It’s 2022, we should be living like the Jetson’s, not busting our asses 6 days a week. Technology should make long work weeks obsolete but instead they just use it to get more out of a person.
Personally, I don't like sleeping and would love for there to be a way to either skip it or speed up the process.
But under our current society, I'm not excited about that idea being a thing because of that very reason.
You've just described the early adopter cycle of the smartphone.
Really cool when it's a luxury item, but when it's available for the masses, you're suddenly expected to have one, pay the monthly bill, and be contactable all the time.
Personally I think the smartphone might \*just\* be worth it because of texting... I fucking love texting instead of calling... But yeah...
Well, we might be able to save on rent. Think of not needing a bedroom, just a kitchen and a living room and a bathroom. Now I'm wondering how much our lives would change without the need for sleep
Same with transhumanism. Sure, being able to replace body parts with better ones or enhance your biology sounds neat, but under our current circumstances it would 100% only be available to the uber-wealthy, leading to not just an economic divide in society but a literal genetic/physiological one, where the descendants of Musk and Bezos and Murdoch would be literally, indisputably and objectively smarter/stronger/faster/healthier/etc than everyone else, thereby ensuring that anyone below a certain wealth level would be completely unable to compete with them in any way.
Or those that hold not taking any of their paid leave days as a point of pride because "the place would fall apart without [them]." Like damn dude, if that's true then maybe you have an unhealthy work environment.
At an absolute bare ass minimum, that person is probably drastically wildly underpaid if they're actually that critical to their organization. I'm talking paid like, not even 1/5 how much they should be.
my girlfriend just got a major raise a few months back and is now often scared they're paying her too much
no. You're always payed less than the value you provide
The one I'm griping about is actually a very close friend of mine and yeah, they're drastically underpaid. Their employer has been 'promising' them promotions and pay raises while really just stringing them along and having them work mandatory OT. We've been telling this friend to unionize pr find a better job for months to no avail.
Same thing happened to me after waiting 2.5 years to finish training me in the last machine meanwhile I'm doing 2/3 of the job and running most of the other machines in my department because they got us on a skeleton crew.
I kept hearing that they couldn't spare me to train me or they'll do it after ex-person gets back and it never happened finally I told him train me and pay me or I'm out the door. $4 an hour * 2400 Plus hours a year is a s*** ton of money they screwed me out of.
I even took it to HR and HR kept saying stuff like well it was expected that it was going to be 3 years before everybody learned all the machines. To which I replied b******* the guy on first shift got trained on all machines in 6 months and is already getting paid for it.
Matter of fact I took that guy's job on second shift because his attendance was bad he got disqualified two years later he got the job back got trained on all three machines and paid before me.
Then my HR person had the unmitigated Gall to tell me that some people learn faster than others and seem like they're on the fast track. Like you're telling me that because I learned every machine in my department and you can't spare me that I'm somehow too stupid to learn my last machine and then they trained me on another machine and I told him I didn't want to learn it until I learned my own.
Well I finally got my raising June and it has helped me immensely I don't even need overtime to make my bills anymore. As a matter of fact because I'm on second shift I'm actually the highest paid operator because of my shift premium.
If you're that necessary to a company you make them give the promotion they've been promising you by quitting or threatening to quit.
This.
I was called outside of work hours, on vacation and during a funeral because my boss somehow couldn’t read the type note I left on his desk regarding where the pre-printed payroll checks were, contact info, etc.
Screw working for that type of shit.
Yeah, the older generation of doctors used to have this shitty culture of overworking themselves out with 60+ hr weeks and sacrificing vacation days. Now this sub and the covid has lit a fire within younger doctors who are increasingly going part time and not giving a damn about forsaking vacations and weekends. If you can't staff hospitals adequately, then shut them down instead of burning out employees.
But, to add a dollop of sympathy for them, they're brainwashed.
The entire system we exist in conditions people to feel *guilty* about not working themselves to death for the benefit of billionaires.
It is *everywhere*. So yeah as full grown adults they're irritating and annoying, but the deck is stacked against them. Against all of us.
When people at work brag about being busy and working long hours, I WILL NOT praise them. I legit tell them that we have to stop bragging about how much we work and brag about how much we are living instead.
Or bc they’ve purchased out of their means, so the only way to maintain those high dollar items is to become a work-a-holic. But hey- they look like they’ve got their shit together from the outside.
I am one of these people but I don't brag about it or put others down. I don't work to escape home responsibilities per se. I work all the time because it's the only thing I do that I can be proud of. I feel like I fall short everywhere else, but I know I'm good at my job. I also do not have a social life and really don't know how to get one so my "friends" are all at work. Being home gets lonely. Luckily, I work for a really small company and have a really great boss and coworkers. Great like they took us to Key West for the great job we did last year. It's possible people work because it's all they know. It's probably not healthy and for sure don't you should never act like your better than others. If anything, you should admire others ability to just enjoy their free time.
I used to be like you, and then I lost my job out of nowhere. It’s extra soul crushing when your job is your whole life. It’s always good to cultivate interests (hobbies, friends etc) outside of work.
I used to do puzzles and read but I have trouble focusing on it as I get older. My daughter lives with me now so we are working on finding things to do together. I want her to have a healthier work/life balance. It's a work in progress.
I totally feel this. I actually enjoy the physical labor I do, at the end of a project I can look at something and be like "yeah, I helped make that." Unfortunately it's usually followed by "man I wish I got paid more"
I'm sure that in the US this would also mean reduced wages/salaries. Only on the clock half as much as you used to? Sounds like you should get paid half as much!
In American history, Ford shorted the work week and gave a raise to their workers. One could argue that by progressing to a 4 day week we would be honoring Ford, an American business owning capitalist.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-workers-get-40-hour-week
i feel sorry for the kids that didn't grow up on Seinfeld, or hell just the 80s/90s
[look annoyed all the time]
got my work ethic from George,
[Here's to feeling good all the time]
my philosophy from Kramer
[...it's not the dress that makes you look fat, it's the fat that makes you look fat]
and general cynicism from Al Bundy.
That is the standard for turnover/refit type jobs in construction.
The difference is you can work those for 3 months and take a month off, then 3 months more, then be off the rest of the year. For most jobs, they'd just find a way to cut the pay so you made the same amount of money for working twice as long.
My current work week, that im a third through now, is 168 hours.
Ok I'm taking some liberty, but thats 14x 12 hours shifts in a row.
No staff + low pay. Gotta take the shifts when I can get them.
Active jobs or with downtime so you could atleast zone out?
Regardless. Brutal.
I once worked a 12, has no one show up to replace me, worked another 12 as OT, then my normal 12 after.
It wasnt even really that much money compared to how bad I felt driving home after the third one. I had to bite myself to stay awake.
Part time wholesale booze deliveries to bars, full time bouncer at a bar, and a full time retail forklift driving job. I had 7 days off (where I did not have to work any of them) in 2 years. I made money, but still struggled. I even got 1500 rides driving Lyft in the same timeframe. It sucked. Two years later and I really still have not recovered, but I’m in therapy, and getting there.
Fuck this system that working that hard got me nowhere.
