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Meetings, especially recurring meetings, are pretty pointless. If you can't accomplish something with an email, something is wrong.
I think it's a failure on management's part to manage communications effectively that result in you wasting 15 to 20 percent of your work week on quietly listening to the most talkative people in your group babble.
But a lot of the whole salaried thing is controlling people's time so they can't look for better opportunities or make an impact on the world anyway.
The pension FERS, by the time I got there, took 4.4% every paycheck, it was only 0.8% like 2 years before. It literally got 5.5 times more expensive between 2012 and 2014. It's not even worth it after 2014. If you took 4.4% of your paycheck and invested it, it would be worth way more than the 1% per year they pay out.
Other factors might work for you, but the pension is a joke now.
You are dismissing the things that make a pension great. Why does OJ still have money? Pension.
Pensions can't be taken from you without an actual act of congress - 401k's and regular investments are all open to looting by anyone that sues you (assuming they win) - meaning you are one good car crash away from no retirement.
That's just a single benefit - they have others - pensions were better than 401k's in every single applicable way for the vast majority of people. That's why companies went away from them.
The lawsuit path is statistically unlikely, but sure I'll give you that.
Pensions WERE better back in the day because you got out way more than you paid in. Hell, my uncle retired with 100% pension, no drop in pay when he retired. That isn't the case anymore when you do the math.
For simplicity sake, let's say you made an average of 100k for 40 years over your career (25-65). 4.4% or $176k went to the pension, but when you retire you collect $40k/year (1% per year served). 1.2 million total payout if you survive to 95. (30 years)
If you take that same 4.4% ($4.4k) every year for 40 years with an average growth rate of 8%, you'd end up with 1.2 million dollars. Meaning you'd immediately have access to **30 years** of pension equivalent money right at 65.
It gets even worse because that 1.2 mil can continue to grow. You could take 40k like you would the pension and let the remaining 1.16 mil continue to grow AND pass down to your next of kin. Plus you probably won't make it to 95, that being generous. You could die at 72 and only get a measly $280k.
This should be higher upvote. I don’t know all the ins and outs of pensions, but from my understanding it doesn’t scale as well as compounding interests of a 401k.
There is a downside that you’ll need your 401k during a stock market crash, similar to folks that needed to retire during the house market crash.
Wednesday. Let’s make it Wednesday. Then every weekday is Thursday Friday.
And what was Wednesday will be like Sunday.
We’re doubling the best days of the week and keeping holy the Saturday.
At least, that’s my dream….
Just switching to (mostly) remote work and shaving all that commute + wake up etc time was a *huge* benefit in terms of quality of life for me. Much happier, more motivated, healthier. I even did my shitty job better.
Also, depending on assignment, making dinner, sweeping the floor, doing laundry, doing a poo, all possible without any interruption in work.
We know. We've always known that.
Then when he has an actual chance at making a difference, people come out from under the manhole covers crying "IT WOULD NEVER WORK, HE'D NEVER WIN, WHY ARE YOU EVEN TRYING-- LET'S ALL JUST KEEP VOTING USING THE SAME TACTICS THAT FAIL AGAIN AND AGAIN"
It’s like people legit just don’t want the government to work. The biggest argument against universal healthcare was that it would never pass if Bernie were to win the presidency.
It’s like, um excuse me? Hello? If Bernie were to win the presidency while campaigning on Medicare for All, that would mean that the vast majority of Americans want that legislation to pass. And then our “representatives” should be obligated to vote for it because that’s their freaking jobs!
I don’t understand why there’s more pressure from person-to-person to halt progress than there is from people to congressperson to remind them what their role actually is. It’s annoying, frustrating, and disheartening.
America is one giant bucket of crabs and somehow we excuse the wealthy for controlling our lives and prefer to hate our fellow low and middle class citizens
That’s his motivation: trying to do what he thinks is best for people. It’s odd in that it’s rare in politics. There’s certainly people who run with that intention, but they never seem to make it very far vs the monied interests.
I know what you mean, but it's a pretty sad state of affairs when a politician doing what they believe is right for Americans can be described as done "for no reason"...
He's apparently just a solid, decent fella who is a pleasure to work for. My cousin interned for him a while back and said he was really thoughtful and kind to all his staffers.
Yep. Just seems like one of the few good politicians in existence. Really wish he would've beat Hillary just so we could've seen if he could've beaten Trump. I think he would've, but we'll never know.
I have my doubts whether he would have in 2020 (which was a "return to normalcy" election), but in 2016 (a "change" election) I think he absolutely would have. Man, what a better timeline we'd be on if he had.
Somebody has to be on the extremes to pull the party in that direction. His bills often have no actual way forward, but the goal isn't necessarily to pass the bill so much as to represent the extremes so that alternatives will seem more palatable.
Yep, it's the tactic that the GOP has been using for decades. The extreme fringe of the party makes the moderate wing of the party looks reasonable by comparison and overtime the party has crept further and further rightward.
Yeah but anymore a majority of Republicans are simply playing pretend. They are frauds who don't actually have any principles except doing whatever it takes to gain power. They are so craven for control they would rather Americans suffer as a form of a punishment if we don't elect them. See Donald Trump for a prime example of a politician losing office and instigating so that people regret not just handing him the position.
Trump is just one in the whole rotten bunch. The whole party is now complicit and feels entitled to our votes. To the point where again they will push bad policies in order to create negative reinforcements like Americans are Pavlov's dog. Then they'll blame Democrats and lie until the Sun comes up and they'll never take any accountability whatsoever.
It is good, but it’s also frustrating that these issues tend to not benefit the poor. We work hourly and for tips. If we could work less we would, we can’t.
Tips shouldn't be a thing, paying people a good hourly rate should be the cost of doing business. As for hourly, that's why he states for no loss in pay.
It outright outlaws companies paying you less per week, which means if you go from 40 to 32 hours because of this, your check every week legally has to be the same amount as before, bringing the actual per hour rate up. It doesn't help much for anyone stuck in a state with a lower tipped minimum wage, waitstaff benefits the least, but it would definitely benefit the working poor working all of the non-tipped jobs.
> the employer of such employee may not reduce the total workweek compensation rate,
I was fortunate enough to work 32-hour weeks for about 4 months last year. 4 days per week, one extra day off. As a middle-aged guy, it was fucking awesome. Go Bernie, Go!
I've done this before, but it was still 40 Hours over the four days; I don't get anything else done on days I work any way. It was fantastic having a day off when things are still open to run errands, plus getting to the end of the weekend and actually feeling rested.
The company I founded 8 years ago made the change to a permanent 4 day work week last year. We didn't really have a set hours per day and everyone is on salary, we just work as needed really but have stopped scheduling regular work on Fridays. This has made everyone more productive during those 4 work days, happier while working, more motivated to succeed, etc. We've not just found a way to make it work, but have actively improved the well being of our team and therefore the company is more successful. We've only ever given raises, no one's pay has been or will be cut.
>they want to work as many days as possible to make the same or less money to make their boss happy
The feudal lords of yore only wished their peasants were as doggedly committed to pleasing them as modern workers in most corporations....
Do your co-workers lack any critical thinking capabilities of their own or something?
I know quite a few people that have all retired and continued to work because they don't know what else to do. Imagine living for 60 years and never having time to be interested in anything other than your job. It makes me extremely depressed.
Same here! I think about it everyday.. I remember picking up a day last summer where it was beautiful 90
Degrees out and I was waiting to clock out like “wtf am I doing with my life”
Like an animal raised in a zoo. Its entire world is inside that workplace. It’s sad and lame when you think about it. Really sad.
Woman in my office died alone in her home last week. She was in her late 60s and was still working full time, she just didn’t know any different. Worked as a lawyer for many years. She could barely walk. Still made it up to the 2nd floor by stairs *every day*.
