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Shortening the work week?

Should the work week be reduced?

  • The work week should be increased to more than 40 hours, or eliminated

    Votes: 3 11.1%

  • The work week should remain at 40 hours

    Votes: 17 63.0%

  • The work week should be reduced to 36-39 hours

    Votes: 3 11.1%

  • The work week should be reduced to 32-35 hours

    Votes: 3 11.1%

  • The work week should be reduced to less than 32 hours

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • Total voters
    27
earthworm said:
Only from a Liberal, an innovative idea.
I remember working Saturday overtime, 6 hours and accomplishing the same as I did during the week -8 hours.
Who came up with 8 hours anyway - this must be questioned.
If a man really works hard, he becomes fatigued and un-productive after 6 hours.
This, of course, varies from man to man.
How do the Japanese do this, or the French, or the Germans ?
We could run a study on a state by state basis.
But we must do something, just to stand still or regress is not good.
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Well, in Taiwan, we have an eight-hour workday five days a week plus four-hours every other Saturday. Typically, we have a long lunch break where it is customary to take a short nap after eating lunch. This is also done in schools through high school as well.
 
Kandahar said:
Furthermore, reducing the work week would be a good way to help tackle our unemployment problem. If an employer needed a certain number of labor-hours and couldn't get as many labor-hours from each worker, they would need to hire more people. This would reduce unemployment.
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The amount of work that needs to be done in the economy is not constant. If we reduce the amount of hours that can be done by a single worker this will raise employers costs, thereby reducing our productivity. This overall will make us worse off. Think about this for just one second. If working less hours actually did make employees more productive, why is every corporation in North America not already doing this?

Formally this argument is known as the Lump of Labor Fallacy.
 
Kandahar said:
Furthermore, reducing the work week would be a good way to help tackle our unemployment problem. If an employer needed a certain number of labor-hours and couldn't get as many labor-hours from each worker, they would need to hire more people. This would reduce unemployment.
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You have to be kidding. This has been tried and failed miserably. Hoover did this near the beginning of the Depression and all it did was make people poorer because they couldn't work as much as they wanted to.

Kandahar said:
The free market will not reduce the 40-hour work week on its own; if we think it's desirable to work less than that, it will require some government prodding. The 40-hour work week has been in place since 1950, despite the fact that the American worker of today is vastly more productive than his 1950 counterpart. Furthermore, in most industries, companies have an incentive to work employees as many hours as they can get away with, because it reduces training costs.
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Part-time workers don't exist? The fact is, people work as long as they do because they WANT TO work as much as they do so they can earn as much money as they can. It's different from country to country, but for the most part that is the case here.
 
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Kandahar said:
This poll is mostly directed toward Americans. I was wondering what you thought about the idea of shortening the 40-hour work week. I think it would be a very positive step for our society. We already work far more hours, on average, than any other developed country in the world. I think that most people (with some exceptions) are happier when they're out doing things they enjoy than when they're working.

Furthermore, reducing the work week would be a good way to help tackle our unemployment problem. If an employer needed a certain number of labor-hours and couldn't get as many labor-hours from each worker, they would need to hire more people. This would reduce unemployment.

As I see it, the main cost of this would fall on employers. They would need to either pay more overtime (if they still wanted to have employees work 40 hours) or hire more people (and incur the associated recruiting/processing/training costs). These costs seem rather small, especially since corporate America is doing quite well. I think that this would be a much more worthwhile cost to impose than, say, a lot of the inefficient corporate taxes to which businesses are subjected.

The free market will not reduce the 40-hour work week on its own; if we think it's desirable to work less than that, it will require some government prodding. The 40-hour work week has been in place since 1950, despite the fact that the American worker of today is vastly more productive than his 1950 counterpart. Furthermore, in most industries, companies have an incentive to work employees as many hours as they can get away with, because it reduces training costs.

But what about the fact that some people already struggle to make ends meet with a 40-hour job? OK, but there are lots of other people in the even worse position of working 0 hours per week because they can't find a job. From a macroeconomic perspective, this is very harmful. It would be far better for our economy to have more people working fewer hours, than to have fewer people working more hours.
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We don't need to work less. I mean, who the hell do you think we are? Greece? I'm not opposed to a 4 10 hour work days to have 3 "weekends". But then I always think "if I can work 4 10 hour days, why not 5 10 hour days?" Get more done that way. Well, in my line of work there's no set hours other than the expectation that you're always working.
 
celticwar17 said:
I think the work week should go with just being a societal preference, not something actually regulated... so i'd say eliminating it... if the free-market wouldn't reduce it on it's own, then it's not meant to be reduced below equilibrium.
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The free market wouldn't pay people living wages during the 1910s on its own either. I guess we were all meant to starve and live like a 3rd world country.
 
I know that I have seen some people saying this already, but I thought I would expand on what I have read.