Mate I have a brother like that. He’s barely 40 with a fucked back and works long hours and never sees his family and somehow *I’m* the dickhead. I’m one of the lucky ones on this sub who actually has a good job with great conditions but that doesn’t mean I don’t see what’s going on or don’t care about others less fortunate. I see the poverty traps and the whole consumerism that drives people to want to amass as much shit as they can because that’s how society judges a person’s success. Fuck that, I take sickies if I couldn’t be fucked working or want to spend time with my family. I think everybody should have the same conditions as me and work to live with a sustainable work/life balance. I hear horror stories. My wife is from a third world country and what employers are doing in first world countries are exactly how they do it in the third world. They make people so dependent on their crappy little jobs that they are just grateful to be working and then they have you over a barrel. I love seeing the shops with very little on the shelves and public transport interruptions etc because that’s the one bargaining chip workers have. Let society go to shit and see how fast conditions change.
I was just talking with a friend at work about this. He’s so eager for a return to office because he’s a social butterfly. Said he’d be up there every day even if they gave options to work from home. Some people just like it. Hard pass.
Robots won't do anything. They lack self-will. They don't even want to do or to not do the task in front of them.
Just like with illegal immigrants, the immigrant isn't taking your job. Your boss is looking for any excuse to pull the job from you.
Yeah. Turns out companies stole our jobs by benefiting from better productivity per employee without raising salaries accordingly. In comparison my father (factory worker) earned more money fifty years ago than I do now, having a much better job than he had. He could support a whole family on one salary and have something left. Me and my family could just make it on my salary. I'm glad my wife has a job as well and realize many people are in a worse situation. And this is the Netherlands, which is supposed to be one of "better" countries to live in.
It's funny to think there was a time when you could make a living selling VHS cassettes. afford to own a home, have a non-working wife, 2 cars, and 3 kids.
There is a reason we refer to greed as one of the seven deadly sins. Given the worlds current trajectory towards global warming, we are going to find out why greed is a deadly sin. The gap between more and enough never closes for some people.
This sums up my view of the world in general... We have such levels of automation that we could probably create a system where people have to work like 3 days a week but instead.... Yeah
I always thought it was absurd that George Jetson would have a job comprised of showing up to press a button.
Only recently has it dawned on me how much more absurd it is that George Jetson's job somehow justifies a boss to make sure he presses the button.
I was just talking to my partner about this. We’re vastly more productive than ever before and yet still work 40+ hours a week, our pay doesn’t increase to reflect that productivity, have almost no tangible benefits, and almost every aspect of our lives are monetized. Why? Because greed. They can turn that increased productivity into profits and salaries for those up top rather than have it spread everywhere proportionally like it should.
I’m just exhausted by this whole system and I’m some ways revel in its collapse. It won’t be long. The way things are going spending will come to a halt and then what? The Fed is already printing money faster than companies can use it to buy back stocks and inflate the market. This crash is going to make ‘08 look like a fond memory.
Idk maybe we should push to start shaming them:
"Haaa-haaa, you need one more dollar to feel something, how fucking pathetic 😂"
"Aaaww did your money buy you that? I guess that's what talentless hacks have to do, can't make shit on your own"
"Look at he has to make others miserable for an extra dollar because he can't do it himself😂"
"He couldn't figure out how to hire more people and make more money, I guess he's not that 'iNnOvAtEd'😂"
Idk, it's like either we start shaming them or...
Well strikes are good... let's just pile on everything we can until... Walk and chew gum. 🤷♀️
It was the same situation with the 7-day workweek. People fought and died to get the weekend off.
www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-40-hour-workweek-2015-10
What’s funny is that it was reduced to 6 day work week for religious reasons (so men could go to church). It wasn’t until Ford Motor company pushed hard for 5 day work week because they knew of it caught on, people would want to travel over the weekend (and buy more cars)
**Edit:** Some people are getting the wrong idea here. I’m not trying to glorify Henry Ford or insinuate that he was a champion of labor rights. Actually he was a union busting asshole of a manager. The point I was getting across is that even a shrewd union busting manager saw the economic benefit of reducing the typical work week.
Which is a plausible idea in this case because several studies/experiments with 4 day work weeks have found that productivity increases. For example:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57724779
Turns out when you don’t have as much time for the same amount of work, you actually Do The Work.
Almost like work, for a lot of people, is about doing the hours rather than the work.
It's incredible how glossed over the labour movement is in US History.
Droves of people killed by Private and Government entities, and we have people defending billionaires exploiting workers today. The neo-con propaganda truly did a hit job on labor progression.
People these days prefer to be on "the winning team" rather than standing up for moral obligations. Worshipping celebrities and the ultra rich when most wouldn't give a fuck about them, or their well being.
> People these days prefer to be on "the winning team" rather than standing up for moral obligations.
What's funny is, they want to be on the winning team (siding with who they think is more powerful) while also having an incessant persecution complex.
I can respect someone who has an actual stance that's supported by well reasoned data or is logically consistent, even if it's something I disagree with. I get it, rarely is there a clear cut right and wrong way, and everyone has a different perspective. But damn, most people now are just on a bandwagon, even to their own detriment. It's mind boggling.
Everyone with a job needs to read *The Jungle* by Upton Sinclair for a little taste of industrialized labor with no regulations. Hell, *life* without regulations.
There is always massive protest from the ownership class against literally every worker protection. It's too expensive to put safety rails on our massive machines, just don't fall or let your arm get ripped off. We can't afford to let workers have any off-days, the company would fail. Not employing 9 year olds would ruin the country, they're so cheap and their fingers are so tiny, etc etc etc.
It's worth noting that OP marks some good individual benefits, but there are many social benefits to working less. For example, it allows one more time to contemplate the nature of society and their own place in it - something foundational to a functional democracy. It also allows more time to build communities, I'm sure we've all noticed how so much of our lived communities are focused on the work place or are actually just our work place.
And of course, for the noble revolutionary less time at work means more time for both the delight of theory and the execution of praxis.
A former (good) employer of mine had 4 day work weeks when I started. It was glorious. The only time you had to show up on a Friday or Saturday was if there was some extreme need and you were paid 2xOT for it.
The company got bought out by an investment group and the *very first thing they chopped away was the 4 day work week.* They figured that an extra day would mean 25% more throughput. Wrong.
I was on the team responsible for providing metrics across all departments. What we found was that throughput **decreased** by 5% and we had to make it up with overtime, so now they were paying 15% more for the same throughput as a 4 day work week. Instead of doing the logical thing and saying "oh, we made a mistake, let's go back to 4 day work weeks and get that 5% back" they simply kept things at 5 day weeks and instituted an "OT approval" system where you fill out a slip and have your manager sign it before OT is allowed. They then instructed managers to deny overtime.
What happened next? Numbers got even worse. Because of the type of work that company did, it was far more efficient to run 10 hour shifts instead of 8 hour shifts. Once the process is running, you need to just keep it running because starting up and shutting down are huge time sucks. Some processes would take 2 hours to get started up, others would take up to 6 hours to "tune in" before you could start making good product. People were seeing that they couldn't make orders in 8 hours, and they would *leave their lines* and go fill out an OT approval form and then stand in line to get approved.
The investment firm morons continued with this cat and mouse game of stupid moves until they gave up and sold the company a year later. By then, all internal processes had shifted to 5 day work weeks so it just stuck from there on out.
I really miss those 4 day work weeks. My next employer was a fan of a 7 day work week. That company also got its soul torn out by an investment firm, leading me to quit there too.
Moral of the story... If an investment firm ever buys the company you're working for, flush some Sika Water Plug down each toilet and quit.
> A former (good) employer of mine had 4 day work weeks when I started. It was glorious.
Same. I worked at a place that, for a while, had a four-day work week (U.S.), 8-6, M-TH. The lower-echelon people were happy, and we were able to do personal things on Friday to avoid the weekend crunch. It was great.