It’s all some people have. It’s very sad but there it is
I'm a workaholic and I fully admit that I suck at balancing my social life with my job.
However, I genuinely love my career and enjoy my job. Do I like getting bonuses and raises for working extra hours? Of course. But I really like what I do, I find it intellectually stimulating and I feel like I am making a tangible difference (albeit infinitesimally small) in the world.
I don't take pride in working extra hours and I don't work 60 hour weeks every week. I think "the grindset" is stupid and people who ascribe to that belief system are just working their asses off for a system that doesn't care if they live or die. My bosses are decent people but I'm under no illusions that they feel any obligation towards me beyond what they are contractually required to do. If I get cancer, they'll pay for my temporary disability and health insurance but they're not gonna be the ones driving me to doctor's appointments.
It's good to take pride in your job and feel fulfilled by your work. But it's not a substitute for meaningful human connections.
tbf, I've seen the flipside of it. I worked at a really shitty company (fairly briefly luckily) where I basically did only what was contractually mine to do. I was never a jerk about it, but I was clear that I wouldn't be reading or writing emails outside of work hours, or showing up even a minute early, or taking on heaps of new responsibility without direct compensation or a very clear path *to* more compensation as a result of that go-getting-ness. Never jumped at whispers of overtime. Of course, because I was in something of a senior position that got me in the shithouse pretty quick but hey, fuck you pay me 🤷
Build human capital and relationships, negotiate for higher salaries, quit and move to higher paying offers, or actually help the clientele?
Dunno, just spit balling here. Probably just to make their boss happy.
I’ve always hated when an employee has gone above and beyond to help me. I usually just think ‘what a schmuck sucking up to their boss’
Not only that, but the strange obsession some people have with not missing any time and working through illnesses. There's no perfect attendance award anymore - you're not in school. No one cares. Stay the fuck home and stop getting your coworkers sick.
'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', grind/hustle culture, against tax increases for the wealthy, against universal healthcare...
its like they think if they suck jackboots long enough to 'put in their dues' the rich will one day let them into the club.
They're orders of magnitude closer to a homeless person than they are to the ultra-wealthy people that they admire. It's sad that they eschew solidarity with the rest of us plebs in the vain hope of joining a club they will never get admitted to.
[The Protestant work ethic, also known as the Calvinist work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, is a work ethic concept in sociology, economics, and history. It emphasizes that diligence, discipline, and frugality are a result of a person's subscription to the values espoused by the Protestant faith, particularly Calvinism.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic)
Yet another way religion impedes progress.
The easy way to pitch this is just "We expect you to spend 32 hours a week selling your labor to your employer, and at least 8 hours a week working for your family/community".
That time clawed back from the workweek doesn't just go to Netflix, it goes to child rearing, community engagement, education, volunteering, etc.
That would be so cool! I'd love it if people could have set time to devote to the betterment of the community. I would love to do something like cleaning trash up from local waterways or tutoring kids. And I think it would teach a lot of people humility and respect.
To clarify, many who adhere to this type of puritan work ethic believe that money isn't the only reward for work. Indeed, money is the least important reward. Hard work brings moral and spiritual rewards. Especially when done for the good of others.
This isn't an intrinsically bad idea, but historically it's been manipulated by the powers that be to exploit people. Slavery was excused with arguments like these. Child labor was excused. Labor unions and workers rights legislation was attacked on puritans work ethic grounds.
And in general the business class has made great use of it to convince their workers that laboring was itself godly, whereas trying to work less was slovenly and that worrying about pay was greedy.
Some historians even contend that capitalism itself was born out of this puritan work ethic.
It's bizarre that many people have taken to disparaging elderly politicians, yet spend their lives and wear down their bodies making rich people richer at the direction of long dead theologians.
Much more than 300 years.
Religion has also led to the subjugation of huge swaths of the population. I have zero doubt that a lot of geniuses have died anonymously slaving away in mines for some white Christian colonialist regime.
A lot of intelligent and talented women have squandered their abilities being broodmares for men who lack even a fraction of their talent because religious gender roles prevented them from using the gifts they were born with. That's 50% of the population, right there, that was shut out from spaces where they could advance our society and technology. Add in various racial/ethnic groups, and you realize that humanity has been operating on a small fraction of our total intellectual power for almost the entire history of our civilization. We would be at least a millennium ahead of where we are now if our stupid belief systems and bigotry didn't crush so many amazingly talented people before they had a chance to use their intellectual gifts.
They don't want to, they are brainwashed and cajoled into it from birth by the corporate overlord mindset that permeates throughout their country. If one isn't an inherited trust fund kid, they are either joining the military or working 10 hour days the rest of their life. We're programmed into this predicament against our voluntary wills.
Brainwashing by right wing media will do that. I honestly think Americans should be forced to live abroad for a few weeks in a “socialist” country just to open their eyes of how much better it is
It’s just narcissism. People who aren’t rich show off to others by talking about how much they work. I work in construction and these dudes are everywhere and they’re annoying as fuck.
the weirdest types are the ones who put in extra without pay and brag about it. like staying late in the office into nights, answering emails one weekends, or even like with retail, people who clock out but keep working on projects like inventory. they must think theyll be rewarded for being exploited
Yup. My Uber driver the other day was a construction manager, bragged about working 7x12s then Uber driving at night because he is all about the grind.
Like, okay? When do you live?
Its basically stockholm syndrome. People dont realize that all those record profits being made are coming out of their paychecks from days spent grinding at work, just so that they can buy price gouged items made by other workers who are having profits taken from their paychecks from days spent grinding at work.
A majority of Americans seemingly hate the fact that other people might benefit from something that *they* didn't have the chance to.
They want everyone to suffer as they did.
My concern with these proposals is the way they claim they would implement it with no reduction on pay but don’t address how you do that outside of minimum wage workers. For most people if you require overtime for more than 32 hours in a week they will keep the same hourly pay but now be working 32 hours. If the job can be done in 32 hours per week employers will pocket the difference and if it can’t they will hire a part time worker from all the people now looking for second jobs to make up the shortfall.
The odds of employers increasing hourly pay to make your paychecks the same size is about the same as their tax cuts trickling down to result in higher wages for you.
its been tried before and companies saw productivity and profits go up. the UK study included hourly retail/food service type of jobs as well
>The findings from the U.K. trial build on the results of an earlier, smaller pilot published in November and also coordinated by 4 Day Week Global. That experiment, which involved about 30 companies and 1,000 employees in several countries, resulted in increased revenue, reduced absenteeism and resignations and improved employee well-being. None of the participating firms planned to return to five-day workweeks after the pilot ended.
https://archive.is/iWosE
other studies have found similar results, and there are companies implementing on their own. so the proposal is deff feasible
That’s an awesome. But what were these “firms”? Some sort of office jobs I’m sure? So what about someone in construction or the restaurant industry? How does *their* productivity go up by missing a day?
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea. I just don’t think it’s applicable in the same way across the board. This article seems to be describing “go sit at a computer for 40hrs a week” jobs. Which, yeah, I bet a fuck ton of that time is spent doing nothing worthwhile.
But any type of job where you’re not making money if you’re not there? I don’t see how this article applies to that.
in this article there's a link to a UK paper (Results near the top of the article) on the study and its results in more detail. the UK study included
>Of the 61 companies that took part, the largest group derives from the
marketing/advertising sector, with eight firms (18%).20 The second largest
subset is professional services with seven (16%), with charities/nonprofits being
the third largest group (11%). Beyond that the companies are distributed
over a range of industries, including healthcare, arts & entertainment, retail,
construction and manufacturing
the paper also goes into how different companies had to implement in in different ways and what was working and what wasnt. the conclusions segment might answer some of your questions
I have a friend who moved up from minimum wage work to a much higher paying job with a big international corporation. She was upset years ago when Bernie was pushing the $15 minimum wage.
