Arguments for a 4-hour Work day

http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000

For generations we've had the 8-hour workday (at least in principle.) But with advances in productivity and the growing demand for a livable wage, isn't time to reduce the work week?

 

i can't stand 8 hour work days, that's about as much as i can stand. i prefer 6.... i value my time a lot.

 

What? You don't realize that working 8 hours a day isn't enough to keep people living a lifestyle to which they are deserving? Think something more like 16 hours is the norm if you combine both husband and wife's hours worked.

And so let's see if we can make something worthwhile out of this thread? Can you think of a few reasons why 8 hours work per day by one family member doesn't do it anymore?

 

Minimum wage hasn't increase enough over the years to keep up with inflation AND the increasing cost of living.

Another thing is people need more and more money for things because businesses ask for more and more higher prices for the products. It's a vicious circle, the people selling the stuff need more money to buy things, so everyone has to make more money to buy things, which means people have to charge more for things.

This is not the same thing as inflation which is the decreasing value of currency due to more currency being printed. It all seems kinda dumb and pointless to me, and it seems to me that money, things having an arbitrary value based on what they represent, as opposed to what is required to manufacture them, and all this just seem like man-made artificial constructs that aren't really needed, people are just convinced and *think* it's necessary because this is how it's always been done. "Designer" items cost hundreds of dollars, but knock offs that are almost indistinguishable may be worth only $10 bucks, not because it's such shitty quality, they are essentially the same item .. It's not WHAT the item is that makes it worth so much, but WHOM it was that made the item.

 

This.

QP

 

Your first 5 words answered the question. But then you skipped on to less important issues without even stopping to consider why the minimum wage hasn't increased. Or in fact, that there's considerable resistance to even having a minimum wage. So much so in the US that it's questionable whether there will be or not if the Repubs. wield enough power to prevent it.

I'll offer a quick observation here: The teabaggers have hijacked the mindset of the ordinary people. Now they don't even consider themselves worthy of a living wage being earned in 8 hours. It has something to do with the 'American way' bullshit. They don't believe they are due a piece of the pie until they earn it, blah, blah, .......

And in fairness to the teabaggery movement, their minds have been hijacked by the Koch brothers and their ilk.

Phhhhhhhhttttt. I wouldn't care if it wasn't such a huge influence that is spilling over the border to pervert the minds of Canadians now.

 

The thing I don't like about it is let say a work place hires 8 people for eight hour shifts. Now it hires 16 to do the same work, so 16 people now need to drive to the same place and back home so lots more fuel use and let's remember many can't survive on only 4 hour a day pay so they will probably drive or get transport to a second place that same day.
Having said that, I would prefer 4 hours a day if I was working for someone else but I could live on that. I know many who could not. I also know many on the casual basis at some places who have three jobs, some two and some 4 hour, trying to make it all work and paying up the ass for gas and maintenance on their cars. So is it a growing population that's busying up our roads or is it people spending more time on the roads then working a full eight somewhere? My friend said when she started at the last place I worked she was pulling three jobs, all casual and the gas cost was killing her. Finally after a couple years she got full time at the place I was working and it took her a long time to catch up on old bills she was failing to keep up.
One thing it does when someone needs a full eight, is it takes them out of the house longer in a day when you factor in the time they spend on the road or out waiting for a second shift to start because there is no guarantee both work places can start when you need. Might be you work from 8am till 12 at the first place but the second place doesn't need you till 2 pm. Now you aren't done till 6 pm and you still have to drive home. Hope it's not an hours drive. I always liked to be at work well before the start so I had to factor in the traffic as well as being ready to check in on time. So imagine the second place needs you before you have time to drive there or you are on call for short shifts and they call while you are at your other job. Must be hard for peeps and the reason behind it is to keep peeps well away from the hourly mark that allows benefits so it's really tough compared to when 8s was a standard.

 

Fwiw Sally, you could make your posts a lot easier to read if you break them up into paragraphs. Just like to let you know that a lot of people don't bother to even try to read posts that aren't. Hard to understand each point made and form an opinion.

Otherwise, you seem pretty smart to me. Especially the bit about the employers' scam of keeping hours to less than 8 in order to deny benefits. Believe it or not, some people haven't even gotten that far yet!