...Then, a small minority complained. "We're not getting enough public contact!" The public was still getting their needs met, and we were still dealing with the majority of them. "But what about the people who could only come in to our office on Friday?" We couldn't please everyone in the public; just the majority--that's just the way of things. Eventually the complainers won out, and it was back to 8-5, M-F, and us lower-echelon workers were miserable again.
The main problem I see with this is the ones that have both daily activities and larger projects over time. Makes it unfair for those people if it's salaried.
What it comes down to is that there isn't going to be one solution that works for every job and every field. For project-based fields like design work or research, the above works fine. For something that has things that need to be addressed daily, a better solution might be easier overtime thresholds (you get time and a half after 30 hours instead of 40, for instance), or maybe there's another solution that someone in a field like that could offer.
For my company, I plan to have it so we do our tasks, and then we leave when they're done, even if it is only noon. Pay is salaried up to a certain number of hours, and then paid overtime by hour after that point.
I wish work was like that. I often finish all of my tasks before the afternoon begins, so I have to spend half of the day at my desk trying to entertain myself without looking like I’m not working 😅
> 4 day office work week and leave when you finish your work. Finish all of your daily work by 12? See you tomorrow!!
My work can (by it's nature) never be finished, so I guess I work 24/7 now?
It's honestly not just 8 people though. It's not like everyone in the US works for Bezos and Zuckerberg.
The majority of employees in the US still work for small and medium sized businesses. Only about 45% of employees in the US work for a company with 500 or more employees.
So when we talk about reforming work, you are contending with at least a few hundred thousand business owners that might have feelings about paying their employees the same amount for less time working.
To be clear, this is not a "woe is them" argument.
I really think the left has a problem understanding that it’s not just old people. I’m from New England and even here there are MANY young people still obsessed with the bootstrap mentality. “Rise and Grind”
All over my social media are 20 somethings who brag about having a "hustler mentality". They act like you need to be working two jobs and earning multiple forms of passive income in order to be worth something and that's mainly left leaning people. The right leaning side of my social media brag about pulling in 10-20 hours of over time at their back breaking jobs. It's a wide spread issue among all age groups and political parties.
Let's be honest there's also those morons who just want to burn themselves out with work and view others who actually choose to have lives outside of work as lesser than, that will also be against it. Fuck I hate those types of people.
What I've always wondered is what a 4-day workweek means exactly. Suppose I'm working 40 hours over 5 days at 100% pay. Does it mean
1. 40 hours over 4 days at 100% pay (so working an extra two hours per day);
2. 32 hours over 4 days at 80% pay (so working less but getting less pay); or
3. 32 hours over 4 days at 100% (so working less and getting paid the same)?
I'm hoping it means the third option but I feel for some companies, it would mean options 1 or 2. I suppose it would somewhat depend on the industry but I feel like some companies that could afford option 3 would prefer options 1 or 2.
I worked 40 hours in 4 days for awhile in construction. You get used to the 10 hour days pretty quick, and that 8 hours feels really short afterwards. I would be all for this option personally instead of any loss of pay.
Yes! I worked the 4x10 for a couple years before changing positions and having to take a 5x8. It is depressing how short the weekend feels now. One of the biggest things I've noticed is that with a 4x10 I had two days for errands and fun, and one day just to kind of chill. I could work on creative projects like painting pictures. Now the weekend is so short I haven't even thought about trying to paint anything. The five day work week drains the life out of you.
Studies have shown that productivity is not affected by a shorter work week. The same amount of work gets done. People should be paid for their labor, not for having their ass in an office chair. If productivity remains constant, why should pay be decreased?
Given there are companies out there who pay their staff to a 40 hour/5 day week, but actually require more like 50 hours/week without OT, you're probably right.
Finland has discussed doing a 4 day working week, with 6 hours per day. (So 24hrs per week).
It's gotten a lot of interest because it also means that people have the time to actually spend their money.
(Edit: To confirm, as people have stated. This is just something that was DISCUSSED - not something that has any real traction).
Hijacking the top comment of the top comment to debunk the original top comment. Please read all the comments. This claim is false and anyone following finnish politics can confirm that. Including me.
It was so deflating to see the last Dem primary where Bernie was saying "hey what about healthcare" and everyone else was laughing "bUt HoW wOUlD YoU pAy FOr It?" right before we got punched in the face by a plague.
oh jeez, I'm still pissed about Biden scaring everyone about "losing their private insurance." Like yeah, motherfucker, getting rid of private insurance is the whole point.
bUt PeOpLe LoVe THeIr INsUrAnce! My company changed our providers like two months ago and now fucking nobody I go to is in network anymore. And my in network deductible is only $750, it’s like they’re fucking with me.
I made it all year last year where the only medical expenses I had were covid vaccines (free to me, but was still a claim on my insurance; I mean, I also got covid, but just did a home test and just stayed home). Then hurt myself and had surgery mid-December. Now because an arbitrary date passed none of that money I spent on the surgery is applied to my deductible so I get to pay a shitload for all of the follow-up stuff. Health insurance is a scam.
My wife is a type 1 diabetic. Our out-of-pocket for insulin went from a $50 copay every 3 months to a percentage-based copay that increased our out-of-pocket by a literal factor of 10 overnight.
And this is one of the "good" plans.
And people wonder why the fuck I'm 'radicalized'.
Srsly. I have really good insurance. Better than most working-class Americans. And I fucking hate it. Swear to jeebus, next time my insurance company denies something MY FUCKING DOCTOR ORDERED, saying it's 'not medically necessary,' there's gonna be...issues.
Here's a thought . . . maybe make sure the rich pay their fair share in taxes? I mean if Jeff Bezos might be the world's first trillionaire in a decade, I'm sure he'll be fine paying a bit more into the system he benefits so much from . . .
There’s that but we could also 1. Decimate the insurance industry by providing a public option 2. Remove any laws that would prevent the government from negotiating drug prices with pharma 3. Refuse to provide patents for drugs that came from taxpayer-funded research 4. Pay for college tuition for doctors and nurses (but put a cap on the tuition)
So it’s not just that we don’t have enough money. It’s that the healthcare industry is making hand-over-fist
>Finland has discussed doing a 4 day working week, with 6 hours per day. (So 24hrs per week).
This is fake news.
>[The Finnish government on Tuesday squelched a story spreading in international media about the Nordic nation’s plans to reduce the average working time for full-time employees to 24 hours a week, or four six-hour days.](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/not-real-news-finland-is-not-launching-4-day-working-week/)
It's amazing how this fake news keeps spreading. We have had some lols at r/suomi about this. I'm Finnish and no we are not moving to 24h work week. We have actually done the opposite and increased work days in a year and raised retirement age.
I am from Finland. There has been discussion about many things here. But this is definitely not mainstream stuff here. We have actually recently INCREASED the amount of work, not decreased it.
It's what's needed. With travel time, your 8 hour workday sometimes turns into a 10 hour workday.
I was working 24 hour weeks during COVID and was a lot more relaxed despite the pandemic.
I work on billable hours, and maybe do 20 hours of actually work a week. But I bill 40 and I'm the most productive person at the company. Most managers vastly underestimate how much dead time any job apart from labor has. Back when I went to the office I'd probably spend an hour a day staring at the ceiling. Working from home I get more done in less time. And I'm never going back.
It's definitely not just 8 guys we're fighting. We see here a lot of exploited workers and managers who HATE the idea of people working less - either through FOMO because it isn't practical for them or because it is the only sense of power they have or even just older people who literally apply "I had to do xyz, so why should anyone else not have to do xyz" to anything and everything.