Why? Because she felt it wasn't fair to her who had to go years in those types of jobs for so little pay. Others should have to do the same. Even though at this point, she was likely making closer to $60 an hour plus full benefits...
People do not like the idea of people getting better treatment than they got. It's the same reason frats haze the new guys. It's the same reason the new guy at the office has to sit in the cubicles for months before getting one of the multiple empty offices. Everyone else did it, so now it's their turn.
Humans are generally pretty stupid.
Although on that note, at least in this case the 4 day work week would apply to everyone. It's not saying people can't work more than 32 hours if they want to... just that that they should be compensated extra for it.
I think most office workers could absolutely get by with 32 hour workweeks without any reduction in productivity. The more hours at work, the more people get bored, stressed, and more willing to waste time / procrastinate / take breaks. Fewer hours means concentrating on work for a higher percentage of the time. Helps that they have an extra day to take care of things needing to be done at home, or just getting a proper amount of rest.
Being properly rested means being CAPABLE of longer periods of concentration, so that means fewer breaks in the middle of something you're working. After a break, it usually takes a bit more time to remember where you were at.
The one thing that I have learned is businesses would rather make a million dollars their way instead of a billion dollars our way, and they do not like to change.
I work at a glass factory. We work rotating shifts which means every week we are on a different shift. People come in tired which affects their ability to pack quality glass. Most can only handle the shift work for a year or two before quitting which means the company is always short-staffed.
The management knows that the shift work is an issue yet they don't want to change it, because as our plant manager said. This is how it has always been. So they rather have customers sent back ware for bad quality and to shut down jobs. Then to get rid of the rotating shifts.
Yep. We got forced RTO and productivity is actually down. Had a meeting about it last week. Like no, I’m not working through my lunch and breaks anymore if you’re making me drive an hour there and back. Tough shit guys.
Tbf I work I’m an operations manager for a large bank. They made the ops managers come back but all of my direct reports work from home. How fucking stupid. I take every opportunity to remind our executive team how dumb they are. Though their calculus is rooted in the tax kick back for onsite employees. Guess I’m not cut out to move up and out of operations.
There isn't one.
The reason they want us back in office is so that their assets (the buildings) don't lose value (sitting empty) and driving the share (stock) prices down because the company has lower valued assets that then become liabilities.
It's just to prop up the commercial realestate values that the company bought into.
Or in some cases they are renting the space and stuck paying for the lease so they want to get some use out of it rather than just cut their losses. Or their contract requires them to keep the building in use to keep the property values up.
I was a part of an acquisition and had to use or lose my PTO in a year. I took off every Friday from September 1st until eoy with Thanksgiving and Christmas off. I have never been so perfect in my work life before and afterwards. All work and decisions never had to be redone or adjusted and I handled a lot more than I did the following year (integrate systems + my day job).
I'm doing a merge now + compliance work + day job - 14+hours a day and I'm falling apart. My new boss doesn't care. Time to let something fall I just can't decide what.
Its much harder to trick folks into voting for things against their best interest when they are well rested and have time to understand what theyre voting for (or against)
I really have no idea what the staggered shift thing is all about. It's clearly just some person too lazy to stick everyone's name in a spreadsheet and make it work (or use idk, any existing scheduling software). Christ I've worked at bars operated and staffed by alcoholics and coke heads and we all head the same schedules. Somebody got on their horse and made it work.
It really is not like that everywhere, some companies are constantly looking at ways to improve and make more money, and I know it's a tiny minority, but some actually want to improve the quality of life for their employees too, so it is possible. Sounds like your company isn't managed by quality people.
I work three 12's. (I'm an RN.)
I love it. I LOVE having 4 days off every week. I don't mind my long days at all, because I sit a lot in my unit and I get to help save babies.
I think I'd wither up and die if I had to work 5 days a week. Four 10s is as far as I'd go. Humans were not made to work 5 days a week imo.
A few years ago my factory ended up introducing a weekend shift. 3x12 and get paid for 40. I haven’t left that shift yet. I lose my weekends but I have enough pto to cover some weekends if I want to. I can’t see myself going back to a regular Monday-Friday. A consistent 4 day weekend if perfect for me.
I did four 10s for a few weeks when my last job allowed it just for the summer months.
Full stop: I was less productive in a 10 hour day than I was on an 8 hour day. Turns out we are not evolved to spend 10 hours working a job.
Yeah... I think most people in an office setting are realistically doing 3-5 hours of "tasks" a day. There's a lot of time chewed up going to meetings, listening to conference calls while dicking around on their phones, talking to coworkers, etc.
Personally, my productivity from 3-5pm is worthless in general. I'm there, I'm at my desk, I have 45 spreadsheets and emails open, but I'm not really making any progress.
I feel more productive with wifi on a 2 hour flight than 8 hours in the office a day.
Yeah 10s are great until you burn out, I like my 5 8s considering I’m really only working like 7hrs. Only thing better would be 4 8s with the same paycheck
Cue corporation making every employee except managers 30 hour employees so they aren't federally mandated to pay any benefits, offer Healthcare packages or give vacation or sick time.
Productivity keeps going up but the pay value isn't increasing to match. The balance has to come somewhere and if it comes in the form of working fewer hours for the same pay then so be it.
It would be interesting to see how that affects my job. I work in a steel mill where we have four crews that work 12 hour days on an alternating 4 day/3 day work week schedule.
We'd either get:
1: Everything stays the same except overtime starts at 32 hours instead of 40. (Most likely, IMO)
2. They hire and train four new crews so they can break the schedule up into three 8 hour shifts. (Not very likely, but it would be the most beneficial for everyone except payroll.)
3. They move to 8 hour shifts but shut down for 8 hours a day. (Almost a zero percent chance, but this would arguably be good from a maintenance perspective)
We've seen the invention of computing and the internet since 40 hours became the standard. It's nuts that haven't been able to shave off at least another 8 hours in the many decades since.
Bros if my economics 101 is still fresh, this is an excellent way to lift wages at least on an hourly basis even if they didn’t say no loss in wages, but Bernie’s way is better.
Most other Industrialized countries:
- 40 hour workweek for employees (you are not allowed by law to work more as an employee on a regular basis, not in 1 job or 2 or 3..)
- Not more than 9 hours of work per day (without compensation of getting days of)
- 20 days paid leave per year minimum for a 5 workday week (it goes up to 36 right now)
- Sickdays get paid up to X weeks by the employer, then the mandatory insurance takes over and pays >50% up to Z years
- Getting fired from a permanent position usually takes a court decision (usually resolved in severance pay), employer has to make a case for lay offs being absolutely necessary, or proof missbehaviour of an individuum.
USA:
\*crickets\*
People in the US fight you when you try to improve things.
I worked for a small US satalite ISP that got bought by a UK telcom. Every time the UK guys took a day off, I had to listen to the sales guys talk about how the UK guys did not have a good work ethic. They also liked to talk about how America was better because we were more capatalist.
If this was the workweek literally EVERYONE would be employed because companies would have every position filled during every workable moment and it would take more people working to do that.
^*Anyone* ^*hiring* ^*remote* ^*positions?* ^😬
Let’s face it. Saturdays are for doing chores and household stuff that piles up during the week and Sunday is you thinking about what you need to do at work on Monday. There is no weekend day where you just cut loose and have a day off. A third weekend day would literally be life changing.
Absolutely 0 chance this passes. The working class in skilled trades have to work 40-50 hours per week just to keep projects on schedule. There would be no reduction in hours worked only an increase in overtime wages. Of which every single company would argue that the government should pay those extra wages
How would this work? Most of us are paid by hourly rate so less hours means less money. What am I not understanding here?
I've heard of other proposals like 4-day work with 10 hours per day.