 

It's weird, sometimes shift managers are like just oblivious to their fellow employees for some reason.

I've always found that like some employees are all hired at the same establishment, but often some get scheduled more than others under the context of "we need more people".

For instance a friend of mine had a co-worker, and their manager, was complaining that she needed more people, when just the week before my friend said they WANTED MORE HOURS.

What ended up happening was my friend just had to find another job, and left without ever understanding why the manager thought they needed more people, when he made it clear he was available, and had to skills to do the tasks of the job as he did them and performed well in the past.

At the same time the co-worker, was silently complaining to the rest of us that they needed time off partly because they had kids to take care of, and it was like one of those moments where neither my friend nor his co-worker could figure out why the manager just didn't swap the demands, lessen co-worker's burden, and increase my friend's responsibilities.


I honestly think bad managers or oblivious ones, are half the problem here.

 

Capitalism is a fail ... Capitalism is robbing the poor to keep the rich rich.

 

My work place was like that in a way. When I offered to do 4 hour days or three days a week they laughed, also I was told my seniority would go down by the hours and I wasn't gonna let that happen, I had a good seniority. Many of us even attempted to take unpaid holidays which would let the lower seniority gain more hours and that wasn't allowed either.
Their reasoning was because we had coverage but the lower seniority didn't and that was good for the company, to keep some workers below that line but hold them as back up. I liked it where I worked, for me but I didn't like their ways with the newer people and how they liked to hold them at point of desperation for money and here is the kicker,,, if they needed other work and had to refuse a shift more then three times they we're let go, not three times in a month, or a year,,, three times while on this back up list even if it was years before they hit full time work. It was their law and it was a way of refreshing their list and making it easier for them to hold a back up list, see,,, if no one stays long enough they will never have to add to the full time list, it will be a continual automatic renewal back up list of new workers forever and lots did have to leave.

 

I think you're wrong AceK. If you're an Americans then you may be thinking of capitalism as the style that is practiced in America and not recognizing that capitalism that is practiced in many other countries is still capitalism.

I as a Canadian think of our style of capitalism as being socially responsible capitalism and in that respect I think it can't be rivalled by any other system we as yet know of.

But always rest assured that there will be a struggle between the left and the right for what they respectively understand as capitalism. I've had many Americans disagree with me on that but I think it's now beginning to prove itself to be true in the US.

A good and longlasting style of capitalism must have socialist elements blended in to make it work. Some things are just done better and more cost effective by government and we can still call it capitalism.

 

there are a lot of shit managers, especially in places like fast food or retail. but then, just because someone asks for more hours doesn't necessarily mean that more people aren't needed. one example is the job that employs a bunch of high school kids. all of them can ask for more hours, but if you have nobody to work from 8am to 3pm, you need to hire more people. another common problem is the people who constantly say they want more hours, then they make various random time-off requests every day so that you can't count on them to reliably work any shift, or on a similar note, the people that keep asking for hours then they end up giving away every shift and if they can't find a replacement for a shift, the manager gets stuck working for them or finding them a replacement anyway.

 

A 4 hour work week would allow people to more easily have 2-4 jobs enabling them to earn an adequate income for their needs and wants, and reducing the impact if one or more jobs are lost.
Employers could benefit from being able to compare a larger number of workers, allowing them to keep the best with less loss of productivity when they let someone go, and maybe even hire a few additional workers more than they would have otherwise.

 

4 hour work day is just people being lazy.

 

I've been where I work for 14 yrs and the only thing that's kept me there is the hrs / work week. I work 13 hrs minimum a shift but my schedule is work two days off two work three off two work two off three. So every other week I get a three day weekend, a five day work week sounds scary to me.

 

four hour works day is people living lives outside of work. crazy, i know, but it exists....

 

In the factory of the future, there will be only two employees -- a man and a dog. The man's job is to feed the dog and the dog's job is to keep the man from touching anything.

 

If you have a family and want to provide for them then 4 hour work days are not realistic. If someone wants to live a lavish lifestyle then 4 hour work days are not possible (unless it's found $ and not earned $).

 

As technology has improved and things have become more efficient, instead of further reducing the amount of time that people work and paying them more of the increased profits, we are still expected to work the same hours for the same (or less) pay, and the extra profits accumulate in the hands of the rich.