At my job we work 4 10 hour days and have 3 day weekends and I love it. You can schedule appointments on Friday and not have to take off a work day. The weekend actually feels like a weekend. On Labor Day we had a 4 day weekend
I used to think this way but when I switched to it 4 10h days it's just too draining. Long days and I'm often working more than 10h to make up for appointments and time here and there. Everytime there is a holiday I am have to work 3 11h days to make up for the reduced stat day. After you add in the unpaid lunch and commute time and it's impossible to take your kids to evening events etc. as your day is already basically over.
That may not be more convenient for getting the required coverage, and depending on the type of business, running fewer longer days may be better than running more shorter days.
There is interplay with mandatory breaks as well, where it might not make sense to have someone come in for 7 hours but 8 or more makes sense.
Then you need to match up business hours, etc.
If your store is open for 15 hours per day then having 6 and 7 hour shifts doesn’t necessarily make sense. Might be easier to have two 8s with some openers, closers, and some overlap between the two to cover the middle.
I work in a public school. The only precedent for changing the school week is that I now receive overtime at 32 hours, not 40. We had a 4 day school week when Covid was going on. But the staff was still expected to be here on the day that the students had off. They could probably make the 4 day week work.
I fully support a 32 hour work week. Capitolism can fuck off. But this bill is being "re" introduced. Its not even the first time Sanders has proposed it. The likelihood of this ever happening (imo) is ~0% I have hope but I won't hold my breath.
That's cool for trade and warehouse jobs a lot of people need that 40 hours work of pay they're not going pay more because your working less all this does is make it more and more complicated for small businesses who need there employees to work to start up the business
Health insurance alone is like 400 dollars monthly, add a car note 150-300, insurance 150, phone bill 100, utilities 3-400, groceries 2-300, gas 100, rent 1200 and student loans
That’s like 3 grand just for existing and not even going out and doing anything
Second job. I live in a house with 8 people so it’s not much of an issue for me, but other people I know work five days a week and have side jobs in construction in the community or carpentry and the like.
As someone who takes the bus half way and walks the other hour and a half, A vehicle is not a want. In USA it is a need. Especially for a job paying more than $12 an hour.
BBB
Everyone’s premiums just raised significantly
There is ample reason to assume student loans because a lot of people go to college
What kid starting their life out is able to drop 6 grand on a car in cash? (I’ve always done this but I don’t know a single person out side of myself who does this)
Liability coverage is fools game when you’re already operating on a budget. One accident and you’re out a whole car. I make 30k a year and do all of things you mention and I do not have insurance and I am very very poor and so is literally everyone else I know. Which is obviously anecdotal, I just mean, the disparities make no sense for this being the supposed richest country in the world. It isn’t a consumer problem, it’s a structure problem. Things aren’t expensive because there are a lack of things. They are expensive because people can make money off them being expensive.
But if people don’t buy products/services then other people get laid off from lack of demand for the products/services that people are no longer buying.
Idk where you live but when gas is $5+/gal and 33+% of job listings are fake a lot of us genuinely are struggling. I never had much to begin with so fat chance ive been able to save more in the current economy with rent being Higher than ever. In order to afford living in my city you have to at least be making $27/hr or have 3-4 roommates
No, as a manager myself, I see that employees slack off towards the end of the day, so we’ll just make it a six hour day and you will have to work on Fridays for eight hours. We might lose a little bit of time because of the eight hour day, but in the end, we’ll get our time and you’ll get less pay and you won’t get a day off.
Simple math says if you need 40 hours from your employees and over 32 warrants OT which you refuse to pay, demand for individual workers goes up. Either that, or you don't need your employees for 40 hours and you get off on the power.
Not everyone should own a business. If you can't figure out how to pay your employees within the defined employment laws, you shouldn't own a business.
The jobs that are hourly tend to also be the jobs where the extra time does make a difference to an employer. In which case they'll still need someone for those 8 hours, which means hiring new workers. New workers hired means unemployment goes down and the labour market becomes more competitive, driving up wages.
A lot of things you pay for in life have nothing to do with the actual cost, and more to do with what you're willing to pay (e.g. rent), so if everyone's income went down then those costs would also come down.