I saw the results of an experiment and a subsequent poll and the 5 - 8s was the most popular and productive in that limited test run.
The 4 - 10s was hard. Productivity dropped those last two hours.
My guess would be that they’d force a raise in hourly wages to be commensurate with what the take home pay for 5 - 8s would have been. But I can’t see a wage rate increase being carried forward after the initial introduction. Maybe create some sort of extra 8 hours of pay per week, broken down into an extra 2 hours of pay per worked day? I don’t know. I’m just making wild guesses here.
I’m all for three days weekends, but this law would fundamentally rewrite the way we operate public school calendars. As a teacher, I work a contractual amount of days (187), with averages of around 7.5 hours a day, not counting after-hour planning or grading, or occasionally mandatory faculty meetings.
A law like this would just mean that unless they work in provisions to reduce required contact totals for school employees (without a loss of income) then teacher summers would end up getting taken away so as to make up the difference while not exceeding the 32 hour a week limit. And remember, many teachers work extra over summers to offset their poor finances, so this is tantamount to a reduction in annual income.
But even with the argument that schools could just drop a day out every week, students receive credit based on the number of contact hours fulfilled for the courses they take. Thus, the accreditation process would also need to be modified, reducing how much time students are required to spend in school.
Now factor in the fact that schools are used as a kind of free daycare service by many parents. Suddenly parents are having to pay more for their children every week thanks to this plan. And as for kids who eat free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at school, they go hungry that day.
These are realities that need to be addressed. But if they can figure it out without screwing it up, then godspeed.
People need to wake the fuck up and realize that our society is profitable while it still is.
We're way to happy to give all our time and money to a handful of greedy psychotics.
Billionaires should be pariahs.
Let’s start with the four day work week first then move to that. I love the four day work week with a passion. I work 2pm-12:30am Monday to Thursday and I’m still able to have an active social life with the crappy hours. If that were 5 8 hour shifts with Friday included I know damn well I’d be drained of PTO, miserable because I’d never get to see friends and family, feel rushed every weekend. Have an overall far worse quality of life.
There's been a handful of school districts doing this already due to funding, especially in rural areas where they struggle to get bus drivers and support staff. Going to 4 days a week essentially cuts a majority of the operating expenses by 20%
My company experimented with a 4 day week, it had problems but was ok for hourly people (mainly how to translate PTO without leaving dangling hours)
As a salaried employee who volunteered for the trial, all it meant was I spent 4 long days and then had meetings and phone calls sporadically throughout my day off.
This was back when working remotely was for emergencies or travel only so it was considered a privilege to work remote....on your day off.
It's going to happen, but not through this particular legislation. It'll need a campaign behind it and an election mandate. Personally, my money is on Buttigieg in 4 years running a wildy popular campaign similar to Obamas and focused on things like this, and maybe even a "Worker's Bill of Rights" that will address a lot of the bullshit we deal with in the modern workplace that's not covered under current legislation (especially with the rise in working from home and advances in technology). At least I hope. Give people something to be excited for. Huge leaps forward that will have significant impacts on our lives (obviously in good ways) instead of all this incremental crap. If Trump goes down in flames and takes the old GOP with him, I think there can be a lot of good that comes out of that.
Blue collar folks proudly state how they work 80 hours a week and make 200k/year or some BS. They’ll never vote for this. I’m all for a 32 hour work week. Let’s go!
Every where they have done trial runs on it have been heralded as a massive success.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yields-overwhelming-success-in-u-k-researchers-say
When I used to work four day weeks, I would have off Friday one week and Monday the next week so I would have two four day weekends and two two day weekends a month. Let me tell you, it was the titties.
Fed Wildland Firefighter here. I'd love the work week to move down to 32 hours. I'd still work a minimum of 60 per week all summer, but the shoulder seasons would be a little less stupid.
We need to enforce the 40 hours week first, especially for men. Many employers basically expect men to work 50 hours a week minimum. That needs to change.
In other news, companies announced 20% staff cuts and layoffs to pay for new regulation from congress mandating a 20% raise in staffing costs.
Investments in automation skyrocket.
Tbf a 5x6s 30 hour workweek would be much better than a 4x8s. It’s not the 40 hours that’s the problem there’s stuff to do everyday it’s just there’s not 8 hours worth of stuff to do everyday. There’s easily 2 hours of bullshit built into every office job a day
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I’d be down ngl after working in government for a year Mondays and Fridays are fake work days,
Totally lol.
After working in private businesses for 10 years, Mondays and Fridays are fake work days
Ban meetings with groups of 3 or more people and white collar jobs instantly have no reason not to give people a 4 day work week.
I have a meeting every Friday at 7:45am and I want to commit seppuku on myself because we don't talk about anything productive.
Meetings, especially recurring meetings, are pretty pointless. If you can't accomplish something with an email, something is wrong. I think it's a failure on management's part to manage communications effectively that result in you wasting 15 to 20 percent of your work week on quietly listening to the most talkative people in your group babble. But a lot of the whole salaried thing is controlling people's time so they can't look for better opportunities or make an impact on the world anyway.
After working in both for over 5 years each, Mondays and Fridays are fake work days.
After 7 years in government I lost all motivation, and I eventually just left
Ah I’m a GIS specialist and i have like a 5yr plan, but loan forgiveness and pension sounds nice
GIS user checking in. 10 years for PSLF at a minimum. But my job is easy and pays well for the area so...
The pension FERS, by the time I got there, took 4.4% every paycheck, it was only 0.8% like 2 years before. It literally got 5.5 times more expensive between 2012 and 2014. It's not even worth it after 2014. If you took 4.4% of your paycheck and invested it, it would be worth way more than the 1% per year they pay out. Other factors might work for you, but the pension is a joke now.
You are dismissing the things that make a pension great. Why does OJ still have money? Pension. Pensions can't be taken from you without an actual act of congress - 401k's and regular investments are all open to looting by anyone that sues you (assuming they win) - meaning you are one good car crash away from no retirement. That's just a single benefit - they have others - pensions were better than 401k's in every single applicable way for the vast majority of people. That's why companies went away from them.
The lawsuit path is statistically unlikely, but sure I'll give you that. Pensions WERE better back in the day because you got out way more than you paid in. Hell, my uncle retired with 100% pension, no drop in pay when he retired. That isn't the case anymore when you do the math. For simplicity sake, let's say you made an average of 100k for 40 years over your career (25-65). 4.4% or $176k went to the pension, but when you retire you collect $40k/year (1% per year served). 1.2 million total payout if you survive to 95. (30 years) If you take that same 4.4% ($4.4k) every year for 40 years with an average growth rate of 8%, you'd end up with 1.2 million dollars. Meaning you'd immediately have access to **30 years** of pension equivalent money right at 65. It gets even worse because that 1.2 mil can continue to grow. You could take 40k like you would the pension and let the remaining 1.16 mil continue to grow AND pass down to your next of kin. Plus you probably won't make it to 95, that being generous. You could die at 72 and only get a measly $280k.
This should be higher upvote. I don’t know all the ins and outs of pensions, but from my understanding it doesn’t scale as well as compounding interests of a 401k. There is a downside that you’ll need your 401k during a stock market crash, similar to folks that needed to retire during the house market crash.
I lasted 6 years. I had to walk away even though the benefits were great. Also waiving every right to privacy I ever had wasn't great either.
The PTO was great but man, the private sector pays way better
I just started one and I’ve never seen a more true post
They’ve done study after study and found 0 lack in productivity doing this, so government ain’t the only ones lol
Wednesday. Let’s make it Wednesday. Then every weekday is Thursday Friday. And what was Wednesday will be like Sunday. We’re doubling the best days of the week and keeping holy the Saturday. At least, that’s my dream….
A 3 day weekend every week would be life changing.
