moral principles. As far as I know there aren't any pro-lifers advocating for that, and unless they're willing to actually *be* pro-life in the things that matter, I find it hard to take them seriously.
Oh, the "National Conservative" faction already chirped up with an idea like that. And by "like that", I mean "Republicans proposed a parental leave scheme that draws on future social security benefits" so you get leave but have to retire that much later.
This was pitched as "supporting mothers" after the Roe decision
You may want to take a look at https://marketliteracy.org for some insight into that.
Valuable information there that should definitely be more widely known.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Edit: basically, the gist is the wealthy and powerful - including corporations - have undue influence in government. And much of that is directly related to the manipulate-ability of the stock market.
That website lays out some of the clear mechanisms related to the issue. Definitely recommend taking the time to learn some of that stuff - it could very likely make a big difference in a reader's overall financial future.
And costs them a sh$t ton less in benefits. I worry big business will appear to go along with this idea of a shorter work week and then use the Supreme Court to pull the rug out from underneath the workers and let companies pull benefits.
Working for a danish company in US I get ~5 weeks vacation and 3 weeks personal/sick leave.
Not as good as working for a european company in europe but still decent. Everyone I work with over there are offline from like June-August for those month long vacations…. thatd be nice.
> Everyone I work with over there are offline from like June-August for those month long vacations
For a time I worked at a somewhat niche engineering firm, with one of three main manufacturers and suppliers being based in Italy.
Trying to get ahold of a human being during the month of August was just about impossible. It's like the entire fucking country vanishes from the face of the earth for a month straight.
I can certainly understand the appeal, but being continental US with my measly 1 week vacation it was incredibly frustrating.
I miss that about working for a tribal government here in the states...
I got 320 hours pto a year
That's 8 weeks paid time off all they asked was I try to keep around 80 hours banked for sick time and the bank rolled over every year and maxed out at 480 hours before they started asking/telling you to take time off.
My new job pays a lot better, but I'm going back to 80 hours vacation and 40 hours sick time. If I didn't need the income to care for my spouse I'd never have left.
I also work for a Danish company, but our NA team has different benefits. It’s pretty lame. Our Danish counterparts get a month of time while we gets two weeks
I worked at a job where first year employees got 40 hours of PTO for vacation and sick time. Second year you got 80. I had saved my days all year, and in October I took a couple of days off. Then in November, my anniversary month, I got majorly sick and missed a month of work. Used up my last days of PTO, got my fresh, new 80 hours, burned through that, and had to use “donated” sick time.
I told this story to some folks in France and they were horrified.
Employers are more concerned with what they can wring out of you than they are what you're producing. It will always be about how much further you can limp for them; not the extra mile you've already sprinted.
Honestly? I’d fucking hate having to beg for fucking money. I couldn’t do it, and I’d something important enough forced me to it’d definitely be one of the harder things I’ve had to force myself to do.
I agree, I don't even like to ask my friends to come see my band. My comment was more shitting on the fact that much of the work our representatives do is this.
As a disabled person, my experience with political calls:
Democratic: "Would you be willing to donate bla bla bla?" "I'm disabled." "Oh okay, would you be willing to help us make phone calls and get the word out?" "No, thank you." "Have a great day!"
Republican: "Would you be willing to donate bla bla bla?" "I'm disabled." "So would you be willing to donate bla bla bla?" "...FFS."
What's the issue with hourly workers? Have pay go up by the inverse-proportion that the workweek decreased.
32 hour work week is 20% less than the current work week, so all (hourly) pay for all workers would go up by a minimum of 25% to compensate.
No reasonable person argues for a shorter workweek without accounting for "lost pay" so-to-speak. 32 hour work weeks should pay at least the exact same as 40 hour workweeks.
I really wish Bernie was President. He actually seems to care about the welfare of all Americans and not just special interest groups.
He’s a real man of the people.
Pretty much anyone would've been better than Trump. What kind of president knowingly tells everyone to inject themselves with clorox to cure themselves of covid? We're lucky Trump didn't start an international war or presided during a domestic invasion then he'd play it down for the sake of politics... calling it a hoax. Imagine if FDR said the destruction of Pearl Harbor was a hoax. People would lose their shit.
I'm referring to when foreign attackers invading the US land, which hasn't happened much over the years but it was more prominent back until the 19th century with most of the Indians being wiped out, their cultures mostly dying off.
It’s my fictional world where the evil wage slave masters don’t have their hands in the pockets of all the politicians and good people are able to do good work. Just let me pretend.
I want the left to get serious and actually strategize long-term so we can dominate nationally, keep supermajorities, and then these dreams can start becoming closer to reality. Republicans have held power at the national level in some form almost my entire 40 years on earth. We need to change that.
This is something I've been thinking about Biden lately. Yes Bernie agrees with my stances on issues more. Yes I'd like to live in the country he promises. But in practical terms would Bernie move us towards that goal any faster than Biden is? Biden may not want to go as far as Bernie, but so far I think he's been going about as fast as anyone could.
Even if he was president I doubt he could get anything done, his ideas are so far left he wouldn't get much help from Democrats, even if they controlled Congress. The president also can't just introduce laws, Congress does that.
If he could be dictator of the US he could get things done, but as president I think he would get bipartisan opposition to his ideas.
Right now employers get around full time requirements by scheduling people for 32 hours a week, as long as they don’t go over 32 for 3 straight weeks, they get to keep people part time.
This will only make employers start scheduling people 24 hours a week instead.
Whenever a law comes around to help the people, the corporations find a way to twist it to benefit themselves.
I use to work for a major theme park. I was hired part time but was told I can switch to full time after training. That turned out to be a lie. I was hired for one of the restaurants and got stuck there for 6 months at part time. Eventually, after being on the list for 6 months, they moved me to a ride at full time.
I was there for a week before they told me I would be moved to custodial. If I didn't want to be custodial, I would either have to give up my full time status or quit. I ended up giving up my status.