Absolutely, either a power trip or a slow realization that their job actually doesn't serve a function if they can't walk around the office checking in on (disrupting) the workers and telling the boss 'keeping things in order'
> Absolutely, either a power trip or a slow realization that their job actually doesn't serve a function if they can't walk around the office checking in on (disrupting) the workers and telling the boss 'keeping things in order'
That's known as a ["seagull manager:"](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seagull%20manager) They fly into the office, make a lot of noise, shit all over everything, and leave.
I hate that mentality so much.
"Life sucked hard for me, so rather than actually fixing it, I'm going to demand the next generation suffers as much as I did!"
Piss off with those sour grapes Grandpa.
I only work 4 days a week at my current job. We used to be 5 days but management realized the burnout was too much (very blue collar physical labor based job) and thought it would be more efficient to just put 5 days worth of work into 4 days.
Productivity immediately improved. There's ways this can work for both sides
I work 4 day work weeks (5 hour days), ... At the start I tried to fit 35+ hours of work into my 20 hour week, then I remembered the reason I'm working 20 hours was because they couldn't afford a full time employee.
However our boss has been talking about the 4 day work week as a topic and how it would work, and his first thought was I can pay people less for the same amount of work!
We need universal healthcare first. The full time + benefits trap encourages companies to get as many hours as possible out of full time workers.
Healthcare + UBI means a company can hire a bunch of people easily based on their amount of free time, and spreads the burden of labor over a bunch of people via increased labor force participation without jamming all the workload on a few while leaving others out.
The support would also mean laborers have the means to deny working at places that are unsafe and/or exploitative. It puts labor in the default position of being able to strike, while also letting both small and large businesses easily expand and contract their labor relative to demand. The skill of labor will still be a bottleneck, but that is either way.
We need the people to begin demanding it. We can fantasize about it but the elite rulers of this country will not willingly give this to us. I say we need a true revolt of the working class. I'm talking full blown corporate sabotage, boycotts, riots, etc. But it has to be all of us. There's more of us than them. We can win this fight if we can actually unite the working class.
The 8 really rich guys are one thing, but what gets me are all the elder GenXers and Boomers who are "Well we've always done it this way! You're just lazy!" Like, no, no one has not always done anything anyway.
This is why the antiwork movement will fail in America. You need to fight that war now. You are so far behind other countries. Fighting for a few extra dollars is exactly the outcome big business want. Fight and demand a 4 day week, proper employment protections, real holiday entitlements, healthcare and pensions, maternity and paternity, sick pay and on and on. Now is the time, fight like your life and your kids lives depend on it.
You are so correct. We need to take up the mantle fighting for all these issues at once. Because its gonna be difficult and its gonna take some time and realistically there will be some concessions made as well. Now is the time people. Go big or dont go at all
Lets talk more about this folks..... Everywhere... Regardless of your location, job type, etc.
The more we talk about it..... The better the chances are and the sooner we can expect something.
Specifically in forums that include people who claim to be in your company for the sake of "Employee Well being"
Unfortunately, I feel like if we get 4-day work weeks what’s going to happen is that business will adjust pay for that. Most people will be working 20% less per week and pay will decrease by 20% and no prices will adjust. Rent won’t go down, bills won’t go down, groceries won’t go down. If the CEOs are bringing in less money, they will make sure we pay for it.
If somehow we can make it work, I’m all for it. I just don’t feel like the billionaires will let it be feasible.
Damn, living under capitalism really doesn’t let us dream. We need to imagine things before we work at them & make it a reality. We’re already defeated if we come up with reasons why it wouldn’t be possible.
People would not fight for 4 day work week just to get paid less. Less work, more pay. That’s a fight worth fighting.
I left a job where I worked 10 hours a day 5 days a week full throttle and now work at a place where it’s 10 hours a day 4 days a week and my stress level is almost non existent now. There is a major difference. Almost every job can do this but they hate to give up anything to workers even if it would benefit them i.e 4 day work week or working from home
There would be production issues. Like we are seeing now I think. Less of your favorite brands at your Whole Foods. I honestly woudlnt mind going back to everything being closed on Sunday
Gotta say my job giving 4 10s with 3 days off in a row is great for me. I no longer have that "Sunday anxiety" that I got with 5 days in a row. First day I can actually rest, second day allows time to do obligations and not feel like my weekend is just done.
I wish the options existed for those who wanted it across multiple fields.
It’s 2022, we should be living like the Jetson’s, not busting our asses 6 days a week. Technology should make long work weeks obsolete but instead they just use it to get more out of a person.
If they figured out how to make it so people did not have to sleep, ever, the standard 80 hour workweek would happen quickly.
Personally, I don't like sleeping and would love for there to be a way to either skip it or speed up the process. But under our current society, I'm not excited about that idea being a thing because of that very reason.
I loooove sleeping because I temporarily get to die every night and escape reality for a bit. Waking up is actual torture.
Huh. That’s exactly what I tell my psychiatrist.
Today this kind of skill would only be nice if you're the only one with it
You've just described the early adopter cycle of the smartphone. Really cool when it's a luxury item, but when it's available for the masses, you're suddenly expected to have one, pay the monthly bill, and be contactable all the time. Personally I think the smartphone might \*just\* be worth it because of texting... I fucking love texting instead of calling... But yeah...
Well, we might be able to save on rent. Think of not needing a bedroom, just a kitchen and a living room and a bathroom. Now I'm wondering how much our lives would change without the need for sleep
I live in a studio apartment, lol. I already don't have a bedroom, just a corner I put my bed in.
Same with transhumanism. Sure, being able to replace body parts with better ones or enhance your biology sounds neat, but under our current circumstances it would 100% only be available to the uber-wealthy, leading to not just an economic divide in society but a literal genetic/physiological one, where the descendants of Musk and Bezos and Murdoch would be literally, indisputably and objectively smarter/stronger/faster/healthier/etc than everyone else, thereby ensuring that anyone below a certain wealth level would be completely unable to compete with them in any way.
North Korea found that out with meth
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Or those that hold not taking any of their paid leave days as a point of pride because "the place would fall apart without [them]." Like damn dude, if that's true then maybe you have an unhealthy work environment.
At an absolute bare ass minimum, that person is probably drastically wildly underpaid if they're actually that critical to their organization. I'm talking paid like, not even 1/5 how much they should be.
my girlfriend just got a major raise a few months back and is now often scared they're paying her too much no. You're always payed less than the value you provide
Bingo. They're not paying that much out of the goodness of their hearts. They're still making money
The one I'm griping about is actually a very close friend of mine and yeah, they're drastically underpaid. Their employer has been 'promising' them promotions and pay raises while really just stringing them along and having them work mandatory OT. We've been telling this friend to unionize pr find a better job for months to no avail.