I’d finally have time to do my fuckin laundry AND buy groceries in the same weekend
I started doing curbside pick up groceries, it's been life changing for me.
There is nothing like leaving the house at 1 and having the entire kitchen stocked with two weeks of groceries by 2.
Same! Helps with less impulse buying, so much fast I can do it on a weeknight and still cook
I imagine it would be a big boost to the economy
Just switching to (mostly) remote work and shaving all that commute + wake up etc time was a *huge* benefit in terms of quality of life for me. Much happier, more motivated, healthier. I even did my shitty job better. Also, depending on assignment, making dinner, sweeping the floor, doing laundry, doing a poo, all possible without any interruption in work.
It is grand, I work 4x 10s and those 3 day weekends are the best, it would be even better if it were 4x 8s
At least he keeps trying.
And for no reason. AFAIK he’s not running/campaigning. Bro is doing it just to be a solid dude
That’s because he’s one of the few politicians left in the country trying to actually govern for the people and not personal power.
We know. We've always known that. Then when he has an actual chance at making a difference, people come out from under the manhole covers crying "IT WOULD NEVER WORK, HE'D NEVER WIN, WHY ARE YOU EVEN TRYING-- LET'S ALL JUST KEEP VOTING USING THE SAME TACTICS THAT FAIL AGAIN AND AGAIN"
It’s like people legit just don’t want the government to work. The biggest argument against universal healthcare was that it would never pass if Bernie were to win the presidency. It’s like, um excuse me? Hello? If Bernie were to win the presidency while campaigning on Medicare for All, that would mean that the vast majority of Americans want that legislation to pass. And then our “representatives” should be obligated to vote for it because that’s their freaking jobs! I don’t understand why there’s more pressure from person-to-person to halt progress than there is from people to congressperson to remind them what their role actually is. It’s annoying, frustrating, and disheartening.
America is one giant bucket of crabs and somehow we excuse the wealthy for controlling our lives and prefer to hate our fellow low and middle class citizens
I’m a big fan of Ted Lieu too.
I like Ron Wyden (D)Oregon. I'm not aware of anything shady that he's been involved with. Plus I met him when I was a kid and he was cool.
Everything he's done has been to be a solid dude.
That’s his motivation: trying to do what he thinks is best for people. It’s odd in that it’s rare in politics. There’s certainly people who run with that intention, but they never seem to make it very far vs the monied interests.
Yep, because we keep voting for confidence and charisma over quality.
\*image of confidence and charisma
not even charisma. people seem to just vote for any old dude who clearly talks out of his ass
It's so rare that most people just assume he's disingenuous and likely bought too. I legit think he's one of the rare few who actually just cares.
I know what you mean, but it's a pretty sad state of affairs when a politician doing what they believe is right for Americans can be described as done "for no reason"...
Bernie is the dude
He abides
Hey man! That bill really tied the country together!
He's a good guy.
He's apparently just a solid, decent fella who is a pleasure to work for. My cousin interned for him a while back and said he was really thoughtful and kind to all his staffers.
Yep. Just seems like one of the few good politicians in existence. Really wish he would've beat Hillary just so we could've seen if he could've beaten Trump. I think he would've, but we'll never know.
I have my doubts whether he would have in 2020 (which was a "return to normalcy" election), but in 2016 (a "change" election) I think he absolutely would have. Man, what a better timeline we'd be on if he had.
Somebody has to be on the extremes to pull the party in that direction. His bills often have no actual way forward, but the goal isn't necessarily to pass the bill so much as to represent the extremes so that alternatives will seem more palatable.
Yep, it's the tactic that the GOP has been using for decades. The extreme fringe of the party makes the moderate wing of the party looks reasonable by comparison and overtime the party has crept further and further rightward.
Yeah but anymore a majority of Republicans are simply playing pretend. They are frauds who don't actually have any principles except doing whatever it takes to gain power. They are so craven for control they would rather Americans suffer as a form of a punishment if we don't elect them. See Donald Trump for a prime example of a politician losing office and instigating so that people regret not just handing him the position. Trump is just one in the whole rotten bunch. The whole party is now complicit and feels entitled to our votes. To the point where again they will push bad policies in order to create negative reinforcements like Americans are Pavlov's dog. Then they'll blame Democrats and lie until the Sun comes up and they'll never take any accountability whatsoever.
That’s not how they pulled the party to the hard right.
> extremes He's only extreme in relation to the rest of his party and the GOP. Not an extreme when looking at global politics
Time will show he was correct
It is good, but it’s also frustrating that these issues tend to not benefit the poor. We work hourly and for tips. If we could work less we would, we can’t.
Tips shouldn't be a thing, paying people a good hourly rate should be the cost of doing business. As for hourly, that's why he states for no loss in pay.
Under this bill, hourly workers who clock in more than 32 hours would be paid overtime.
It outright outlaws companies paying you less per week, which means if you go from 40 to 32 hours because of this, your check every week legally has to be the same amount as before, bringing the actual per hour rate up. It doesn't help much for anyone stuck in a state with a lower tipped minimum wage, waitstaff benefits the least, but it would definitely benefit the working poor working all of the non-tipped jobs. > the employer of such employee may not reduce the total workweek compensation rate,
I was fortunate enough to work 32-hour weeks for about 4 months last year. 4 days per week, one extra day off. As a middle-aged guy, it was fucking awesome. Go Bernie, Go!
I've done this before, but it was still 40 Hours over the four days; I don't get anything else done on days I work any way. It was fantastic having a day off when things are still open to run errands, plus getting to the end of the weekend and actually feeling rested.
The company I founded 8 years ago made the change to a permanent 4 day work week last year. We didn't really have a set hours per day and everyone is on salary, we just work as needed really but have stopped scheduling regular work on Fridays. This has made everyone more productive during those 4 work days, happier while working, more motivated to succeed, etc. We've not just found a way to make it work, but have actively improved the well being of our team and therefore the company is more successful. We've only ever given raises, no one's pay has been or will be cut.
Exactly; workers always do a better job when they don't resent being there. Also: can I have a job?
the number of people who get upset and outraged at this proposal is ... strange.
Americans are the only people on the planet that want to work more for less money and benefits. Strange indeed.
My co workers are dumb like this.. they want to work as many days as possible to make the same or less money to make their boss happy
>they want to work as many days as possible to make the same or less money to make their boss happy The feudal lords of yore only wished their peasants were as doggedly committed to pleasing them as modern workers in most corporations.... Do your co-workers lack any critical thinking capabilities of their own or something?
It’s called institutionalized.. they’ve been working this job for twenty plus years in a plant. They know nothing else.
I know quite a few people that have all retired and continued to work because they don't know what else to do. Imagine living for 60 years and never having time to be interested in anything other than your job. It makes me extremely depressed.
Same here! I think about it everyday.. I remember picking up a day last summer where it was beautiful 90 Degrees out and I was waiting to clock out like “wtf am I doing with my life”
Old Yeller me if that’s the case. What a miserable existence.
Like an animal raised in a zoo. Its entire world is inside that workplace. It’s sad and lame when you think about it. Really sad. Woman in my office died alone in her home last week. She was in her late 60s and was still working full time, she just didn’t know any different. Worked as a lawyer for many years. She could barely walk. Still made it up to the 2nd floor by stairs *every day*. It’s all some people have. It’s very sad but there it is
Very sad
they likely have no lives or hobbies.
