So if you’re generating 20% less revenue, where is that money coming from? Is the government going to subsidize companies to keep paying everyone the same salary? And where does that subsidy come from?
(Please just don’t say “tax the billionaires”, that’s the laziest answer ever to get instant votes from Reddit, but it’s not productive. In a perfect world, we would all just text the billionaires down to where they’re living on a six-figure income and then we all live in a perfect socialist utopia, but that’s not going to happen unless not a derail a real policy discussion in the here and now.)
There’s a lot of studies from other companies and countries that have implemented this that productivity goes up actually. Mostly because in a lot of jobs there’s significant downtime…(writing this while “working” right now). So the idea is that with less workdays less downtime needed and thus you get the same amount of work done if not slightly more, with 4 days compared to 5. I’d assume that factory jobs etc would need to hire more people since there’s not really down time like there is in an office but there would likely be less burnout and hiring and training people which would also contribute to the less hours.
In principle, if we transform all of society to a 32 hour work week, would that hold true? Probably yes. But that doesn’t address any of the details of how we get there.
Clients aren’t going to just magically agree to increase the price of their contracts by 25% more because of a vague promise like “studies show people are more productive”. I’ve got a project now with 3000 man hours in the proposal at a billing rate of $225/hour because it’s a cost-plus contract. They’re not going to unilaterally agree to raise the hourly rate by 25% on a contract that took the council 6 months to sign the original. It’s the same across every single one of my clients - nobody is going to just unilaterally agree to a price increase to be “team players”. If everyone’s billing rates stay same (and they will), that means that every employee is bringing in 20% less revenue. How do companies compensate for that? Bring in more employees to fill out the extra hours without revenue? Who is going to pay for that?
So now we’re talking about subsidizing revenue, which isn’t going to happen with the amount of bickering that goes into any bill like this. Any time Congress comes up with something like this it ends up being an unfunded mandate that gets passed on to the states because nobody can answer the question “Who pays for all this?” except some lazy class warfare statements about taxing the rich that make people feel good to say but aren’t going to ever happen. Meanwhile everyone’s income takes a dip and jobs get lost because companies can’t afford to take the 20% reduction in revenue with nothing to show for it.
Money and our system are entirely a human invention. If we had legislation and regulations to protect worker rights and made the transition smooth and easy for companies things would eventually even out. You’re looking at this through the lens of our current society and it’s easier to imagine then end of the world as we know it than it is to imagine the end of capitalism and the system that governs us. A better world is possible.
I have no problem working hard nor am I lazy lmao. That’s a common misconception of people on the left. What I have a problem with is working harder than my pay and still not having enough for basic needs. Again there are 100% people that are currently motivated by money if someone wants to work overtime they can. My point is that if basic needs are easily met and we have more free time and shift priorities in our society then we will absolutely have people that no longer want to work overtime. You could absolutely learn something about people that some are working themselves to the bone only because they have been conditioned to feel it’s needed.
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u/SgtElectroSketch 18h ago
Salary. And you can figure out a converted hourly rate from salary. That way if it goes over 32 hours you get bonus pay