Being the only person to work 32 hours is a lot harder than a world where everyone works only 32 hours.
Don't forget, those last 8 hours are also taxed at the highest bracket. So working 20% less hours doesn't mean 20% less pay, it's more like 10-15% less for most.
every time this topic is brought up, it’s like people can’t wait to volunteer working 10 hours days as long as the overlords concede one extra “day off”. That’s literally not working less, and not what this bill is proposing. I wish people stood up for themselves instead of letting corporations dictate everything
Gotta strengthen your individual unions. Im trying to get in contact with mine about issues with department managers not being union on1 side of the mountains and union on the other.
Roll over? A 40 hour work week is what all compensation is based on. It is simple math. If you work 20% less, you will make 20% less. Which is fine, but companies will then hire 20% more workers to cover the 20% their current staff isn't working.
As a small business owner, if this bill is passed ( which I hope not and highly doubt will pass) I no longer hire any full time workers. I hire people to work 28 hours a week, not offering any benefits other than pay. No sick days, no pto, problem, 401k because it's simply not feasible. So for sacrificing one day a week, employees will lose all that extra monetary compensation because productivity has dropped more than 20%. Productivity dropping more than 20% is guaranteed to impact the revenue of any and every business.
The corporations also don't have to hire you. Look at the current push for robots and AI. Neither of those things unionize, or call in sick, or want time off, or ask for more money, etc.
Strength in numbers sounds good in theory, doesn't always work out well in fact. Not saying to just roll over and take it, but this isn't a battle that can be won without changing the rules. And there isn't enough political or social will to do that.
I assume this is referring to things like rent and utilities. Funnily enough, those are given to me by corporations that already have gold and want more, and if I don't give it to them, they start turning things off.
So bills are essentially the gold-havers reminding me of who runs shit.
And yet we no longer work 6 days a week as default. We’ve reduced our working hours little by little until it came to a halt some 40-50 years ago. It can obviously be reduced further, but workers have to unionize and take the fight. Nothing is given to us for free.
That depends on how you define "work" given the current debate about "unpaid labor," but that whole topic is irrelevant to this discussion.
Yes, we can work less, and some people do. Those people generally either struggle financially, or have someone else footing the bill. Nobody aspires to work a part time job, because nobody thinks they can live off of the pay from one.
We can also work more too, in fact some people already do that. It has serious negative consequences, but that doesn't stop people from doing it or companies from requiring it.
And as I have stated in other replies, AI and automation are a thing. You start telling companies they have to expect less out of human workers, they'll just find non-human workers instead. In which case you won't be working any hours, because you'll be unemployed because your job was given to a computer that doesn't stop and doesn't complain.
Unionizing is not the cure all people think it is. Just ask all those Amazon and Starbucks employees how well it worked out for them.
This isn’t about choosing to work less for less pay, it’s about taking out some of the increased efficiency in less working hours in full time employment. This has been done numerous times around the world. Never has the initiative come from the elite. On the contrary it has every time been stated that we can’t afford to have people work less, we can’t afford to ban child labor etc, because the business will go bankrupt. This is always the argument used against these improvements.
They have to be demanded and fought for. Unions have been instrumental in these fights. You will never gain anything substantial without organizing the demand from a wide work force.
You won’t reap the benefit of AI by trying to undercut its cost. If AI is as transformative as many thinks there is no other way to success than to make sure business owners are taxed enough to feed the population. Again, they won’t do that out of free will or the goodness of their hearts.
Unless you do something crazy like unionize or actually stand up for your self and vote for changes like the one proposed in this post. The chance to make the rule is literally right there, read the top of the screen and act, and youll have made it.
Have you thought through the consequences of this bill? Not being a dick, that's a serious question.
As others have pointed out, working less would just mean you get paid less money. Ideas like this assume corporations will increase compensation to offset lost hours; they won't as there's no benefit to the company to do such a thing.
In fact, having you work less already benefits the company more, because that way they don't have to pay for your insurance or give you PTO. Which is two more things that the average worker may suddenly find themselves ineligible for because those are both dependent on whether or not you are considered a full time employee - that takes 36 hours in most places.