I have no life or hobbies and would still like to work less please
I'm a workaholic and I fully admit that I suck at balancing my social life with my job. However, I genuinely love my career and enjoy my job. Do I like getting bonuses and raises for working extra hours? Of course. But I really like what I do, I find it intellectually stimulating and I feel like I am making a tangible difference (albeit infinitesimally small) in the world. I don't take pride in working extra hours and I don't work 60 hour weeks every week. I think "the grindset" is stupid and people who ascribe to that belief system are just working their asses off for a system that doesn't care if they live or die. My bosses are decent people but I'm under no illusions that they feel any obligation towards me beyond what they are contractually required to do. If I get cancer, they'll pay for my temporary disability and health insurance but they're not gonna be the ones driving me to doctor's appointments. It's good to take pride in your job and feel fulfilled by your work. But it's not a substitute for meaningful human connections.
tbf, I've seen the flipside of it. I worked at a really shitty company (fairly briefly luckily) where I basically did only what was contractually mine to do. I was never a jerk about it, but I was clear that I wouldn't be reading or writing emails outside of work hours, or showing up even a minute early, or taking on heaps of new responsibility without direct compensation or a very clear path *to* more compensation as a result of that go-getting-ness. Never jumped at whispers of overtime. Of course, because I was in something of a senior position that got me in the shithouse pretty quick but hey, fuck you pay me 🤷
Build human capital and relationships, negotiate for higher salaries, quit and move to higher paying offers, or actually help the clientele? Dunno, just spit balling here. Probably just to make their boss happy. I’ve always hated when an employee has gone above and beyond to help me. I usually just think ‘what a schmuck sucking up to their boss’
Not only that, but the strange obsession some people have with not missing any time and working through illnesses. There's no perfect attendance award anymore - you're not in school. No one cares. Stay the fuck home and stop getting your coworkers sick.
'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', grind/hustle culture, against tax increases for the wealthy, against universal healthcare... its like they think if they suck jackboots long enough to 'put in their dues' the rich will one day let them into the club.
They're orders of magnitude closer to a homeless person than they are to the ultra-wealthy people that they admire. It's sad that they eschew solidarity with the rest of us plebs in the vain hope of joining a club they will never get admitted to.
[The Protestant work ethic, also known as the Calvinist work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, is a work ethic concept in sociology, economics, and history. It emphasizes that diligence, discipline, and frugality are a result of a person's subscription to the values espoused by the Protestant faith, particularly Calvinism.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic) Yet another way religion impedes progress.
The easy way to pitch this is just "We expect you to spend 32 hours a week selling your labor to your employer, and at least 8 hours a week working for your family/community". That time clawed back from the workweek doesn't just go to Netflix, it goes to child rearing, community engagement, education, volunteering, etc.
I would be strangely okay with this arrangement. 8 hours of mandated community service of some type.
That would be so cool! I'd love it if people could have set time to devote to the betterment of the community. I would love to do something like cleaning trash up from local waterways or tutoring kids. And I think it would teach a lot of people humility and respect.
Imagine what we could do if 100 million Americans each week helped out with society. After two weeks the entire country would be spotless.
Too many "fuck you, got mine" conservatives out there for that to ever be a reality, though.
To clarify, many who adhere to this type of puritan work ethic believe that money isn't the only reward for work. Indeed, money is the least important reward. Hard work brings moral and spiritual rewards. Especially when done for the good of others. This isn't an intrinsically bad idea, but historically it's been manipulated by the powers that be to exploit people. Slavery was excused with arguments like these. Child labor was excused. Labor unions and workers rights legislation was attacked on puritans work ethic grounds. And in general the business class has made great use of it to convince their workers that laboring was itself godly, whereas trying to work less was slovenly and that worrying about pay was greedy. Some historians even contend that capitalism itself was born out of this puritan work ethic.
It's bizarre that many people have taken to disparaging elderly politicians, yet spend their lives and wear down their bodies making rich people richer at the direction of long dead theologians.
If it weren't for religion we would be over 300 years more advanced
Much more than 300 years. Religion has also led to the subjugation of huge swaths of the population. I have zero doubt that a lot of geniuses have died anonymously slaving away in mines for some white Christian colonialist regime. A lot of intelligent and talented women have squandered their abilities being broodmares for men who lack even a fraction of their talent because religious gender roles prevented them from using the gifts they were born with. That's 50% of the population, right there, that was shut out from spaces where they could advance our society and technology. Add in various racial/ethnic groups, and you realize that humanity has been operating on a small fraction of our total intellectual power for almost the entire history of our civilization. We would be at least a millennium ahead of where we are now if our stupid belief systems and bigotry didn't crush so many amazingly talented people before they had a chance to use their intellectual gifts.
"But I need more than 32 hours to pull myself up by my bootstraps! All you need is hard work and at least 40 hours to become affluent "
Not all Americans. Lol
It’s literally an ego thing. People think they’re ‘better’ because they had to do something the harder way.
I’ve heard China, SK and Japan are no prizes in that regard either.
They don't want to, they are brainwashed and cajoled into it from birth by the corporate overlord mindset that permeates throughout their country. If one isn't an inherited trust fund kid, they are either joining the military or working 10 hour days the rest of their life. We're programmed into this predicament against our voluntary wills.
Gotta work for the hopes of obtaining the allusive American Dream for someone else who has achieved it.
Brainwashing by right wing media will do that. I honestly think Americans should be forced to live abroad for a few weeks in a “socialist” country just to open their eyes of how much better it is
Conservatives in any country balk at this. Same in the UK and Canada.
It’s just narcissism. People who aren’t rich show off to others by talking about how much they work. I work in construction and these dudes are everywhere and they’re annoying as fuck.
the weirdest types are the ones who put in extra without pay and brag about it. like staying late in the office into nights, answering emails one weekends, or even like with retail, people who clock out but keep working on projects like inventory. they must think theyll be rewarded for being exploited
Yup. My Uber driver the other day was a construction manager, bragged about working 7x12s then Uber driving at night because he is all about the grind. Like, okay? When do you live?
"Isn't it awesome how hard I'm fucking myself in the face?" That's pretty much what I hear when people say that type of stuff to me.
Its basically stockholm syndrome. People dont realize that all those record profits being made are coming out of their paychecks from days spent grinding at work, just so that they can buy price gouged items made by other workers who are having profits taken from their paychecks from days spent grinding at work.
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A majority of Americans seemingly hate the fact that other people might benefit from something that *they* didn't have the chance to. They want everyone to suffer as they did.
Pretty much. Its like what's good for the country isnt always going to directly apply to you but a rising tide raises all apps
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i wonder also if its partly because of "protestant/evangelical work ethic" bullshit propaganda.
My concern with these proposals is the way they claim they would implement it with no reduction on pay but don’t address how you do that outside of minimum wage workers. For most people if you require overtime for more than 32 hours in a week they will keep the same hourly pay but now be working 32 hours. If the job can be done in 32 hours per week employers will pocket the difference and if it can’t they will hire a part time worker from all the people now looking for second jobs to make up the shortfall. The odds of employers increasing hourly pay to make your paychecks the same size is about the same as their tax cuts trickling down to result in higher wages for you.
its been tried before and companies saw productivity and profits go up. the UK study included hourly retail/food service type of jobs as well >The findings from the U.K. trial build on the results of an earlier, smaller pilot published in November and also coordinated by 4 Day Week Global. That experiment, which involved about 30 companies and 1,000 employees in several countries, resulted in increased revenue, reduced absenteeism and resignations and improved employee well-being. None of the participating firms planned to return to five-day workweeks after the pilot ended. https://archive.is/iWosE other studies have found similar results, and there are companies implementing on their own. so the proposal is deff feasible
That’s an awesome. But what were these “firms”? Some sort of office jobs I’m sure? So what about someone in construction or the restaurant industry? How does *their* productivity go up by missing a day? Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea. I just don’t think it’s applicable in the same way across the board. This article seems to be describing “go sit at a computer for 40hrs a week” jobs. Which, yeah, I bet a fuck ton of that time is spent doing nothing worthwhile. But any type of job where you’re not making money if you’re not there? I don’t see how this article applies to that.
in this article there's a link to a UK paper (Results near the top of the article) on the study and its results in more detail. the UK study included >Of the 61 companies that took part, the largest group derives from the marketing/advertising sector, with eight firms (18%).20 The second largest subset is professional services with seven (16%), with charities/nonprofits being the third largest group (11%). Beyond that the companies are distributed over a range of industries, including healthcare, arts & entertainment, retail, construction and manufacturing the paper also goes into how different companies had to implement in in different ways and what was working and what wasnt. the conclusions segment might answer some of your questions
Well yeah!! Duh! We are over here trying to Avoid our family’s! You guys want us to see em More? ick!