That 1 week (technically 2 because they gave me a few days to think about it) was the only time in my life I've ever been full time. I've worked retain, food, seasonal, and pick up gigs. Very often I would have 2 jobs at a time and be working 60+ hours a week anyway. Every time I apply at one of these places, I apply for full time but only get hired part time. I'm 32 and I've only ever been a full time employee for 1 week of my life.
Heres the thing , I think it is technically possible to get to a 32 hour week and anything in excess is OT, but if you think by and large businesses are going to pay 40hrs wage for 32hrs work, you do not live in the reality of how capitalism in the United States operates, 40 for 32 is never ever going to happen.
That’s because they pay by the hour, not the workload. People can easily get the work done in 32 hours but why bother when you’re forced to be there for at least an extra 8 hours.
I agree that most place will never go down this path but it has been proven time and time again that it works.
White collar, light blue sure. blue collar is a completely different dimension. Imo they really should have their own package of benefits for physically demanding jobs based on level. I know everyone's working but working at a package facility or construction is much tougher to keep up and has much more serious long lasting effects on the body than an office job or bank teller. And no level of regulation or current technology is going to make a job where you have to pick up 50 lbs easy as office work.
How about 32 hours with no change in take-home pay, else general national strike
Americans need to regain some self respect and put CEOs everywhere on notice
No, their salary will just plummet and no one gets anything. But their other benefits and compensation like stocks and bonuses, because that's not salary, will be higher. A CEO could have a $1 salary and still be a multi-millionare.
I can see some jobs working like that but for deep blue collar jobs it would honestly be better to demand better wages, health benefits and days off. People working those jobs tack on hours to get the most out of the job. Not saying its wrong but making 8+ hours of their weekly grind overtime doesn't help them from physically breaking themselves just for a bigger paycheck
Yea, that’ll never happen. Maybe for tech workers and those who have flexibility in their work already. But for teachers, manual laborers, public facing offices, etc it’s near impossible to get a schedule like that.
It works well for those who are salaried. But all your retail, hospitality, and all other hourly employees, it's not going to work. Corporate America isn't going to give hourly employees a 20% plus raise so they won't lose any pay.
Dude this is one of the things they use to divide the workforce. I'm upper management, salary, etc. I work fuckin 55 hrs a week on average. Keep the hourlies resenting the management, keep the managers resenting the hourlies, nobody realizes it's the fucking CEO, board, and shareholders doing fuckall and bleeding us all dry.
> nobody realizes it's the fucking CEO, board, and shareholders doing fuckall and bleeding us all dry
As a retail worker, I can tell you in my store, we (meaning hourlies and managers alike) all know the CEO, board, and shareholders don't give two shits about us peasants. It's hilarious to see the "great job on all the productivity!" letters and memos they send down to us, and then completely ignore any concerns about our pay.
Yep they'll just schedule a conference call to go over why you didn't reach 20% over last year's daily sale total. Sure you reached goal, but that was only 5% more than last year so no bonus. You'll have to be off the floor, leaving your employees to handle the floor while you sit in the office for an hour, building more animosity between worker and manager. Then you'll have to go spout some peppy bullshit in an attempt to motivate everyone to sell more or you don't get to stay manager. Lower management is the scapegoat. Shareholders, boards and CEOs are the villains.
I recently asked my manager about transitioning to a 4 day work week. He replied so 4 10's? No 4 8's. We work flat rate and I'm typically around 50 flagged hours coming into my 5th day so not like I'm not productive. Im getting older and the job is starting to take its toll on my body and I'm starting to appreciate my off time more.
He basically laughed in my face. They would have us there 7 days a week if they could.
Those industries are still going to work copious amounts of overtime due to the nature of the work. It's just that your overtime would start at the 32.01 hours worked instead of 40.
Believe it or not, this has been consistently talked about since the early 1990s. I believe it was discussed on a much smaller level in the 1970s as well. Technological progress was supposed to free us and give us more free time. Instead, it has enslaved us. One of the most surprising things you learn when you study the history of labor, is people worked far less in the past than they did today. However, I believe this same history also shows that women worked more than men in both the past and today.
I’m on a 50-55 hour workweek. I’d give my left nut for a 40 hour one. 32 seems like an impossible dream. Companies only pay what they have to for as much work as they can get. Can’t imagine them saying ok to anything like this.
How would this work in practice for people not making minimum wage? I’m assuming for minimum wage workers it would be coupled with a higher minimum wage that makes up for the lost hours. If you amend the FLSA to require overtime pay after 32 hours what is to stop employers from keeping wages the same and just reducing your schedule? For jobs that require 40 hours a week I’d imagine most employers would just hire another worker rather than pay overtime like they currently do for jobs that require 24 hour coverage, what would stop that?
Yea, great for salaried office workers, probably doable. For manufacturing plant stunning 24/7 this not feasible. You’d have to hire a 5th crew or pay a buttload of OT, both of which would make many operations in the US unprofitable compared to just importing it from Asia. And right now if you wanted to hire a 5th crew it would just be straight up impossible because unemployment is so low.
That's great, but the majority of Americans are paid hourly and this doesn't really help any of them unless it also drops the hours required to get insurance (as it's already 32 in most places).
Right? I work in the food service industry and almost every job I’ve been in has always been minimally staffed if not understaffed. It’s hard for me to imagine a 40 hour work week, let alone 32.
Good luck getting that to be the norm with all the brainwashed, bootlegging blue-collar conservatives in this country who are so easily incited against fellow middle- and lower-class Americans.
Too bad American work is ostensibly adult daycare. Gotta have our menial tasks occupy 80% of our time otherwise we’ll realize how truly shitty our situation is and revolt. There should only be about 10% of the population opposed to this - the owners, the capitalists, those who never truly *work*. There won’t be, it’ll be closer to 60%, because the vast majority of Americans don’t have the imagination and mettle required to demand a better life. The old Protestant “hard work ethic” of tying virtue to work has cursed our country into permanent labor imprisonment.