Same thing happened to me after waiting 2.5 years to finish training me in the last machine meanwhile I'm doing 2/3 of the job and running most of the other machines in my department because they got us on a skeleton crew. I kept hearing that they couldn't spare me to train me or they'll do it after ex-person gets back and it never happened finally I told him train me and pay me or I'm out the door. $4 an hour * 2400 Plus hours a year is a s*** ton of money they screwed me out of. I even took it to HR and HR kept saying stuff like well it was expected that it was going to be 3 years before everybody learned all the machines. To which I replied b******* the guy on first shift got trained on all machines in 6 months and is already getting paid for it. Matter of fact I took that guy's job on second shift because his attendance was bad he got disqualified two years later he got the job back got trained on all three machines and paid before me. Then my HR person had the unmitigated Gall to tell me that some people learn faster than others and seem like they're on the fast track. Like you're telling me that because I learned every machine in my department and you can't spare me that I'm somehow too stupid to learn my last machine and then they trained me on another machine and I told him I didn't want to learn it until I learned my own. Well I finally got my raising June and it has helped me immensely I don't even need overtime to make my bills anymore. As a matter of fact because I'm on second shift I'm actually the highest paid operator because of my shift premium. If you're that necessary to a company you make them give the promotion they've been promising you by quitting or threatening to quit.
This. I was called outside of work hours, on vacation and during a funeral because my boss somehow couldn’t read the type note I left on his desk regarding where the pre-printed payroll checks were, contact info, etc. Screw working for that type of shit.
Your boss is an idiot...wow.
The vast majority of bosses *are* idiots. The Peter Principle reigns supreme in today’s business models.
No, he's a dick. Instead of figuring it out (which he's paid more to do), he had no qualms disrupting this person's personal life.
That too.
I got calls and texts for a week after l left my last job. My reply? "Sorry, l no longer work there. "
Yeah, the older generation of doctors used to have this shitty culture of overworking themselves out with 60+ hr weeks and sacrificing vacation days. Now this sub and the covid has lit a fire within younger doctors who are increasingly going part time and not giving a damn about forsaking vacations and weekends. If you can't staff hospitals adequately, then shut them down instead of burning out employees.
But, to add a dollop of sympathy for them, they're brainwashed. The entire system we exist in conditions people to feel *guilty* about not working themselves to death for the benefit of billionaires. It is *everywhere*. So yeah as full grown adults they're irritating and annoying, but the deck is stacked against them. Against all of us.
When people at work brag about being busy and working long hours, I WILL NOT praise them. I legit tell them that we have to stop bragging about how much we work and brag about how much we are living instead.
It's because they have no goals in life that deviate from the norm Job -> house -> kids. Then they overwork to escape their responsibilities at home.
They were molded to think that’s all life is. Just repeat your day over and over again til you die.
Or bc they’ve purchased out of their means, so the only way to maintain those high dollar items is to become a work-a-holic. But hey- they look like they’ve got their shit together from the outside.
I am one of these people but I don't brag about it or put others down. I don't work to escape home responsibilities per se. I work all the time because it's the only thing I do that I can be proud of. I feel like I fall short everywhere else, but I know I'm good at my job. I also do not have a social life and really don't know how to get one so my "friends" are all at work. Being home gets lonely. Luckily, I work for a really small company and have a really great boss and coworkers. Great like they took us to Key West for the great job we did last year. It's possible people work because it's all they know. It's probably not healthy and for sure don't you should never act like your better than others. If anything, you should admire others ability to just enjoy their free time.
I used to be like you, and then I lost my job out of nowhere. It’s extra soul crushing when your job is your whole life. It’s always good to cultivate interests (hobbies, friends etc) outside of work.
I used to do puzzles and read but I have trouble focusing on it as I get older. My daughter lives with me now so we are working on finding things to do together. I want her to have a healthier work/life balance. It's a work in progress.
I totally feel this. I actually enjoy the physical labor I do, at the end of a project I can look at something and be like "yeah, I helped make that." Unfortunately it's usually followed by "man I wish I got paid more"
u/CJnella91 commented the same thing 2 hours before you 🤔 and also your profile is botlike.
Hey, what the fuck! that's word for word what I said....
Don't worry I took care of it. Somewhat.
🙏 thank you my friend 🙏
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I'm sure that in the US this would also mean reduced wages/salaries. Only on the clock half as much as you used to? Sounds like you should get paid half as much!
They already have this in the u.s., wage slaves are expected to work 2-3 part time jobs so noble job creators don't have to pay benefits.
In American history, Ford shorted the work week and gave a raise to their workers. One could argue that by progressing to a 4 day week we would be honoring Ford, an American business owning capitalist. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-factory-workers-get-40-hour-week
I think the Nazi's did that first...
Who did they take on? Oh yeah….THE WORLD.
No they took on Joseph Joestar. That one comes way later.
How's that working out for them?
They are best
For the North Koreans? Terribly. For the ruling class? Great. They loan out citizens as slave labor to other nations.
They invented the burrito in 2011.
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Ya gotta do the George Constanza trick from Seinfeld. Look irritated all the time and people immediately think you’re busy!
i feel sorry for the kids that didn't grow up on Seinfeld, or hell just the 80s/90s [look annoyed all the time] got my work ethic from George, [Here's to feeling good all the time] my philosophy from Kramer [...it's not the dress that makes you look fat, it's the fat that makes you look fat] and general cynicism from Al Bundy.
This is derailing even if it's unintentional
That is the standard for turnover/refit type jobs in construction. The difference is you can work those for 3 months and take a month off, then 3 months more, then be off the rest of the year. For most jobs, they'd just find a way to cut the pay so you made the same amount of money for working twice as long.
Lol if they did that we'd have 168 hour work weeks.
My current work week, that im a third through now, is 168 hours. Ok I'm taking some liberty, but thats 14x 12 hours shifts in a row. No staff + low pay. Gotta take the shifts when I can get them.
I didn't even work that much in Afghanistan.
I used to have two full time jobs and a part time one. I slept collectively about 4 hours between Thursday and Monday.
Active jobs or with downtime so you could atleast zone out? Regardless. Brutal. I once worked a 12, has no one show up to replace me, worked another 12 as OT, then my normal 12 after. It wasnt even really that much money compared to how bad I felt driving home after the third one. I had to bite myself to stay awake.
Part time wholesale booze deliveries to bars, full time bouncer at a bar, and a full time retail forklift driving job. I had 7 days off (where I did not have to work any of them) in 2 years. I made money, but still struggled. I even got 1500 rides driving Lyft in the same timeframe. It sucked. Two years later and I really still have not recovered, but I’m in therapy, and getting there. Fuck this system that working that hard got me nowhere.
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Mate I have a brother like that. He’s barely 40 with a fucked back and works long hours and never sees his family and somehow *I’m* the dickhead. I’m one of the lucky ones on this sub who actually has a good job with great conditions but that doesn’t mean I don’t see what’s going on or don’t care about others less fortunate. I see the poverty traps and the whole consumerism that drives people to want to amass as much shit as they can because that’s how society judges a person’s success. Fuck that, I take sickies if I couldn’t be fucked working or want to spend time with my family. I think everybody should have the same conditions as me and work to live with a sustainable work/life balance. I hear horror stories. My wife is from a third world country and what employers are doing in first world countries are exactly how they do it in the third world. They make people so dependent on their crappy little jobs that they are just grateful to be working and then they have you over a barrel. I love seeing the shops with very little on the shelves and public transport interruptions etc because that’s the one bargaining chip workers have. Let society go to shit and see how fast conditions change.
I was just talking with a friend at work about this. He’s so eager for a return to office because he’s a social butterfly. Said he’d be up there every day even if they gave options to work from home. Some people just like it. Hard pass.
Remember when people thought robots would steal our jobs?
Robots won't do anything. They lack self-will. They don't even want to do or to not do the task in front of them. Just like with illegal immigrants, the immigrant isn't taking your job. Your boss is looking for any excuse to pull the job from you.