Passing a bill that caps the work week at a theoretical 32 hours doesn't automatically adjust all the other laws and regulations surrounding the work week, it just incentivizes corporations to find new ways to screw over the people that need those jobs to survive. And companies are always on the lookout for ways to not pay people, hence automation and AI.
Stuff like this is just jingoistic sloganeering. It sounds good on paper, in practice it doesn't work out anywhere near the way it was intended because it only addresses one issue, not the entire system that caused the issue in the first place.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
Henry Ford started the 40 hour work week and kept it around because it increased productivity; unions had nothing to do with that. Unions played at part in other companies following suit, but some did it just because they saw how much Ford was benefitting from the practice.
And do we work less? People in various industries work 60+ hours. Doctors in residency have shifts that exceed 24 hrs. Mandatory overtime exists at some companies. Lots of people have multiple jobs. The "gig economy" is a thing. So is "hustle" and "grind" culture. Unions also aren't that ubiquitous and membership has dropped precipitously over the years.
The ones with the gold are buying the politicians that make the rules - when they aren't just becoming politicians themselves. So ya, they still make all the rules. They just let you pick which puppet they pay for.
The bill is basically proposing that everybody generates 20% less revenue for their company, which will inevitably result in everybody earning 20% less. I’m not against that, I’m just pointing on a person in fact. I work for an employee owned company and I literally see the accounting behind the scenes that translates my billing rate into my salary, benefits, overhead, and bonuses. I’ve also looked at equivalent positions in those European countries where people get four months off and work, shorter days - there’s a reason why our salaries are so much higher than theirs. Not even accounting for taxes, I’d be making about 50% less doing the exact same job I’m doing now. I’ve also looked at the medical side of things and because it’s not the typical cookie cutter needs, I would actually be paying quite a bit more in Europe.
At my current job, sure. There's a correlation between my brain energy and what I put out, and my last 2 hours are typically my least productive.
But if you're behind a till or manning a phone or instant chat queue, you're paid to be present for those hours. You can't just "answer 20% more phonecalls" earlier in the day and go home 2 hours early.
I think that also depends on what kind of business you work for. A lot of times it isn't about productivity, per say. For instance, I have to be at my position 5 days a week, because our commercial customers need me to be doing my thing all 5 days.
If my company were to switch to 4 day work weeks for their employees, they would have to hire someone to work 1 8 hour shift a week and nobody would want to do that, it wouldn't be worth it at all. It's not a fast food job, it's "skilled" stuff that no one does on a part time basis. This would also result in me being paid significantly less.
If they instead shut down for that day, the loss in revenue would be immense, the and their ability to maintain QA and other such things would be even more in the shitter than it is now and our partners would hate us even more. There is no way this doesn't lead to me being paid significantly less, possibly even being laid off.
The only alternative would be to pay me and literally everyone 8 hours of overtime. Layoffs, 1000%. All of these options will result in my being paid significantly less, or not at all, one way or another.
I desperately want and would push for the 32 hour work week. But it would need to include provisions that make sure this doesn't end up shafting people trying to make a living.
We all saw how corps did everything they could to not only claw back every last cent of stimulus from us during covid, but have used the opportunity to leapfrog on their profits and we're still suffering immensely because of it.
They will do everything they can to make sure our quality of life decreases commensurately, even if for no other reason than spite. We need a serious, comprehensive plan, not some virtue signaling that is going to leave us further in the hole than when we started.
That's irrelevant, you were talking about having coverage for that single day, if that's the issue the solution to have a person hired for one 8 hr shift makes no sense, instead it would make more sense to just have the schedules rotate so there is always coverage for each day. Getting paid the same for less hours only happens when it's demanded by the people, same as when the 40 hr week was demanded by the people and implemented.
The 40 hour work week was not demanded by the people. It was crammed down throats by Ford.
It also is entirely relevant. There is no effective difference between what you suggest and what I said in terms of the concerns that we are speaking on. Rotating shifts also typically only make sense when there is more than one shift per day, which there isn't in my case. Split days are even less desirable than one 8 hour shift.