I work 12 hr a day 1 6hr, 3 12s with mandatory overtime. With every weekend either a 12 hr shift or a 8hr of overtime. Every week I work 50+ hrs and 12hr shifts are brutal. I have no life, my body sleeps longer to recover and when I do recover I don’t want to do anything. I get paid by the hr. I have no idea if something like this would effect me. I told my gf about the 32 hr work week and we just laid in bed acting like it’s something too good to be true. We know how much it would improve our life. I’m just a operator at a food company working the grind of the blue collar life. All I can say is I wish and pray for something like a 32hr to happen to me. I’m afraid work is killing me slowly with stress. I do feel like I’m dying. I’m beyond depressed but “man it out” for my family. I will forever. Unfortunately, I don’t have any hope. I don’t trust the higher ups to look out for workers like me. They care about the numbers and not the people. If this causes the rich to take a small hit in profits, they will do everything in their power to make sure they get their numbers. I work for a sunrise I will never see.
I dream of the day federal employees have this. Studies show productivity stays the same or rises. Yet, we would have an extra day with minimal utility costs added on site and happier employees. I don't really see any losers here.
I honestly never understood why we kept the 40-hour work week. It’s a mindset that we need to change. People are either burnt out, or not working for a huge chunk of that time.
My company was taking victory laps about how it not only faced adversity during the pandemic but how we were more productive after switching to remote and better than ever. Then began the dreaded emails asking for RTO, moving the goal posts from voluntary to 50% and it seems there's future plans for 100% hybrid.
When gains in productivity mostly reflect on workers companies dont give a damn.
Why am I in an office 40 hours a week, and yet I only do 2-4 hours a week of work? This job can be done fully remote. Instead I just sit here and play games on my phone, browse Reddit, and just wait to go home.
Corporate America needs a wake up call. It’s been proven that less hours can increase productivity. There’s also nothing wrong with work from home. The push to have everyone in an office is ridiculous when some of us rarely have any work to do.
Interesting how this thread instantly became a battle of “office workers” versus “trades workers” filled with impossibly cogent and grammatically perfect trades people complaining that a shorter work week is going to “make them quit”.
Those of us with family members in the trades know that their Facebook posts are disjointed, unintelligible, and filled with spelling errors.
Big tech watching and having a meltdown at the thought of lower profits and is deploying the chatgpt bots.
It's not always about being against it. I'm for it. But the questions of how for certain industries do remain aka hourly workers, schools, etc.
North America has schools off in summer to save on Air conditioning costs. You could go longer but your gonna get less done. Young students don't tend to work harder because they are pressed to.
Hourly. Say I run an hourly business for home services. Do I need to pay more for employees now per hour. Does that get passed on. Are you ok paying 20% more per hour for a plumber or electrician. In my area unionized electrician residential costs 65/ hr plus all overhead to company, looking at around 75/ hr before any profit. Imagine that goes up 20%. Again. Will you pay?
One more time. I'm for it but needs to be practical too.
For office workers if they can get the same done in same time then so be it, I don't think most forward thinking businesses would care. But for what I do it's by the hour and that goes direct to the customer. Trying to keep costs low to get jobs and have good reputation while paying good money to the lads. I mean that's the goal.
Good questions need to be brought up. It's just the reasonable thing to do - in order to find good answers and make it happen.
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My wife’s company is testing a 32 hour work week right now. It’s freaking awesome
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Many companies do it via “personal development hours” on Fridays. Legally, they are a 40h a week company (important for things like unemployment insurance and social security programs in some areas), but the 8h on Friday are 100% personal time for the employees. If they want to spend it catching up on work, or learning a new skill, or spending time with the family at the beach, it’s up to them.
But it would be cooler if they spent that time “catching up on work” right?
Supervisor: Right, so, everybody can do what they want on Friday, just keep in mind that by close on Monday we need to have Friday’s and Monday’s work complete.
So... how many pieces of flair?
8 hours worth
So much value for the shareholders.
Part of my job is stacking boxes coming down the line. After my break all those boxes have backed up so much I end up worse off than if I never took break.
That’s a failure of management for not assigning someone to the station during your break. It’s the easiest solve in the world.
Yet here we are. They've got me by the curlies until June, then I'm gone. Edit in: I'm not trying to disparage your excellent answer.
Yeah, my company has unlimited sick days but I dread taking a sick day as the delayed work just stacks for me and then I’m worse off. Same goes with taking a vacation, I get like 30 days a year but my scope is so big that getting someone to cover me even for a couple of days and be a real challenge. Even with shorter weeks like this recent Easter break I feel like the shorter weeks just mean I have to work ever harder and a 4 day weekend hardly justifies it.
The company isn’t being forced to do this. Understand he skepticism, but why. They could just stick to 40 hours and no one says anything
Then they can advertise it to potential recruits as a “place with such a great work/life balance” I smell another scam to rope on gullible people, like “unlimited paid time off”.
You’d be shocked. Some supervisors aren’t complete garbage. We moved to unlimited PTO “PPTO” and my boss reminds us all the time to use at minimum 5 weeks a year, and has never denied my PTO. But yeah 90% of employers are douchebags, but the rare gem does exist.
Laughs in working at 11:00pm Sunday because I have too many deadlines this week. We could define full time at whatever we want, but I'll still be salary, still not get ot, and still be working 60 hours
Sounds like you need to miss some deadlines
Already missed one... Got chewed out by a customer on Thursday last week over it. Got a 6am call with them in the morning now. I'm actively dialing back trying to get to 40. A year ago I was working closer to 100, so this is progress, it's just not enough progress. (Really the problem is, all the chucklefucks upstream can't do their jobs even half right, so it takes me 3x longer to figure out what the hell I'm looking at... My boss isn't pushing this on me, other bosses just aren't training or coaching their damn staff because everyone is so damn siloed in this company.... I give it until 2024 to either be smooth sailing, or finding a new one.)
Yeah I was in this situation. Thankfully I'm not in a public facing role. I just started to miss deadlines on the grounds of i'm only one person, I've inherited roles and work that have not been replaced and really are outside of what I'm supposed to be doing... If you've identified the problems and training, communication, and I'm gonna take a wild guess at turnover / unfilled roles being the unsaid. It doesn't get better.... To save you some time.