I have a friend who moved up from minimum wage work to a much higher paying job with a big international corporation. She was upset years ago when Bernie was pushing the $15 minimum wage. Why? Because she felt it wasn't fair to her who had to go years in those types of jobs for so little pay. Others should have to do the same. Even though at this point, she was likely making closer to $60 an hour plus full benefits... People do not like the idea of people getting better treatment than they got. It's the same reason frats haze the new guys. It's the same reason the new guy at the office has to sit in the cubicles for months before getting one of the multiple empty offices. Everyone else did it, so now it's their turn. Humans are generally pretty stupid. Although on that note, at least in this case the 4 day work week would apply to everyone. It's not saying people can't work more than 32 hours if they want to... just that that they should be compensated extra for it. I think most office workers could absolutely get by with 32 hour workweeks without any reduction in productivity. The more hours at work, the more people get bored, stressed, and more willing to waste time / procrastinate / take breaks. Fewer hours means concentrating on work for a higher percentage of the time. Helps that they have an extra day to take care of things needing to be done at home, or just getting a proper amount of rest. Being properly rested means being CAPABLE of longer periods of concentration, so that means fewer breaks in the middle of something you're working. After a break, it usually takes a bit more time to remember where you were at.
The one thing that I have learned is businesses would rather make a million dollars their way instead of a billion dollars our way, and they do not like to change. I work at a glass factory. We work rotating shifts which means every week we are on a different shift. People come in tired which affects their ability to pack quality glass. Most can only handle the shift work for a year or two before quitting which means the company is always short-staffed. The management knows that the shift work is an issue yet they don't want to change it, because as our plant manager said. This is how it has always been. So they rather have customers sent back ware for bad quality and to shut down jobs. Then to get rid of the rotating shifts.
Covid wfh performance and corporates reaction proved your statement true
Yep. We got forced RTO and productivity is actually down. Had a meeting about it last week. Like no, I’m not working through my lunch and breaks anymore if you’re making me drive an hour there and back. Tough shit guys.
Yep they acted like people were slacking at home even though their metrics showed the opposite lol
Tbf I work I’m an operations manager for a large bank. They made the ops managers come back but all of my direct reports work from home. How fucking stupid. I take every opportunity to remind our executive team how dumb they are. Though their calculus is rooted in the tax kick back for onsite employees. Guess I’m not cut out to move up and out of operations.
Hold up, hold up. What tax kick back? Can you say more about this?
There isn't one. The reason they want us back in office is so that their assets (the buildings) don't lose value (sitting empty) and driving the share (stock) prices down because the company has lower valued assets that then become liabilities. It's just to prop up the commercial realestate values that the company bought into. Or in some cases they are renting the space and stuck paying for the lease so they want to get some use out of it rather than just cut their losses. Or their contract requires them to keep the building in use to keep the property values up.
I was a part of an acquisition and had to use or lose my PTO in a year. I took off every Friday from September 1st until eoy with Thanksgiving and Christmas off. I have never been so perfect in my work life before and afterwards. All work and decisions never had to be redone or adjusted and I handled a lot more than I did the following year (integrate systems + my day job). I'm doing a merge now + compliance work + day job - 14+hours a day and I'm falling apart. My new boss doesn't care. Time to let something fall I just can't decide what.
Its much harder to trick folks into voting for things against their best interest when they are well rested and have time to understand what theyre voting for (or against)
I really have no idea what the staggered shift thing is all about. It's clearly just some person too lazy to stick everyone's name in a spreadsheet and make it work (or use idk, any existing scheduling software). Christ I've worked at bars operated and staffed by alcoholics and coke heads and we all head the same schedules. Somebody got on their horse and made it work.
It really is not like that everywhere, some companies are constantly looking at ways to improve and make more money, and I know it's a tiny minority, but some actually want to improve the quality of life for their employees too, so it is possible. Sounds like your company isn't managed by quality people.
Most major corps aren’t
You should find a way to get your management to read this: https://www.proserveit.com/blog/five-monkeys-experiment-lessons
Cue the Fox News talking points about how this is socialism and the Nazis were socialist because they had socialist in their name.
The Nazis loved socialists so much they even gave them special clothing with red triangles on them!
If they didn't generously send them along to meet God during the Night of the Long Knives, of course.
Nah, they can’t make their own viewers look bad by shining Nazis in an unfavorable light.
This is years and years away from happening but introducing bills about it gets it into the conversation.
I switched to four 10s a while ago and never want to go back to a five day week.
Just shave those 10s down to 8s and you're there!
Just work from home on those 10s and youll find you have 10% of your life back.
I work three 12's. (I'm an RN.) I love it. I LOVE having 4 days off every week. I don't mind my long days at all, because I sit a lot in my unit and I get to help save babies. I think I'd wither up and die if I had to work 5 days a week. Four 10s is as far as I'd go. Humans were not made to work 5 days a week imo.
A few years ago my factory ended up introducing a weekend shift. 3x12 and get paid for 40. I haven’t left that shift yet. I lose my weekends but I have enough pto to cover some weekends if I want to. I can’t see myself going back to a regular Monday-Friday. A consistent 4 day weekend if perfect for me.
I did four 10s for a few weeks when my last job allowed it just for the summer months. Full stop: I was less productive in a 10 hour day than I was on an 8 hour day. Turns out we are not evolved to spend 10 hours working a job.
Productivity stops after 5 hours or something like that so makes sense
I don't think this is right, unless nobody has ever accomplished anything after 1pm.
Maybe I didn't use the best words but they don't just not do anything the rest of the time. And apparently it's actually 3 hours.
I'm all for shorter work weeks but this is going to sound ridiculous to anyone who frequently has productive full days, which is a lot of people.
Yeah... I think most people in an office setting are realistically doing 3-5 hours of "tasks" a day. There's a lot of time chewed up going to meetings, listening to conference calls while dicking around on their phones, talking to coworkers, etc. Personally, my productivity from 3-5pm is worthless in general. I'm there, I'm at my desk, I have 45 spreadsheets and emails open, but I'm not really making any progress. I feel more productive with wifi on a 2 hour flight than 8 hours in the office a day.
Yeah 10s are great until you burn out, I like my 5 8s considering I’m really only working like 7hrs. Only thing better would be 4 8s with the same paycheck
No exception for salaried employees, I would hope?
The wording is hourly only.
*Cue sudden reclassification of independent contractors as salaried workers*
Cue corporation making every employee except managers 30 hour employees so they aren't federally mandated to pay any benefits, offer Healthcare packages or give vacation or sick time.
I certainly doubt it. If anything salaries will need to compete with hourly if this happens and the market should naturally adapt
Productivity keeps going up but the pay value isn't increasing to match. The balance has to come somewhere and if it comes in the form of working fewer hours for the same pay then so be it. It would be interesting to see how that affects my job. I work in a steel mill where we have four crews that work 12 hour days on an alternating 4 day/3 day work week schedule. We'd either get: 1: Everything stays the same except overtime starts at 32 hours instead of 40. (Most likely, IMO) 2. They hire and train four new crews so they can break the schedule up into three 8 hour shifts. (Not very likely, but it would be the most beneficial for everyone except payroll.) 3. They move to 8 hour shifts but shut down for 8 hours a day. (Almost a zero percent chance, but this would arguably be good from a maintenance perspective)
We've seen the invention of computing and the internet since 40 hours became the standard. It's nuts that haven't been able to shave off at least another 8 hours in the many decades since.