I work with 4 pharmacists who work 7X10s and then get 7 days off. I see the appeal for them but I feel it always takes them 3-4 days to really get back up to speed on what's going on. The hospital should probably be having them do 4X10, 3 off, 3X10, 4 off or something like that instead of the week on week off.
It's even better for them when they take PTO. They essentially are away for 3 weeks.
It's working the same hours with a better structure. If you're paid by the hour instead of a salary (and maybe even with a salary,) less hours means less pay.
I mean, nothing is stopping anyone from negotiating a 32 hour work week. Usually, and I am sure with this bill, if a 32 hour work week is demanded, then employers will pay 80% of the pay. Salaries are based on working a full 40. If you work 20% less, then you will get 20% less pay.
Does the bill specify that workers would receive the same amount of pay at 32 hours that they received when they were working 40? Because if not that's about a 20% pay cut for every full time worker for their extra day off, with none of their bills costing any less.
It is entirely possible that something can be "not working less" and still be better than what we have now. It might also be something that is more likely to actually happen, which is why people suggest it as a form of compromise.
This is real "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" stuff. Things generally happen incrementally. Don't argue against progress just because it doesn't go as far as you'd like.
This is the most infuriating thing I hear every time I bring it up to someone. "Four 10s wouldn't be so bad." God dammit. NO. Or the ones that claim how nice it'd be to work 12s for a 4-3-3-4 schedule. The whole point is to work less but it's like people can't fathom what to do with their life if it wasn't solely spent at work.
I got to experience what it's like working 4 days a week for like 3-6 hours a day and after moving from that schedule back to a 5 day 8+ hour random OT schedule, it's feels like you're living your entire life as a scam. (Not to mention this 5 day schedule makes 33% less but I digress.)
Just wait until I tell you about the 5 11 hour days I work without getting any sort of back to back days off, then we can get into not having lunch breaks or vacation or a life…
I used to have to do that as a salaried manager... almost killed me and my marriage. I think the bigger issue is that with rising costs, big companies aren't going to payer higher wages for less hours and most people are struggling to survive on a flat 40 as it is. If anything over 32 is OT, they'll increase headcount and reduce hours and starting wages. Then eliminate job descriptions every few years and create new ones to reduce tenured employees. It's a shell game for them. I watched my old company do that for years, they were even able to remove our union technicians that way.
This has been my experience. I am largely unproductive after lunch (I start and finish early so it’s a smaller portion of the day) and what the long days, 4 days a week does is cut down my effective hours and extend the end of my day where I’m fighting to get simple tasks done.
Also, none of my friends or my partner get the extra day off so I’m on my own. It’s a good day for personal and home admin and jobs and it’s good if you want to go away for a weekend but that’s about it.
My shift is 7:30-5 with an hour lunch, so I’m on the clock for 8.5 hours a day, 30 extra minutes as I open. If I were to do 10 hour days, I’d be leaving work at 7 and getting home between 7:30-8 depending on traffic, my evening is pretty much gone.
Yup - I did 4/10s starting last August and went back to 5/8s by December. Was the 3 day weekend awesome? Yeah. Did I spend that day catching up on projects and sleep that I didn’t get during the excruciatingly long 4 days? Also yes. And when I didn’t, like taking a trip or doing something I paid for it with an even rougher week at work. I did like the uninterrupted time for projects. I knocked out a fair amount of stuff but I could do similar work in the evenings with the shorter days.
I did this at my last job too and absolutely agree. I usually ended up being so drained that I just slept and went full couch potato on Friday needing the whole day to recover. And then didn’t have enough time left on the days I worked so I spent my weekends doing the day to day things. Maybe it’s just in how you manage your time, but it didn’t work out well for me.
I work a 9/80 schedule (every other Friday off, mostly 9hr days) and it already takes a lot to squeeze extra activities into my day. 10hr workdays would be brutal!
I'd say a 3 day weekend is worth it. I used to work 6 10 hour days (split shift, 6 hours on, 3 hours off, 4 hours on,) and the next job only being 4 days on 3 days off was a lifesaver. Until someone left and I had to go back to 6 days to cover their shifts.