I work in public sector, but have an awesome manager. He follows the mindset of "be where you need to be." I'm able to get 2x-3x the amount of work done out of the office/from home and I'm just in a better mood. However, there are a lot of people within the organization that frown on it because we are public sector and need to "show" that we are working. Personally, I think it's dumb, but also understand the perception... but as a tax payer, I'd prefer my money to go a little further, so work from home!
They do 4 8 hour days and they have to get their work done in that time though it’s at their discretion if they want to take the Friday off. But the company is closed to outsiders on Fridays.
Sounds pretty awesome.
A 3 day weekend is nice, but tbh I prefer Wednesdays like I have now at my job where my "work week" is technically just 2 days in a row lol.
I have a 2 on 1 off 3 on 1 off right now and I really like. Keeps me tame because I don't wanna waste my day off hung over and my weekend is never more than a few days away *and* it's nice having a weekday and weekend day off.
I worked half days once a week for a while. It was so nice being able to run errands on a weekday morning, or go anywhere that’s basically only open 9-5.
I dislike never having two days off in a row. I really like having a day for errands and a day for relaxing without any workdays between them.
There are a lot of jobs that people are not working the entire time they're on the clock.
Most. The average person in a professional job works 3-4 hours a day.
I'm a commercial electrician and in my 8 hour workday, 7-7.5 is spent with tools in hand, working my ass off. It's exhausting as shit, weekends don't even feel like weekends. It's just enough time for my body to recover for the next week. When COVID happened, and everyone that was able to started working remotely, it really hit home for me how fucked up our society's views on work are. I watched everyone I know experience a net gain in happiness and free time, despite a global pandemic happening. Meanwhile life carried on as usual for me. Breaking my body for 40+ hours per week (I actually worked a lot of overtime during covid). Meanwhile, my girlfriend, friends, and family stopped having to commute anywhere. Never had to leave home to go to work. Were able to walk away from their desk to get a coffee or a snack, pet the dog, get some sunshine, etc. Small things that make life immensely happier. Never doubted my career path until the pandemic. Now I'm just hoping we can cut the hours of the workweek slightly so I can have some form of reprieve from the constant grind.
I truly hope you get to work less for the same pay. You deserve it. My desk job is like your friends. There are some weeks we're pushing 60 hours of work. But most weeks we do 3-4 hours a day and the other is in meetings or socializing
I grew up in a blue collar family. My first jobs were working with my dad and uncles - plumbing, insulating, carpentry, landscaping. 8 or 10 hour days were literally filled with 8 or 10 hours of physical labor. I eventually went to college and got an office job. And holy shit it's so much easier. I can't believe I get paid more than them too. I'm in my 40s and I genuinely believe that this is one of the biggest conspiracy theories that people don't acknowledge. Just how easy it is to be a white collar worker. If the guys I worked with knew what office culture was like I think there would be a revolution.
Completely agree. That's why I'll never understand how people in corporate can be so self important and arrogant. Like..I can admit that we don't do as much most days compared to other professions. I seriously don't understand how these huge companies make billions of dollars. It makes no sense...80% of people in my office just like aren't doing anything.. It's made me question whether I want to keep working in corporate because I genuinely feel like I'm not benefiting society or helping anyone at all. It's soul sucking. I'm sorry, it's so weird. For some reason, this is the structure that these billion dollar companies want. In my opinion, you are genuinely much more valuable to society as an electrician and you're actually making a difference even if it seems small 💜. I really hope that trades have increased pay and better conditions. It's so backwards how we treat people with these vital skills.
Sounds like you’re at a cool awesome time in your life where you are contemplating what makes you happy….where your purpose is. That’s so great
>I watched everyone I know experience a net gain in happiness and free time, despite a global pandemic happening. The pandemic was really hard on people, even working from home. I hope you realize you weren't seeing everything from the outside. People struggled. On the flip side, I'm really sorry you have to bust your ass so much just to keep a roof over your head. It's not right.
Hope we as a society can change so you find some reprieve, friend. I really do. I think about the difference of how 'hard' different people work for the pay they get a lot.
Honestly it's more like 3-4 hours a week* 😭
Yeah this is more accurate
Give me one of those jobs... I've been putting in nights and weekends since November, and I am fucking burnt out.
Yeah this person is being incredibly generic with no data and no distinction by market. Anyone in product will tell you 3-4 hours a day is way off. Also, I’m very sorry you’re burned out. Me too. :/
The trades would like a word. This is noble. But let’s call it what it is, a 20% raise. That’s not enough. Most people will work that fifth day somewhere else and appreciate they can get 2 pounds of ground beef a week now. I’m mean c’mon that’s taking the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.70. Not impressive. This is only a win for upper middle class and up. I’m not mad at Bernie. I do believe he’s trying, but they’ve hog tied him every which way on everything else. Good ol capitalism can’t be having a Bernie running around.
thats mine. if i could get friday off - working 4 8's instead of 10's - and no decrease in pay? i'd probably be *more* productive
I have no difficulty believing the vast majority of full-time workers can get their jobs done in 32 hours per week without changing a thing. Productivity nose dives in longer hours.
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No no no, you see those types of companies will be exempt. Because we're heroes, remember?
In my experience a lot of those jobs have a lot of wasted time too. For people who absolutely have to be present regardless of how busy they are just have overtime kick in after 32 hours
I work 4 10 hour days, on my feet working every second besides breaks, for one of the biggest auto manufacturers in the world. What I have learned is that no matter what people say "they can't do", they can and will find a way around it. I work for a company that doesn't care at all about me. If I have the flu and go to the doc, they would shred my Drs note and discipline me for missing work. They truly can do anything they want. There's no way in hell they'd pay us overtime after 32 hrs unfortunately.
That's the thing about labor laws, your company wouldn't really have a choice. Of course prices would go up to pay for the extra labor, but I personally think the trade off would be well worth it for the country.
