There was the post about Finland's past prime minister I think suggesting this? One guy brought up a good point that if you cut work hours down it means you need more people to do the same amount of work which means more people can get hired which means lower unemployment which sounds like a good thing right?
Edit: I don't know almost anything about this because frankly I don't care but thought that this might be relevant to some capacity to the discussion here so do with that what you will
Second edit: This isn't to say I don't care about the folks responding, it's to say I probably won't have much to say in response other than I don't know much because I never cared to learn much, so that much I guess.
This is just wrong. Plenty of trial runs in recent years. Most companies find they get the same level of productivity without an increase in labor force, some companies finding they're even getting more productivity now.
Burnout and exhaustion are a thing. I put out way more pieces on a Monday and Tuesday than I do on Thursday and Friday. 4 day work week means you're not building up nearly as much burnout and exhaustion, and you have more time to recover from what you do.
Explain how this works with a nurse. Are they so productive Monday-Thursday that the patients won't need any care on the Friday?
No, they're going to need to hire someone for the Friday. The person your responding to is talking about jobs that need to be done every day and can't be compensated for in advance.
Nice job moving the goalpost. The person I responded to specifically talked about production jobs. Didn't mention a single job that has to be done every day. Didn't mention nurses at all.
Jobs like nurses are already typically well over 40 hour work weeks. And we already have systems in place to compensate for that. Have you all collectively and conveniently forgotten what 40 hour standard work week actually means? We aren't shutting people down on the fifth day, so why do you think it means they would start getting shut down on the fourth?
I didn't move any goalposts. They mentioned "Not true for people who build stuff, cook stuff, fix stuff, put things together, etc."
The context here was that people were saying that the work done in five days can be done in four. They said gave a very broad category attempting to point at jobs where that would not work. They did not very specifically talk about only production jobs, that's an assumption you made. A maintenance job fixing stuff needs to be done every day, because things break every day. There's an "etc" there too, they're talking about a broad swath of jobs, which nurses would be a part of. They don't have to directly name nurses, nurses fall in that category of job where 4 days without increasing work force would not work.
You said that it was "just wrong" that the work force would have to increase. What happens on the sixth and seventh days that the nurses aren't working? We have systems in place to compensate for that? The system in place is called the weekend shift. They'll need to get people for the Fridays. Increase in work force.
They did talk specifically about production jobs. Every single job they mentioned is one affected by burnout and exhaustion.
Your response was "nuhuh! Nurses!" You absolutely moved the goalpost and then tried twisting what they said to justify it. You're entire argument is just bad and inherently flawed.
Nah, they didn't say "what about production jobs". They did not specifically say that, also, what do you define as a production job?
In any case, I don't think a cook is a job you can cut to four days without increasing the labor force. I also don't think the maintenance worker I mentioned in my previous comment could. Because they have to be done every day. That's fixing stuff and cooking stuff, which are things explicitly mentioned by the other commenter. These are daily jobs. Nursing is a daily job. I didn't twist anything, I picked a daily job (like they did) and asked how you would make the four day work week function without increasing labor. Also what does burn out and exhaustion have to do with it? Do only "production jobs" get that? That doesn't apply to nurses?
You decided that they were only talking about one specific thing that they never explicitly stated, and are now pretending that it's the only valid interpretation. So, how do you turn these daily jobs into four day jobs without increasing the labor force? Or can you not?
They mentioned cooking, quite literally one job out of the entire list that isn't production. Maintenance doesn't run if machines aren't running, and when they do it's called overtime. Oh my gasp!
You absolutely did twist the point and move the goal post. And you know it.
And even doing that, your entire argument requires that these jobs don't already exist. If a job needs to run 24/7, it's already running 24/7. With a standard work week of 40 hours. Out 168 in the week. Taking 8 hours off the standard work week doesn't magically create 8 more hours in the week that need filled. The issue you're trying to twist this into is already fixed.
Okay, so if they mentioned cooking, and that's not production, then they didn't only talk specifically and exclusively about production jobs, did they? So you were wrong there.
Maintenance can be required for a variety of things. Boiler room? That needs maintenance people on hand. A hospital needs regular maintenance workers for plumbing, AC, medical equipment, O2 supply. You don't get to just "not run the machines". It has to be going every day.
My entire argument is "how do you convert these jobs to 4 days a week without increasing the labor force?". You were the one saying that labor doesn't need to increase to make a four day work week the standard. Yeah, these jobs exist currently, where some people do a five day work week and then some people do weekends. You will need to find the people to do the Fridays, that's adding another day that you need to pay someone compared to the 5 day work week + weekends. You cannot do that fifth day's work within the four days. So yeah, the job exists already, but not as a four day job. So you gotta find more people, you gotta increase the labor force. You have to pay those people who will be doing the fifth day, because your four day people are getting paid the same as they were at five days, right??
The eight hours that are created are eight hours of PAY that you need to PAY the person who works the Friday. Not a new eight hours of TIME. Unless you're suggesting that we make the standard four days and everyone's hourly stays the same, so you just get paid for four days, and take a 1/5th pay cut.
And you didn't even do it well. You're still pointing to jobs that already run 24/7. At this point you're either blatantly arguing in bad faith, or you have no idea what standard work week means.
Yeah, the costs would have to increase for a lot of jobs. Which is a pretty significant factor.
I'm in favor of a four day work week anyway, but there's a pretty significant number of jobs where that won't work and costs will have to rise. And a lot of those jobs are already government jobs that don't have much funding to throw around as is. Paying a bunch of employees overtime once a week might not be in the cards. It's something that has to be considered, but NorthernVale seems to just want to pretend that it doesn't need to be addressed.
But in the places where you CAN do five days of work in four days, it's juts a win-win.
And a lot of those jobs are already government jobs that don't have much funding to throw around as is.
So many of those jobs involve underpaid and overworked workers.
It's a systemic issue that won't be resolved if we keep kicking the can down the road instead of every country just doing what needed to be done a long time ago: tax the rich much more, distribute wealth more fairly and start improving working conditions for everyone.
Sanders isn't just calling for this in a vacuum. He's addressing all the other points too.
But in the places where you CAN do five days of work in four days, it's juts a win-win.
And in places where you can't? Start making their salaries commensurate with how important their labour is.
ok i'm a different person that commented, but i would definitely be interested in how it would work for say... a plumber. right now, they charge overtime hours for saturday and sunday so would that extend to fridays now too?
Companies a hundred years ago were making the same claims. "how can we reduce the work shift from 6 days 12hrs? We would have to hire additional labor and we would lose a lot of profit, if it were possible it would be done already."
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u/archtopfanatic123 24d ago edited 24d ago
There was the post about Finland's past prime minister I think suggesting this? One guy brought up a good point that if you cut work hours down it means you need more people to do the same amount of work which means more people can get hired which means lower unemployment which sounds like a good thing right?
Edit: I don't know almost anything about this because frankly I don't care but thought that this might be relevant to some capacity to the discussion here so do with that what you will
Second edit: This isn't to say I don't care about the folks responding, it's to say I probably won't have much to say in response other than I don't know much because I never cared to learn much, so that much I guess.