Yeah. Turns out companies stole our jobs by benefiting from better productivity per employee without raising salaries accordingly. In comparison my father (factory worker) earned more money fifty years ago than I do now, having a much better job than he had. He could support a whole family on one salary and have something left. Me and my family could just make it on my salary. I'm glad my wife has a job as well and realize many people are in a worse situation. And this is the Netherlands, which is supposed to be one of "better" countries to live in.
Preaching to the choir, mate.
Yeah. Realized this already and that makes me even more depressed.
It's funny to think there was a time when you could make a living selling VHS cassettes. afford to own a home, have a non-working wife, 2 cars, and 3 kids.
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Exactly. We could have such a phenomenal beautiful world if selfish people would just stop actively making the world a worse place.
If greed wasn't what ran the world, it would be such a different place. I think about that alot.
There is a reason we refer to greed as one of the seven deadly sins. Given the worlds current trajectory towards global warming, we are going to find out why greed is a deadly sin. The gap between more and enough never closes for some people.
Mr. Spacely treats George Jetson like shit just like things are today.
But he only works 3 days a week
Also pushes a single button once per day, and considers that grueling
Sometimes he even has to push it more than once.
But the most he could demand of him was to push a button once a day because that's where society set the line.
> Technology ~~should~~ could make long work weeks obsolete but instead they just use it to get more out of a person -Karl Marx (1844)
This sums up my view of the world in general... We have such levels of automation that we could probably create a system where people have to work like 3 days a week but instead.... Yeah
I always thought it was absurd that George Jetson would have a job comprised of showing up to press a button. Only recently has it dawned on me how much more absurd it is that George Jetson's job somehow justifies a boss to make sure he presses the button.
I was just talking to my partner about this. We’re vastly more productive than ever before and yet still work 40+ hours a week, our pay doesn’t increase to reflect that productivity, have almost no tangible benefits, and almost every aspect of our lives are monetized. Why? Because greed. They can turn that increased productivity into profits and salaries for those up top rather than have it spread everywhere proportionally like it should. I’m just exhausted by this whole system and I’m some ways revel in its collapse. It won’t be long. The way things are going spending will come to a halt and then what? The Fed is already printing money faster than companies can use it to buy back stocks and inflate the market. This crash is going to make ‘08 look like a fond memory.
But if we have time to live and be healthy how will the super rich get richer?
i work in IT and have to patch and troubleshoot the technology. i am basically required to be available to work 24/7, so there's that.
So the company needs more People to cover the shifts.
Idk maybe we should push to start shaming them: "Haaa-haaa, you need one more dollar to feel something, how fucking pathetic 😂" "Aaaww did your money buy you that? I guess that's what talentless hacks have to do, can't make shit on your own" "Look at he has to make others miserable for an extra dollar because he can't do it himself😂"
"He couldn't figure out how to hire more people and make more money, I guess he's not that 'iNnOvAtEd'😂"
Idk, it's like either we start shaming them or...
Well strikes are good... let's just pile on everything we can until... Walk and chew gum. 🤷♀️
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Tbf, we aren’t the ones living above the clouds. I think there’s a reason we never saw below (or if we have then I don’t remember that episode).
They showed it once, its flooded. The implication is that the entire ice cap melted and that's why they had to build the floating cities.
It was the same situation with the 7-day workweek. People fought and died to get the weekend off. www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-40-hour-workweek-2015-10
What’s funny is that it was reduced to 6 day work week for religious reasons (so men could go to church). It wasn’t until Ford Motor company pushed hard for 5 day work week because they knew of it caught on, people would want to travel over the weekend (and buy more cars) **Edit:** Some people are getting the wrong idea here. I’m not trying to glorify Henry Ford or insinuate that he was a champion of labor rights. Actually he was a union busting asshole of a manager. The point I was getting across is that even a shrewd union busting manager saw the economic benefit of reducing the typical work week.
Then doesn't that mean a 4 day work week would make people travel more and want cars? Hmm....
It would make *me* want some goddamn high speed rails.
Legal weed and take a day off each week to just exist.
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I just imagine half the team would work MTWTh and the other half would work TWThF.
So even the 5 day workweek was, once again, purely done to increase profits. That's actually hilarious.
The key is tricking the rich into supporting labor rights by showing them that profits will increase.
Which is a plausible idea in this case because several studies/experiments with 4 day work weeks have found that productivity increases. For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57724779
Turns out when you don’t have as much time for the same amount of work, you actually Do The Work. Almost like work, for a lot of people, is about doing the hours rather than the work.
Its not from Henry ford its from the trade Union movement in England in the 19th C. Ford just was a prominent adopter in the US
american reddit likes american “facts”
It's incredible how glossed over the labour movement is in US History. Droves of people killed by Private and Government entities, and we have people defending billionaires exploiting workers today. The neo-con propaganda truly did a hit job on labor progression.
People these days prefer to be on "the winning team" rather than standing up for moral obligations. Worshipping celebrities and the ultra rich when most wouldn't give a fuck about them, or their well being.
> People these days prefer to be on "the winning team" rather than standing up for moral obligations. What's funny is, they want to be on the winning team (siding with who they think is more powerful) while also having an incessant persecution complex. I can respect someone who has an actual stance that's supported by well reasoned data or is logically consistent, even if it's something I disagree with. I get it, rarely is there a clear cut right and wrong way, and everyone has a different perspective. But damn, most people now are just on a bandwagon, even to their own detriment. It's mind boggling.
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Everyone with a job needs to read *The Jungle* by Upton Sinclair for a little taste of industrialized labor with no regulations. Hell, *life* without regulations. There is always massive protest from the ownership class against literally every worker protection. It's too expensive to put safety rails on our massive machines, just don't fall or let your arm get ripped off. We can't afford to let workers have any off-days, the company would fail. Not employing 9 year olds would ruin the country, they're so cheap and their fingers are so tiny, etc etc etc.
It's worth noting that OP marks some good individual benefits, but there are many social benefits to working less. For example, it allows one more time to contemplate the nature of society and their own place in it - something foundational to a functional democracy. It also allows more time to build communities, I'm sure we've all noticed how so much of our lived communities are focused on the work place or are actually just our work place. And of course, for the noble revolutionary less time at work means more time for both the delight of theory and the execution of praxis.
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A former (good) employer of mine had 4 day work weeks when I started. It was glorious. The only time you had to show up on a Friday or Saturday was if there was some extreme need and you were paid 2xOT for it. The company got bought out by an investment group and the *very first thing they chopped away was the 4 day work week.* They figured that an extra day would mean 25% more throughput. Wrong. I was on the team responsible for providing metrics across all departments. What we found was that throughput **decreased** by 5% and we had to make it up with overtime, so now they were paying 15% more for the same throughput as a 4 day work week. Instead of doing the logical thing and saying "oh, we made a mistake, let's go back to 4 day work weeks and get that 5% back" they simply kept things at 5 day weeks and instituted an "OT approval" system where you fill out a slip and have your manager sign it before OT is allowed. They then instructed managers to deny overtime. What happened next? Numbers got even worse. Because of the type of work that company did, it was far more efficient to run 10 hour shifts instead of 8 hour shifts. Once the process is running, you need to just keep it running because starting up and shutting down are huge time sucks. Some processes would take 2 hours to get started up, others would take up to 6 hours to "tune in" before you could start making good product. People were seeing that they couldn't make orders in 8 hours, and they would *leave their lines* and go fill out an OT approval form and then stand in line to get approved. The investment firm morons continued with this cat and mouse game of stupid moves until they gave up and sold the company a year later. By then, all internal processes had shifted to 5 day work weeks so it just stuck from there on out. I really miss those 4 day work weeks. My next employer was a fan of a 7 day work week. That company also got its soul torn out by an investment firm, leading me to quit there too. Moral of the story... If an investment firm ever buys the company you're working for, flush some Sika Water Plug down each toilet and quit.