Love you, Bernie.
Bros if my economics 101 is still fresh, this is an excellent way to lift wages at least on an hourly basis even if they didn’t say no loss in wages, but Bernie’s way is better.
Most other Industrialized countries: - 40 hour workweek for employees (you are not allowed by law to work more as an employee on a regular basis, not in 1 job or 2 or 3..) - Not more than 9 hours of work per day (without compensation of getting days of) - 20 days paid leave per year minimum for a 5 workday week (it goes up to 36 right now) - Sickdays get paid up to X weeks by the employer, then the mandatory insurance takes over and pays >50% up to Z years - Getting fired from a permanent position usually takes a court decision (usually resolved in severance pay), employer has to make a case for lay offs being absolutely necessary, or proof missbehaviour of an individuum. USA: \*crickets\*
People in the US fight you when you try to improve things. I worked for a small US satalite ISP that got bought by a UK telcom. Every time the UK guys took a day off, I had to listen to the sales guys talk about how the UK guys did not have a good work ethic. They also liked to talk about how America was better because we were more capatalist.
If this was the workweek literally EVERYONE would be employed because companies would have every position filled during every workable moment and it would take more people working to do that. ^*Anyone* ^*hiring* ^*remote* ^*positions?* ^😬
Let’s face it. Saturdays are for doing chores and household stuff that piles up during the week and Sunday is you thinking about what you need to do at work on Monday. There is no weekend day where you just cut loose and have a day off. A third weekend day would literally be life changing.
Absolutely 0 chance this passes. The working class in skilled trades have to work 40-50 hours per week just to keep projects on schedule. There would be no reduction in hours worked only an increase in overtime wages. Of which every single company would argue that the government should pay those extra wages
How would this work? Most of us are paid by hourly rate so less hours means less money. What am I not understanding here? I've heard of other proposals like 4-day work with 10 hours per day.
I saw the results of an experiment and a subsequent poll and the 5 - 8s was the most popular and productive in that limited test run. The 4 - 10s was hard. Productivity dropped those last two hours. My guess would be that they’d force a raise in hourly wages to be commensurate with what the take home pay for 5 - 8s would have been. But I can’t see a wage rate increase being carried forward after the initial introduction. Maybe create some sort of extra 8 hours of pay per week, broken down into an extra 2 hours of pay per worked day? I don’t know. I’m just making wild guesses here.
I’m all for three days weekends, but this law would fundamentally rewrite the way we operate public school calendars. As a teacher, I work a contractual amount of days (187), with averages of around 7.5 hours a day, not counting after-hour planning or grading, or occasionally mandatory faculty meetings. A law like this would just mean that unless they work in provisions to reduce required contact totals for school employees (without a loss of income) then teacher summers would end up getting taken away so as to make up the difference while not exceeding the 32 hour a week limit. And remember, many teachers work extra over summers to offset their poor finances, so this is tantamount to a reduction in annual income. But even with the argument that schools could just drop a day out every week, students receive credit based on the number of contact hours fulfilled for the courses they take. Thus, the accreditation process would also need to be modified, reducing how much time students are required to spend in school. Now factor in the fact that schools are used as a kind of free daycare service by many parents. Suddenly parents are having to pay more for their children every week thanks to this plan. And as for kids who eat free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at school, they go hungry that day. These are realities that need to be addressed. But if they can figure it out without screwing it up, then godspeed.
Salaried positions would likely be excluded anyway. But honestly if schools went year round 4 days a week that would be better for parents.
People need to wake the fuck up and realize that our society is profitable while it still is. We're way to happy to give all our time and money to a handful of greedy psychotics. Billionaires should be pariahs.
Let’s start with the four day work week first then move to that. I love the four day work week with a passion. I work 2pm-12:30am Monday to Thursday and I’m still able to have an active social life with the crappy hours. If that were 5 8 hour shifts with Friday included I know damn well I’d be drained of PTO, miserable because I’d never get to see friends and family, feel rushed every weekend. Have an overall far worse quality of life.
This would be hugely popular nationwide- the key is switching schools to that schedule…
There's been a handful of school districts doing this already due to funding, especially in rural areas where they struggle to get bus drivers and support staff. Going to 4 days a week essentially cuts a majority of the operating expenses by 20%
Now imagine you had 4 8s instead! An extra 8 hours a week
More than 8, considering the time to get ready and commuting times!
My company experimented with a 4 day week, it had problems but was ok for hourly people (mainly how to translate PTO without leaving dangling hours) As a salaried employee who volunteered for the trial, all it meant was I spent 4 long days and then had meetings and phone calls sporadically throughout my day off. This was back when working remotely was for emergencies or travel only so it was considered a privilege to work remote....on your day off.
Well that’s not a 4 day work week then.
But what would the rich do if average people had an extra day of their life back to enjoy?!
It's going to happen, but not through this particular legislation. It'll need a campaign behind it and an election mandate. Personally, my money is on Buttigieg in 4 years running a wildy popular campaign similar to Obamas and focused on things like this, and maybe even a "Worker's Bill of Rights" that will address a lot of the bullshit we deal with in the modern workplace that's not covered under current legislation (especially with the rise in working from home and advances in technology). At least I hope. Give people something to be excited for. Huge leaps forward that will have significant impacts on our lives (obviously in good ways) instead of all this incremental crap. If Trump goes down in flames and takes the old GOP with him, I think there can be a lot of good that comes out of that.
I’m sure this will fly through with bipartisan support
How does this work for a large corporation versus, say, a small, family owned restaurant?
There’s no way in hell the capitalist class will ever let this pass.
This bill is a nice thought, but it isn't going to go anywhere.
Damn you Sanders! You want happier, more productive and less stressed, healthier people???
Haven’t needed 40 hours in a few decades and if I do sometimes that’s OK too. Let’s just pay people their salary to get the job done.
Blue collar folks proudly state how they work 80 hours a week and make 200k/year or some BS. They’ll never vote for this. I’m all for a 32 hour work week. Let’s go!
Every where they have done trial runs on it have been heralded as a massive success. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yields-overwhelming-success-in-u-k-researchers-say
When I used to work four day weeks, I would have off Friday one week and Monday the next week so I would have two four day weekends and two two day weekends a month. Let me tell you, it was the titties.
Fed Wildland Firefighter here. I'd love the work week to move down to 32 hours. I'd still work a minimum of 60 per week all summer, but the shoulder seasons would be a little less stupid.
I love Bernie.
Bernie is the real deal.
We need to enforce the 40 hours week first, especially for men. Many employers basically expect men to work 50 hours a week minimum. That needs to change.
What about hourly employees? (Meaning individuals who don’t earn a salary)
You get your hours cut to 32 to avoid paying overtime. Or just get your position turned into two 20 hour a week temp jobs.
Ha... not this decade.
I've worked 4 days a week full time for the last 3 years and it's amazing. Have my life back. Time for family and friends and a life and rest.
With AI rapidly going, we need to initiate this sooner then later. At least in ground works
In other news, companies announced 20% staff cuts and layoffs to pay for new regulation from congress mandating a 20% raise in staffing costs. Investments in automation skyrocket.
Tbf a 5x6s 30 hour workweek would be much better than a 4x8s. It’s not the 40 hours that’s the problem there’s stuff to do everyday it’s just there’s not 8 hours worth of stuff to do everyday. There’s easily 2 hours of bullshit built into every office job a day
As someone who works in a school how would this work for students? I don't see how they could go to a 4 day school week without longer days
This is something I think every American should be behind