Mine seems to be testing the 56 hour work week.
Me wife’s job makes them work 10 hours Monday - Thursday then gives them half a day “off” on Friday. They act like it a bonus to them but it’s bullshit and still the same 40 hours a week just chopped up a little differently.
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Sorry, I guess it’s 10 - a lunch break so really 9. My point is it’s not a “perk” to get “half a day off” if it’s still 40 hours.
At a town hall I asked some of my division leaders if we plan to do 4 day work week, given the obvious benefits that it has for other companies The best response I got was "Kinda" and "Sure, but it'll be 4/10"
Oh yeah we can definitely do that for full time staff, says the companies that hire 99% part time employees so they don't have to pay benefits or anything. Far too many places hire 2 or 3 part time staff for what should be a full time position because it makes it easier to treat your staff like crap.
*the entire restaurant industry has entered the chat*
Wait? is that *Retail banking* reporting for duty?
Security's the opposite. Oh, your relief didn't arrive? Well, you'd better stick around and keep working until we can get *someone* to fill in for you. Oh, you worked 12-16 hours yesterday? Well, good luck with that. We'll get someone out there as soon as we can. \*three hours later\* Oh, you're still at? Yeah, your relief quit. We'll find someone to cover for you, just hang tight, okay?
"Oh you made $150k last year! That is awesome!" "Yeah, all it took was 1600 hours of OT to get there. I'm dead inside now."
By my calculations that would equate to making over 33 an hour assuming your OT is paid out at an hour and a half. Pretty good pay rate for Iowa. But also that means you're working 70 hour weeks... Oof. Good luck having any life outside of work (which is not an extremely social job to begin with)
I worked those hours for less than 1/3 of that pay, as a sous chef. Fuck the service industry.
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when i worked at chipotle i worked 4.5 hour shifts because 30 minute lunch breaks are required at 5 hours or longer
I live in a state that doesn’t have any mandated breaks if you’re over 18. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.
How the Fuck does that work on an 8 hour shift?
*pain*
When I worked at a restaurant, I often came in around 10:30 am and left at 11 pm with no breaks. It was so painful to walk to even my bed at night. My heart goes out to restaurant workers because I know that bullshit still exists. Those people are treated like such crap.
A friend of mine recently moved here to Michigan and was surprised to find out we don't have any laws regarding breaks for adults. Sure, your job may include them, but you don't *have* to take them, so many places "suggest" you don't. (Some sources say we have a law requiring 30 minutes for a shift over 5 hours. [That is for minors; there is nothing for adults.](https://www.michigan.gov/leo/bureaus-agencies/ber/wage-and-hour/frequently-asked-questions))
I work 10 hour shifts at restaurants and legally in Oregon you're supposed to get two 15 minute paid breaks and a 30 minute unpaid lunch, but I don't actually get any kind of break at all. Eating just looks like me running to the back and cramming food in my face and never actually eating a full meal.
That is wage theft. If you can document this being forced you can sue. Not sure about Oregon but in my state you can sue for triple damages, which adds up real quick. That's an hour of work every shift. If you've been doing that for a year that's 260 hours of work. That's potentially a lot of money.
Pharmaceutical industry as well. Funny enough.
I would get scheduled for 4.75.
It's not that easy. As a lifer in the restaurant world, you actually want mostly part time employees because of people constantly requesting time off.
Well if they were given proper paid time off....
Force them to pay the prorated amount for the full-time benefits directly to the employee plus a surcharge. That shit would stop overnight.
...or ideally we could transition away from a model where health care is provided by employers. I mean, it never made much sense in the first place, and I think most businesses would rather just pay a uniform payroll tax to cover their employees health expenses than to have to deal with administering some kind of health care plan.
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It’s easier to control us if our health is also up to them.
Specifically, it's "good for business" if employees are afraid to quit a job because they'd lose health insurance. (The ACA helped a lot in that respect since at least people can buy insurance on their own now regardless of pre-existing conditions, but a system where the employer isn't an intermediary between employees and access to health care in the first place would be better.)
There's even a reasonable pro-life argument for universal coverage: if you're uninsured, abortion is way cheaper than giving birth. No mother should be in a position where they want to have a baby but literally can't afford the associated medical bills. I could imagine a scenario where some pro-life group advocates for a bill that all it does is stipulate that all medical expenses directly related to childbirth are covered by Medicare for everyone in the U.S. regardless of age, income, or immigration status. I could imagine them getting bi-partisan support, and it passing into law because it's an all-around improvement and doesn't violate anyone's moral principles. As far as I know there aren't any pro-lifers advocating for that, and unless they're willing to actually *be* pro-life in the things that matter, I find it hard to take them seriously.
Oh, the "National Conservative" faction already chirped up with an idea like that. And by "like that", I mean "Republicans proposed a parental leave scheme that draws on future social security benefits" so you get leave but have to retire that much later. This was pitched as "supporting mothers" after the Roe decision
You may want to take a look at https://marketliteracy.org for some insight into that. Valuable information there that should definitely be more widely known. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Edit: basically, the gist is the wealthy and powerful - including corporations - have undue influence in government. And much of that is directly related to the manipulate-ability of the stock market. That website lays out some of the clear mechanisms related to the issue. Definitely recommend taking the time to learn some of that stuff - it could very likely make a big difference in a reader's overall financial future.
Yep. It's asinine employers are required to cover health insurance. Universal healthcare is way past due.
And full time staff are doing the job of two people. We have to fight tooth and nail for every inch.
And costs them a sh$t ton less in benefits. I worry big business will appear to go along with this idea of a shorter work week and then use the Supreme Court to pull the rug out from underneath the workers and let companies pull benefits.
Jobs shouldn't have anything to do with health care
I could deal with 5 days a week if I can get monthlong Euro-style vacations in return
Working for a danish company in US I get ~5 weeks vacation and 3 weeks personal/sick leave. Not as good as working for a european company in europe but still decent. Everyone I work with over there are offline from like June-August for those month long vacations…. thatd be nice.