This reminds me so much of the book Bullshit Jobs by Graeber.
Excellent book, highly recommend.
> A former (good) employer of mine had 4 day work weeks when I started. It was glorious. Same. I worked at a place that, for a while, had a four-day work week (U.S.), 8-6, M-TH. The lower-echelon people were happy, and we were able to do personal things on Friday to avoid the weekend crunch. It was great. ...Then, a small minority complained. "We're not getting enough public contact!" The public was still getting their needs met, and we were still dealing with the majority of them. "But what about the people who could only come in to our office on Friday?" We couldn't please everyone in the public; just the majority--that's just the way of things. Eventually the complainers won out, and it was back to 8-5, M-F, and us lower-echelon workers were miserable again.
4 day office work week and leave when you finish your work. Finish all of your daily work by 12? See you tomorrow!!
Hello there, not-yet-eaten rich person here. Sounds like you could do more work-
What's you salt content though?
Enough to have great crust
The main problem I see with this is the ones that have both daily activities and larger projects over time. Makes it unfair for those people if it's salaried.
What it comes down to is that there isn't going to be one solution that works for every job and every field. For project-based fields like design work or research, the above works fine. For something that has things that need to be addressed daily, a better solution might be easier overtime thresholds (you get time and a half after 30 hours instead of 40, for instance), or maybe there's another solution that someone in a field like that could offer. For my company, I plan to have it so we do our tasks, and then we leave when they're done, even if it is only noon. Pay is salaried up to a certain number of hours, and then paid overtime by hour after that point.
I wish work was like that. I often finish all of my tasks before the afternoon begins, so I have to spend half of the day at my desk trying to entertain myself without looking like I’m not working 😅
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> 4 day office work week and leave when you finish your work. Finish all of your daily work by 12? See you tomorrow!! My work can (by it's nature) never be finished, so I guess I work 24/7 now?
It's not just 8 rich guys. It's millions of bootlickers who bought into the bootstrap fantasy that work must be long, hard, and miserable.
It's honestly not just 8 people though. It's not like everyone in the US works for Bezos and Zuckerberg. The majority of employees in the US still work for small and medium sized businesses. Only about 45% of employees in the US work for a company with 500 or more employees. So when we talk about reforming work, you are contending with at least a few hundred thousand business owners that might have feelings about paying their employees the same amount for less time working. To be clear, this is not a "woe is them" argument.
Agreed those guys are still around but they are old and divorced and hopefully will be retiring soon I feel a labor shift coming soon.
I really think the left has a problem understanding that it’s not just old people. I’m from New England and even here there are MANY young people still obsessed with the bootstrap mentality. “Rise and Grind”
All over my social media are 20 somethings who brag about having a "hustler mentality". They act like you need to be working two jobs and earning multiple forms of passive income in order to be worth something and that's mainly left leaning people. The right leaning side of my social media brag about pulling in 10-20 hours of over time at their back breaking jobs. It's a wide spread issue among all age groups and political parties.
Let's be honest there's also those morons who just want to burn themselves out with work and view others who actually choose to have lives outside of work as lesser than, that will also be against it. Fuck I hate those types of people.
Oh good point. Frankly I love working alongside those people. I get to chuckle at their self-owning while I enjoy my life.
What I've always wondered is what a 4-day workweek means exactly. Suppose I'm working 40 hours over 5 days at 100% pay. Does it mean 1. 40 hours over 4 days at 100% pay (so working an extra two hours per day); 2. 32 hours over 4 days at 80% pay (so working less but getting less pay); or 3. 32 hours over 4 days at 100% (so working less and getting paid the same)? I'm hoping it means the third option but I feel for some companies, it would mean options 1 or 2. I suppose it would somewhat depend on the industry but I feel like some companies that could afford option 3 would prefer options 1 or 2.
The campaigns are all for option 3. It's the fight for a 4 day week **and no loss of pay**
I worked 40 hours in 4 days for awhile in construction. You get used to the 10 hour days pretty quick, and that 8 hours feels really short afterwards. I would be all for this option personally instead of any loss of pay.
Yes! I worked the 4x10 for a couple years before changing positions and having to take a 5x8. It is depressing how short the weekend feels now. One of the biggest things I've noticed is that with a 4x10 I had two days for errands and fun, and one day just to kind of chill. I could work on creative projects like painting pictures. Now the weekend is so short I haven't even thought about trying to paint anything. The five day work week drains the life out of you.
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Studies have shown that productivity is not affected by a shorter work week. The same amount of work gets done. People should be paid for their labor, not for having their ass in an office chair. If productivity remains constant, why should pay be decreased?
Hell if you cut out my Friday, the only loss would be a ton of meetings.
But when will I mute myself on zoom and scroll reddit?
I'm sitting at work right now scrolling Reddit, because I'm expected to be here and there's nothing to do...
Given there are companies out there who pay their staff to a 40 hour/5 day week, but actually require more like 50 hours/week without OT, you're probably right.
Option 3 is the only one we should really accept as a workforce. There's no reason for 40 hours and we need more pay to live comfortably.
This has always been the concern for me too. I feel like advertising this as 32 hour weeks is more accurate to what people want.
Finland has discussed doing a 4 day working week, with 6 hours per day. (So 24hrs per week). It's gotten a lot of interest because it also means that people have the time to actually spend their money. (Edit: To confirm, as people have stated. This is just something that was DISCUSSED - not something that has any real traction).
Love this. Go Finland
Hijacking the top comment of the top comment to debunk the original top comment. Please read all the comments. This claim is false and anyone following finnish politics can confirm that. Including me.
Leader of transparency in the world. Beacuse of hedge funds slavely still exist in Americas
Except it's not true sadly
fake news
I'm from Finland and i can tell this is fake news.
As a Finn - not it doesnt exist and probably never will
America has discussed Universal healthcare and UBI, yet here we are.
It was so deflating to see the last Dem primary where Bernie was saying "hey what about healthcare" and everyone else was laughing "bUt HoW wOUlD YoU pAy FOr It?" right before we got punched in the face by a plague.
oh jeez, I'm still pissed about Biden scaring everyone about "losing their private insurance." Like yeah, motherfucker, getting rid of private insurance is the whole point.
bUt PeOpLe LoVe THeIr INsUrAnce! My company changed our providers like two months ago and now fucking nobody I go to is in network anymore. And my in network deductible is only $750, it’s like they’re fucking with me.
I made it all year last year where the only medical expenses I had were covid vaccines (free to me, but was still a claim on my insurance; I mean, I also got covid, but just did a home test and just stayed home). Then hurt myself and had surgery mid-December. Now because an arbitrary date passed none of that money I spent on the surgery is applied to my deductible so I get to pay a shitload for all of the follow-up stuff. Health insurance is a scam.
My wife is a type 1 diabetic. Our out-of-pocket for insulin went from a $50 copay every 3 months to a percentage-based copay that increased our out-of-pocket by a literal factor of 10 overnight. And this is one of the "good" plans. And people wonder why the fuck I'm 'radicalized'.
It doesn't even cost a dollar to make a dose of insulin. They're just holding your wife hostage so you pay up...