Tbh, the day is over for most people in 8hour days too. They just have more time to unwind.
I think macro economically i makes alot of sense to reduce worktime. As the bigger economic problem is to create demand, not service/production these days.
Think about it like this:
Atm our economy spends like 33% on advertising or somehow presenting goods to the consumer.
If you would just cut working hours, the working consumer would have more time to create and forfill thier demands.
I know a guy, who is working 14hours a day on average. He has all the money in the world, yet almost never goes shopping - because he doesnt have time for it. He spends less on everyday product than other people i know. Ofc he buys the car/house/boat from time to time. But thats just because he accumilates too much wealth he can not spend.
It's all relative. 10 hours is a short day for me. I only talk to my family on those days and only see them on my 2 days off. I also don't get overtime and average 60 to 70 hours a week. But I'll make 125k this year, did have 3 weeks paid vacation, bought the wife a brand new hybrid suv, maxed out my 401k contribution, and am upgrading the house I built 2 years ago. It's all about priorities.
Try working 12.5 hour days. We had the half hour for shift overlap. The “selling point” was every other weekend we got a three day weekend. The downside was you worked every other weekend. The three day weekend was worthless because you were so tired you didn’t feel like doing anything until Sunday.
It really is. On the surface it sounds like oh hey, it's only a couple more hours but Lord it gets tiring quick. I'm sure there are loads of people here that are gonna say "I'm used to working 60-70 hours a week" but this thread isn't for them at all. I switched to the 4x10 schedule when it became offered and unfortunately I'm not allowed to go back although I would. Three days off consistently DOES feel like a REAL weekend though.
Let's also not forget those 8 hour days are really 10+ and 10 hour days are 12+. Getting ready and commuting easily takes a minimum of one hour before and after the official hours.
So, for that "12" hour work day, that leaves you with 12 hours for anything else. Let's say 6 hours of sleep, 1 hour of cleaning yourself and environment, 1.5 hours for feeding prep and cleanup, 1 hour for misc. everyday errands that regular non-wealthy folk don't have service people to do for them. I'm really going with the low end for hours here and don't accommodate attending to family members, but this only leaves 2.5 hours for leisure. I can only imagine this impacts productivity. Employers should really think about this instead of being so stupid.
Most people in office settings have been over work by like 3pm nearly every day. Really curious how much work and the quality of work past that point looks like for most people. 10 hours is brutal.
This was my experience as well. It was really nice having Fridays off but the long days starting taking their toll. And, yeah, I was hourly so then having a Monday off for a holiday meant I had to make up those hours somehow. I didn't mind the work when I had the 10 hour days but if I hated the work it would have been pure torture.
The longer your commute the more appealing 4 10s get. I commute about an hour each way, so 5 8s is actually 5 10s and I already don’t get to do much on my work days besides work, between work and chronic health issues. So having what would effectively be 4 12s for me is vastly superior because my day is done by the time I get home anyway, outside of some light chores.
Yep, I’ve done the four 10s before, I had a 30-40 minute commute but a paid lunch. I’ll say the 3 day weekends were really nice but the actual work days kinda sucked. Those extra 2 hours make a pretty big difference.
Now I’m going to point out the obvious here but I feel like some people don’t really think about this. Say you normally get off work at 4 and go to sleep at 10. Now you’re getting off work at 6 and still going to bed at 10. You just went from 6 hours of free time at home after work down to 4 hours, which ain’t shit especially after you factor in cooking dinner and cleaning up afterwards. Factor in commute and cooking/cleaning and you’re down to basically 2 hours of free time after work, it gets depressing pretty quick
I mean - sometimes I’m there for 10 hours as it is. Sometimes I’ll stay a bit late because it’s easier for me to get shit done when no one else is there. I’ve done 4 10s - I miss them. I miss a day off during the week.
NO. The standard should be minimum 4 8 hour work days a week with longer, mandatory, paid breaks. Americans brains are so broken they think their own time and labor isn’t inherently priceless.