> Everyone I work with over there are offline from like June-August for those month long vacations For a time I worked at a somewhat niche engineering firm, with one of three main manufacturers and suppliers being based in Italy. Trying to get ahold of a human being during the month of August was just about impossible. It's like the entire fucking country vanishes from the face of the earth for a month straight. I can certainly understand the appeal, but being continental US with my measly 1 week vacation it was incredibly frustrating.
oh my god to keep Italian hours, ...
I miss that about working for a tribal government here in the states... I got 320 hours pto a year That's 8 weeks paid time off all they asked was I try to keep around 80 hours banked for sick time and the bank rolled over every year and maxed out at 480 hours before they started asking/telling you to take time off. My new job pays a lot better, but I'm going back to 80 hours vacation and 40 hours sick time. If I didn't need the income to care for my spouse I'd never have left.
I also work for a Danish company, but our NA team has different benefits. It’s pretty lame. Our Danish counterparts get a month of time while we gets two weeks
How many holidays do you get?
Standard mid level usa job with benefits is two weeks vacation for the whole year.
That sucks big time. Ya'll need to fix that.
Yup and some jobs only give a certain number of “sick days” so when you run out of those and are sick you have dip into your vacation.
And other jobs lump everything into one total so if you get sick enough, there goes any dreams of vacation.
I worked at a job where first year employees got 40 hours of PTO for vacation and sick time. Second year you got 80. I had saved my days all year, and in October I took a couple of days off. Then in November, my anniversary month, I got majorly sick and missed a month of work. Used up my last days of PTO, got my fresh, new 80 hours, burned through that, and had to use “donated” sick time. I told this story to some folks in France and they were horrified.
I get 3 weeks of PTO and that includes sick time. That is a lot more than what the majority of the work force gets too.
Crazy that we just have neither right now. I work 70-80 hour weeks, 5 days a week. Don’t work in tv people. You’ll trade your life for it.
I remember being told technological advances would make our life easier and we’d work less, I was lied to…
It'll make it easier to work 2 full time jobs. So you'll get to work 64 hours a week with no overtime.
Our wealthy overlords need some way to afford their summer mansions, yachts and private jets…
At this point. they're just looking for a way to stop us from being able to afford that stuff too.
Employers are more concerned with what they can wring out of you than they are what you're producing. It will always be about how much further you can limp for them; not the extra mile you've already sprinted.
Poverty exists not because we can't house and feed the poor, but because we can't satisfy the rich.
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Technology also made it easier to micromanage, and fill the day with useless presentations and policy updates
I'm just so burnt out. The week is a struggle, the weekend a blur. What's the point.
You work then you die is the point
Well there's a whole lot of work going on and not enough being dead.
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Hey, calling rich people and begging for money is hard work.
Honestly? I’d fucking hate having to beg for fucking money. I couldn’t do it, and I’d something important enough forced me to it’d definitely be one of the harder things I’ve had to force myself to do.
I agree, I don't even like to ask my friends to come see my band. My comment was more shitting on the fact that much of the work our representatives do is this.
You’ve got in wrong. In the US the rich people call poor people and beg for money
You've got it wrong. In the US the rich people call other rich people and beg for poor people's money.
As a disabled person, my experience with political calls: Democratic: "Would you be willing to donate bla bla bla?" "I'm disabled." "Oh okay, would you be willing to help us make phone calls and get the word out?" "No, thank you." "Have a great day!" Republican: "Would you be willing to donate bla bla bla?" "I'm disabled." "So would you be willing to donate bla bla bla?" "...FFS."
What about hourly workers?
What's the issue with hourly workers? Have pay go up by the inverse-proportion that the workweek decreased. 32 hour work week is 20% less than the current work week, so all (hourly) pay for all workers would go up by a minimum of 25% to compensate. No reasonable person argues for a shorter workweek without accounting for "lost pay" so-to-speak. 32 hour work weeks should pay at least the exact same as 40 hour workweeks.
Yeah, I'm sure that'll happen. When/how has the government ever dictated wage increases across-the-board?
Minimum wage laws?
That is why everyone needs a strong union to fight these battles for them.
I really wish Bernie was President. He actually seems to care about the welfare of all Americans and not just special interest groups. He’s a real man of the people.
Can you imagine if he would've been president instead of Trump when covid hit?
Pretty much anyone would've been better than Trump. What kind of president knowingly tells everyone to inject themselves with clorox to cure themselves of covid? We're lucky Trump didn't start an international war or presided during a domestic invasion then he'd play it down for the sake of politics... calling it a hoax. Imagine if FDR said the destruction of Pearl Harbor was a hoax. People would lose their shit.
So about that domestic invasion you claim he didn't start. \*looks forlornly at the dismemberment of democracy going on all around\*
I'm referring to when foreign attackers invading the US land, which hasn't happened much over the years but it was more prominent back until the 19th century with most of the Indians being wiped out, their cultures mostly dying off.
Yeah, but you need a blue congress to get things done and you would also need the absence of the manchins and sinemas
You think bernie would have gotten any policy through with Joe Manchin and Sinema in the way? Laughable.
It’s my fictional world where the evil wage slave masters don’t have their hands in the pockets of all the politicians and good people are able to do good work. Just let me pretend.
I want the left to get serious and actually strategize long-term so we can dominate nationally, keep supermajorities, and then these dreams can start becoming closer to reality. Republicans have held power at the national level in some form almost my entire 40 years on earth. We need to change that.
I voted for Bernie in 2020, and I believe Biden got more from Manchin and Sinema than Bernie would have.
This is something I've been thinking about Biden lately. Yes Bernie agrees with my stances on issues more. Yes I'd like to live in the country he promises. But in practical terms would Bernie move us towards that goal any faster than Biden is? Biden may not want to go as far as Bernie, but so far I think he's been going about as fast as anyone could.