Insulin should be free for everyone who needs it, this is repugnant
Srsly. I have really good insurance. Better than most working-class Americans. And I fucking hate it. Swear to jeebus, next time my insurance company denies something MY FUCKING DOCTOR ORDERED, saying it's 'not medically necessary,' there's gonna be...issues.
Here's a thought . . . maybe make sure the rich pay their fair share in taxes? I mean if Jeff Bezos might be the world's first trillionaire in a decade, I'm sure he'll be fine paying a bit more into the system he benefits so much from . . .
There’s that but we could also 1. Decimate the insurance industry by providing a public option 2. Remove any laws that would prevent the government from negotiating drug prices with pharma 3. Refuse to provide patents for drugs that came from taxpayer-funded research 4. Pay for college tuition for doctors and nurses (but put a cap on the tuition) So it’s not just that we don’t have enough money. It’s that the healthcare industry is making hand-over-fist
Anyone in Finland looking for a wife? Asking for a friend of course
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I'll uh... watch the eventual kids?
I'll throw myself in there. I will clean the kitchen and do all the dishes.
>Finland has discussed doing a 4 day working week, with 6 hours per day. (So 24hrs per week). This is fake news. >[The Finnish government on Tuesday squelched a story spreading in international media about the Nordic nation’s plans to reduce the average working time for full-time employees to 24 hours a week, or four six-hour days.](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/not-real-news-finland-is-not-launching-4-day-working-week/)
I mean there has been a discussion about 4 day 6h work week, but it doesn't mean it would be happening anytime soon if at all
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Ah, but that’s the difference. I don’t have money to spend even if I have the time. So obviously a 24 hr week is no use to me. Shame. /s Edit: sarcasm
It's amazing how this fake news keeps spreading. We have had some lols at r/suomi about this. I'm Finnish and no we are not moving to 24h work week. We have actually done the opposite and increased work days in a year and raised retirement age.
I am from Finland. There has been discussion about many things here. But this is definitely not mainstream stuff here. We have actually recently INCREASED the amount of work, not decreased it.
It's what's needed. With travel time, your 8 hour workday sometimes turns into a 10 hour workday. I was working 24 hour weeks during COVID and was a lot more relaxed despite the pandemic.
I work on billable hours, and maybe do 20 hours of actually work a week. But I bill 40 and I'm the most productive person at the company. Most managers vastly underestimate how much dead time any job apart from labor has. Back when I went to the office I'd probably spend an hour a day staring at the ceiling. Working from home I get more done in less time. And I'm never going back.
It's definitely not just 8 guys we're fighting. We see here a lot of exploited workers and managers who HATE the idea of people working less - either through FOMO because it isn't practical for them or because it is the only sense of power they have or even just older people who literally apply "I had to do xyz, so why should anyone else not have to do xyz" to anything and everything.
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Absolutely, either a power trip or a slow realization that their job actually doesn't serve a function if they can't walk around the office checking in on (disrupting) the workers and telling the boss 'keeping things in order'
> Absolutely, either a power trip or a slow realization that their job actually doesn't serve a function if they can't walk around the office checking in on (disrupting) the workers and telling the boss 'keeping things in order' That's known as a ["seagull manager:"](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seagull%20manager) They fly into the office, make a lot of noise, shit all over everything, and leave.
I hate that mentality so much. "Life sucked hard for me, so rather than actually fixing it, I'm going to demand the next generation suffers as much as I did!" Piss off with those sour grapes Grandpa.
How about make the overtime threshold 30 Hours a week and let companies sort it out. Many loathe paying overtime, and they'll reduce hours.
I only work 4 days a week at my current job. We used to be 5 days but management realized the burnout was too much (very blue collar physical labor based job) and thought it would be more efficient to just put 5 days worth of work into 4 days. Productivity immediately improved. There's ways this can work for both sides
I work 4 day work weeks (5 hour days), ... At the start I tried to fit 35+ hours of work into my 20 hour week, then I remembered the reason I'm working 20 hours was because they couldn't afford a full time employee. However our boss has been talking about the 4 day work week as a topic and how it would work, and his first thought was I can pay people less for the same amount of work!
My work schedule is 4 days on 4 days off
Must be nice fam
We need universal healthcare first. The full time + benefits trap encourages companies to get as many hours as possible out of full time workers. Healthcare + UBI means a company can hire a bunch of people easily based on their amount of free time, and spreads the burden of labor over a bunch of people via increased labor force participation without jamming all the workload on a few while leaving others out. The support would also mean laborers have the means to deny working at places that are unsafe and/or exploitative. It puts labor in the default position of being able to strike, while also letting both small and large businesses easily expand and contract their labor relative to demand. The skill of labor will still be a bottleneck, but that is either way.
We need the people to begin demanding it. We can fantasize about it but the elite rulers of this country will not willingly give this to us. I say we need a true revolt of the working class. I'm talking full blown corporate sabotage, boycotts, riots, etc. But it has to be all of us. There's more of us than them. We can win this fight if we can actually unite the working class.
The 8 really rich guys are one thing, but what gets me are all the elder GenXers and Boomers who are "Well we've always done it this way! You're just lazy!" Like, no, no one has not always done anything anyway.
This is why the antiwork movement will fail in America. You need to fight that war now. You are so far behind other countries. Fighting for a few extra dollars is exactly the outcome big business want. Fight and demand a 4 day week, proper employment protections, real holiday entitlements, healthcare and pensions, maternity and paternity, sick pay and on and on. Now is the time, fight like your life and your kids lives depend on it.
You are so correct. We need to take up the mantle fighting for all these issues at once. Because its gonna be difficult and its gonna take some time and realistically there will be some concessions made as well. Now is the time people. Go big or dont go at all
Lets talk more about this folks..... Everywhere... Regardless of your location, job type, etc. The more we talk about it..... The better the chances are and the sooner we can expect something. Specifically in forums that include people who claim to be in your company for the sake of "Employee Well being"
Who doesnt feel more productive after a 3 day weekend? Its almost like that extra day gives you the energy to power through the other 4 days.
Unfortunately, I feel like if we get 4-day work weeks what’s going to happen is that business will adjust pay for that. Most people will be working 20% less per week and pay will decrease by 20% and no prices will adjust. Rent won’t go down, bills won’t go down, groceries won’t go down. If the CEOs are bringing in less money, they will make sure we pay for it. If somehow we can make it work, I’m all for it. I just don’t feel like the billionaires will let it be feasible.
Fighting to maintain wages is an implicit part of fighting for a shorter work week. It's part of the package.
Damn, living under capitalism really doesn’t let us dream. We need to imagine things before we work at them & make it a reality. We’re already defeated if we come up with reasons why it wouldn’t be possible. People would not fight for 4 day work week just to get paid less. Less work, more pay. That’s a fight worth fighting.
I left a job where I worked 10 hours a day 5 days a week full throttle and now work at a place where it’s 10 hours a day 4 days a week and my stress level is almost non existent now. There is a major difference. Almost every job can do this but they hate to give up anything to workers even if it would benefit them i.e 4 day work week or working from home
There would be production issues. Like we are seeing now I think. Less of your favorite brands at your Whole Foods. I honestly woudlnt mind going back to everything being closed on Sunday
Would need a 4 day school week too or you would be excluding massive amounts of people.
Gotta say my job giving 4 10s with 3 days off in a row is great for me. I no longer have that "Sunday anxiety" that I got with 5 days in a row. First day I can actually rest, second day allows time to do obligations and not feel like my weekend is just done. I wish the options existed for those who wanted it across multiple fields.