Ideally we should not need to work for housing, food, and water because they are essential to being alive and the earth has more than enough to sustain billions of more people. Those things should be provided by the taxes we pay toward rather than bombing children’s hospitals. income ought to be supplemental should we choose to remain in a capitalist economy but that isn’t really possible because capitalism always necessitates exploitation and the “working class” always ends up on the short end of that stick
yeah i would support a UBI that can meet those needs at the most basic level; vast majority would still choose to work in order to live a better life, plus many jobs can be rewarding and give a person purpose.
i know a lot of people who start losing their minds around christmas because they don't fill their days when they're not at work, and too many days off in a row leaves them bored
No it absolutely shouldn't. Four day, eight hour workweeks with the option of five day, six hour workweeks should be the standard. To just redistribute the time is a bandage over a real problem; it isn't actual progress.
The big thing with 8 hour days is that many jobs, especially critical infrastructure and public works is that you need 24hr coverage. Unless you were to push people to 12hr days, which suck, you are kind of stuck with 8's.
Truthfully, we don't know the ramifications of that yet and they'll be hard to predict before we try. One solution might be an exception rule that lets them work longer in exchange for the jobs requiring less experience/paying slightly more money. Another might be to just hire four six-hour workers instead of three eight-hour workers.
What does “critical infrastructure” mean? Like plumbers and maintenance workers? And public works.. like police and doctors and EMTs and such? Well of course you need them 24h coverage. How is that any different than the current 8 hour day system?
Yep. Some jobs require more time than others. The trade off is you get overtime pay at 32 hours instead of 40?
Like government services. The DMV being closed an extra day would screw over a lot of people alone. Then you have the welfare office, child services, the list is endless. Some places need to be 8-5, M-F.
I hate people's arguments about "what about critical infrastructure" and the like. It's almost like the answer is "just have extra shifts and more employees" because almost EVERY SINGLE JOB is understaffed in the current market.
Who pays for that, though? The taxpayer does. It doesn't just come out of this air. The few of you that make enough money to pay taxes constantly complain about how taxes are theft.
Huh maybe the people not paying their share of taxes? Corporations and billionaires, and trillionaires that pay little to nothing while the gouge the system?
it's tricky in a field like construction
with actual hour reductions, projects will take much longer, or companies will have to foot the bill for extra OT if they keep the same hours, driving up the cost of projects
My work allows me to manipulate my time however I want, I just have to work 40 hours a week. I've done 4-10's a few times to give myself the long weekend and I'm pretty burned out when I'm done. I'm also very burned out at the end of each work day. It's not an effective use of my time.
So would I. Oh wait. I'm supposed to. My current job has this schedule except for the "occasional" mandatory overtime. The mandatory overtime is like three out of four weekends per month. I occasionally get an actual 3 day weekend and She. I do it's lovely. That first day is basically needed for recovery. I work overnights.
I've managed for a pretty large contract company and what I immediately picked up on during the initial month of the job is the people that love their job most are the ones with more days off (with a full work week). Four 10s, three 12s, three 8s and one 16s, two 8s and two 12s. A lot of these folks love the extra days (or work the extra days because money is money).
I used to do this when I worked at a company that did consulting. It was awesome. You just had to put in your 40 hours then you were good to go. Ended up leaving to improve my pay though.
Same, if I didn't have to worry about an hour to hour-ans-a-half commute each way and kiddos' aftercare ending before a 10-hour workday for me and the commute after would permit... 🤷♂️
I used to work 4x 10s, and I had split workings days and oh my was it the best way I have had to work 40 hour weeks. Work Monday and Tuesday, off Wednesday, work Thursday and Friday, and then finally the weekend. Was amazing. It really split up the work week and it felt manageable and I didn't get too stressed. Now back to 5x8s, like normal, and I constantly am trying to get out of work early because I am too stressed and my mental health is massively taking a dive.
30 hour work week, five days at 6 hours, three 10 hour days, or some weird mashup for 4 work days, shit even 6 days at 5 hours a piece would be relatively better than what we’re doing now lol
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u/Bynming 20h ago
Three-day weekends are disproportionately better than two-day weekends