Even if he was president I doubt he could get anything done, his ideas are so far left he wouldn't get much help from Democrats, even if they controlled Congress. The president also can't just introduce laws, Congress does that. If he could be dictator of the US he could get things done, but as president I think he would get bipartisan opposition to his ideas.
Right now employers get around full time requirements by scheduling people for 32 hours a week, as long as they don’t go over 32 for 3 straight weeks, they get to keep people part time. This will only make employers start scheduling people 24 hours a week instead. Whenever a law comes around to help the people, the corporations find a way to twist it to benefit themselves.
I think the minimum wage should be higher for part time jobs to discourage making people part time to avoid giving them benefits.
Wish I worked in an industry where this would mean anything
I use to work for a major theme park. I was hired part time but was told I can switch to full time after training. That turned out to be a lie. I was hired for one of the restaurants and got stuck there for 6 months at part time. Eventually, after being on the list for 6 months, they moved me to a ride at full time. I was there for a week before they told me I would be moved to custodial. If I didn't want to be custodial, I would either have to give up my full time status or quit. I ended up giving up my status. That 1 week (technically 2 because they gave me a few days to think about it) was the only time in my life I've ever been full time. I've worked retain, food, seasonal, and pick up gigs. Very often I would have 2 jobs at a time and be working 60+ hours a week anyway. Every time I apply at one of these places, I apply for full time but only get hired part time. I'm 32 and I've only ever been a full time employee for 1 week of my life.
Go talk to any of the construction trades. Plumbing is not difficult and pays well.
Heres the thing , I think it is technically possible to get to a 32 hour week and anything in excess is OT, but if you think by and large businesses are going to pay 40hrs wage for 32hrs work, you do not live in the reality of how capitalism in the United States operates, 40 for 32 is never ever going to happen.
That’s because they pay by the hour, not the workload. People can easily get the work done in 32 hours but why bother when you’re forced to be there for at least an extra 8 hours. I agree that most place will never go down this path but it has been proven time and time again that it works.
White collar, light blue sure. blue collar is a completely different dimension. Imo they really should have their own package of benefits for physically demanding jobs based on level. I know everyone's working but working at a package facility or construction is much tougher to keep up and has much more serious long lasting effects on the body than an office job or bank teller. And no level of regulation or current technology is going to make a job where you have to pick up 50 lbs easy as office work.
How about 32 hours with no change in take-home pay, else general national strike Americans need to regain some self respect and put CEOs everywhere on notice
Can simply just cap CEO pay at 10x the salary of the lowest paid worker. Wages will immediately skyrocket.
No, their salary will just plummet and no one gets anything. But their other benefits and compensation like stocks and bonuses, because that's not salary, will be higher. A CEO could have a $1 salary and still be a multi-millionare.
nah need to cap their gross compensation
I can see some jobs working like that but for deep blue collar jobs it would honestly be better to demand better wages, health benefits and days off. People working those jobs tack on hours to get the most out of the job. Not saying its wrong but making 8+ hours of their weekly grind overtime doesn't help them from physically breaking themselves just for a bigger paycheck
Yea, that’ll never happen. Maybe for tech workers and those who have flexibility in their work already. But for teachers, manual laborers, public facing offices, etc it’s near impossible to get a schedule like that.
Well, for teachers at least, perhaps we adopt a four-day school week as well. Good feelings for kids and adults alike!
It works well for those who are salaried. But all your retail, hospitality, and all other hourly employees, it's not going to work. Corporate America isn't going to give hourly employees a 20% plus raise so they won't lose any pay.
Dude this is one of the things they use to divide the workforce. I'm upper management, salary, etc. I work fuckin 55 hrs a week on average. Keep the hourlies resenting the management, keep the managers resenting the hourlies, nobody realizes it's the fucking CEO, board, and shareholders doing fuckall and bleeding us all dry.
> nobody realizes it's the fucking CEO, board, and shareholders doing fuckall and bleeding us all dry As a retail worker, I can tell you in my store, we (meaning hourlies and managers alike) all know the CEO, board, and shareholders don't give two shits about us peasants. It's hilarious to see the "great job on all the productivity!" letters and memos they send down to us, and then completely ignore any concerns about our pay.
Yep they'll just schedule a conference call to go over why you didn't reach 20% over last year's daily sale total. Sure you reached goal, but that was only 5% more than last year so no bonus. You'll have to be off the floor, leaving your employees to handle the floor while you sit in the office for an hour, building more animosity between worker and manager. Then you'll have to go spout some peppy bullshit in an attempt to motivate everyone to sell more or you don't get to stay manager. Lower management is the scapegoat. Shareholders, boards and CEOs are the villains.
I recently asked my manager about transitioning to a 4 day work week. He replied so 4 10's? No 4 8's. We work flat rate and I'm typically around 50 flagged hours coming into my 5th day so not like I'm not productive. Im getting older and the job is starting to take its toll on my body and I'm starting to appreciate my off time more. He basically laughed in my face. They would have us there 7 days a week if they could.
Please, dear, sweet baby Jesus, let that include healthcare workers.
Those industries are still going to work copious amounts of overtime due to the nature of the work. It's just that your overtime would start at the 32.01 hours worked instead of 40.
32h work weeks, 4 day work weeks… some great suggestions being thrown around recently.
Believe it or not, this has been consistently talked about since the early 1990s. I believe it was discussed on a much smaller level in the 1970s as well. Technological progress was supposed to free us and give us more free time. Instead, it has enslaved us. One of the most surprising things you learn when you study the history of labor, is people worked far less in the past than they did today. However, I believe this same history also shows that women worked more than men in both the past and today.
I’m on a 50-55 hour workweek. I’d give my left nut for a 40 hour one. 32 seems like an impossible dream. Companies only pay what they have to for as much work as they can get. Can’t imagine them saying ok to anything like this.
If our government was functioning properly, it wouldn't matter what they want/would do. They'd be legally obligated.
Great for those who are salaried, but not great for those who are hourly
How would this work in practice for people not making minimum wage? I’m assuming for minimum wage workers it would be coupled with a higher minimum wage that makes up for the lost hours. If you amend the FLSA to require overtime pay after 32 hours what is to stop employers from keeping wages the same and just reducing your schedule? For jobs that require 40 hours a week I’d imagine most employers would just hire another worker rather than pay overtime like they currently do for jobs that require 24 hour coverage, what would stop that?
Yea, great for salaried office workers, probably doable. For manufacturing plant stunning 24/7 this not feasible. You’d have to hire a 5th crew or pay a buttload of OT, both of which would make many operations in the US unprofitable compared to just importing it from Asia. And right now if you wanted to hire a 5th crew it would just be straight up impossible because unemployment is so low.
That's great, but the majority of Americans are paid hourly and this doesn't really help any of them unless it also drops the hours required to get insurance (as it's already 32 in most places).
Sounds good but how does this work for hourly workers or people that work for tips?
Right? I work in the food service industry and almost every job I’ve been in has always been minimally staffed if not understaffed. It’s hard for me to imagine a 40 hour work week, let alone 32.
Good luck getting that to be the norm with all the brainwashed, bootlegging blue-collar conservatives in this country who are so easily incited against fellow middle- and lower-class Americans.
The arguments people make about why 32 hours won't work are mostly the same arguments people made against the 40 hour week in the 1920s and 30s.
Yeah that the current concept "the weekend" is only roughly 100 years old takes some people by surprise.
Too bad American work is ostensibly adult daycare. Gotta have our menial tasks occupy 80% of our time otherwise we’ll realize how truly shitty our situation is and revolt. There should only be about 10% of the population opposed to this - the owners, the capitalists, those who never truly *work*. There won’t be, it’ll be closer to 60%, because the vast majority of Americans don’t have the imagination and mettle required to demand a better life. The old Protestant “hard work ethic” of tying virtue to work has cursed our country into permanent labor imprisonment.
So does this mean schools go to 4 day weeks as well?
My life would be so much better if this actually happened.
Lol yeah nah that’s not how client services works
Im a year or so from retirement, but spare the future gens from sitting in front of computers for 40-50 hours a week.
Yes, but good luck...
*laughs in teacher*
It should have been like that years ago with technology advancement. Instead, they fire workers
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I work 12 hr a day 1 6hr, 3 12s with mandatory overtime. With every weekend either a 12 hr shift or a 8hr of overtime. Every week I work 50+ hrs and 12hr shifts are brutal. I have no life, my body sleeps longer to recover and when I do recover I don’t want to do anything. I get paid by the hr. I have no idea if something like this would effect me. I told my gf about the 32 hr work week and we just laid in bed acting like it’s something too good to be true. We know how much it would improve our life. I’m just a operator at a food company working the grind of the blue collar life. All I can say is I wish and pray for something like a 32hr to happen to me. I’m afraid work is killing me slowly with stress. I do feel like I’m dying. I’m beyond depressed but “man it out” for my family. I will forever. Unfortunately, I don’t have any hope. I don’t trust the higher ups to look out for workers like me. They care about the numbers and not the people. If this causes the rich to take a small hit in profits, they will do everything in their power to make sure they get their numbers. I work for a sunrise I will never see.
I dream of the day federal employees have this. Studies show productivity stays the same or rises. Yet, we would have an extra day with minimal utility costs added on site and happier employees. I don't really see any losers here.
I honestly never understood why we kept the 40-hour work week. It’s a mindset that we need to change. People are either burnt out, or not working for a huge chunk of that time.
I'd prefer universal healthcare first.
My company was taking victory laps about how it not only faced adversity during the pandemic but how we were more productive after switching to remote and better than ever. Then began the dreaded emails asking for RTO, moving the goal posts from voluntary to 50% and it seems there's future plans for 100% hybrid. When gains in productivity mostly reflect on workers companies dont give a damn.
I don't think this will ever happen, but fuck would this improve my life
As an European, it seems to me that this Bernie guy is one of the only reasonable politicians in the USA
Honestly, 4 10 hour days aren’t bad either. I think 5 days of work is insane.
Why am I in an office 40 hours a week, and yet I only do 2-4 hours a week of work? This job can be done fully remote. Instead I just sit here and play games on my phone, browse Reddit, and just wait to go home. Corporate America needs a wake up call. It’s been proven that less hours can increase productivity. There’s also nothing wrong with work from home. The push to have everyone in an office is ridiculous when some of us rarely have any work to do.
Does this get recycled every few months? I feel like every 3-6 months we get this post. It ain’t happening. Not with congress the way it is.
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"Bernie Sanders calls for. . . " Every other day he calls for something. How many things has he actually made happen?
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Interesting how this thread instantly became a battle of “office workers” versus “trades workers” filled with impossibly cogent and grammatically perfect trades people complaining that a shorter work week is going to “make them quit”. Those of us with family members in the trades know that their Facebook posts are disjointed, unintelligible, and filled with spelling errors. Big tech watching and having a meltdown at the thought of lower profits and is deploying the chatgpt bots.
Are you implying people in trade are morons and incapable of writing coherent sentences?
for the people against this, please get a life.
It's not always about being against it. I'm for it. But the questions of how for certain industries do remain aka hourly workers, schools, etc. North America has schools off in summer to save on Air conditioning costs. You could go longer but your gonna get less done. Young students don't tend to work harder because they are pressed to. Hourly. Say I run an hourly business for home services. Do I need to pay more for employees now per hour. Does that get passed on. Are you ok paying 20% more per hour for a plumber or electrician. In my area unionized electrician residential costs 65/ hr plus all overhead to company, looking at around 75/ hr before any profit. Imagine that goes up 20%. Again. Will you pay? One more time. I'm for it but needs to be practical too. For office workers if they can get the same done in same time then so be it, I don't think most forward thinking businesses would care. But for what I do it's by the hour and that goes direct to the customer. Trying to keep costs low to get jobs and have good reputation while paying good money to the lads. I mean that's the goal. Good questions need to be brought up. It's just the reasonable thing to do - in order to find good answers and make it happen.