If you reduce a person's workweek, and therefore their hours and the amount of money they make, then they will be more likely to qualify for government assistance programs. All government assistance programs are based on how much you make as a ratio of what your family's expenses should be based on an average amount per person for the areas/state that you live in. Just having people with jobs will not reduce how many people are on government assistance. In fact, reducing a person's pay just to create more jobs that pay at that level or below could very well increase how many people receive assistance.

To show some math on this, if a person was making $20K a year at a 40 hour per week job and their hours are cut to 32 hours then they are now only making $16K a year. That $4K could certainly be the difference between their being on assistance or not. Even at higher wages per hour, the loss could lead to qualifying for assistance because higher wages being earned means a higher difference in yearly pay when hours are lost.

As others have also pointed out, if people need to make up for their hours lost by finding parttime work elsewhere or by another family member going to work, then you a) now need more jobs created to make up for the extra jobs needed to make up the pay, and b) that would mean less overall hours with the family because most likely whatever job is gotten elsewhere is going to have to be for more hours than just those that were lost during the week. If a person loses 4-6 hours a week, the person or their spouse that might not have worked is most likely not going to find a job for the same or better pay where they only work 4-6 hours a week. If we are talking about a family where the parent/parents only put 40 hours a week into work before between the two of them or even just for the one if there is only one parent, they will either have to be on assistance or now put in at least 40 hours a week but most likely somewhere between 50-60 hours per week.
 
Hatuey said:
The free market wouldn't pay people living wages during the 1910s on its own either. I guess we were all meant to starve and live like a 3rd world country.
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Yet people didn't starve and live like a 3rd world country in the 1910s. :)
 
I believe the workweek should remain at 40 hours. I don't think it should be increased, and I don't think it should be decreased.
 
I have to disagree. You're talking about cutting people's salaries by over 10%. That is a significant pay cut. On top of that, you're increasing the cost of doing business in the US, making us less competitive in the global market. All for fixing a short term problem of a spike in unemployment. Our economy has a boom/bust cycle and eventually things will move back towards a boom and unemployment levels will no longer be a concern.
 
phattonez said:
Yet people didn't starve and live like a 3rd world country in the 1910s. :)
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Only they did. America was a third world country even by that day's standards. Incredibly high rates of disease. Unhygienic living conditions. High rates of infant mortality. No, no, I beg to differ. Americans were starving in the 1910s and lived like a 3rd world country. Quit revising history. Here is how the average American lived during the 1910s:

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I know a believer in the cult of Free Market Libertarianism would never admit that things really weren't better 'back in the day' but history is amazing in that it can show just how horribly people lived even 100 years ago.
 
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Hell, I'd love to be able to ONLY work 5 days a week for 40 hours!! I've been working 6-7 days a week at 60+.
 
Well, when something like this is proposed, my first instinct is to look around the world, and see how it is working in other places, so lets take a look overseas, in Europe in particular. In the year 2000, the "Aubry Law" was passed in France, which reduced the the work week to 35 hours. It was argued that it would create other jobs, and reduce unemployment. Yet, in 2004, France's unemployment was still around 10%. Germany as well learned it's lesson, as they realized how much of a negative impact it had on their businesses, and threatened to leave, although they bargained to raise their hours from 35 to 40 a week.

And lets not forget, the average work week here in America has shortened from the 20th century.

During 1900–70 the average workweek declined from about 60 to 40 hours. In some measure this occurred because of the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the establishment of precedent-setting collective bargaining agreements.
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http://mises.org/daily/1594
 
If you can't put in 40 hours a week, you are a useless bag of feces. Your future is flipping burgers, embrace it.
 
BTW, I did not vote in this silly poll, because who exactly is it that will make this a law? Not one successful person I know works 40 hours a week. Try 50 minimum, and most closer to 60 plus.
 
Kandahar said:
This poll is mostly directed toward Americans. I was wondering what you thought about the idea of shortening the 40-hour work week. I think it would be a very positive step for our society. We already work far more hours, on average, than any other developed country in the world. I think that most people (with some exceptions) are happier when they're out doing things they enjoy than when they're working.
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I'm not in favor of shortening the work week, but providing more vacation time. Americans and Canadians are given the least amount of vacation time out of all western nations and it's a product of our corporate culture. I think the average is like 2 weeks per YEAR, which is crazy. They want to work us to the highest efficiency possible but give us no rest and relaxation.

I would also like to see more flexibility in what time work starts and ends. Some people are morning people while others would be much more efficient workers if they started at 10 or 11am. Some people are more productive in evenings. Etc. The monophasic sleep plan of industrialism actually hinders productivity in my view.
 
Temporal said:
I'm not in favor of shortening the work week, but providing more vacation time. Americans and Canadians are given the least amount of vacation time out of all western nations and it's a product of our corporate culture. I think the average is like 2 weeks per YEAR, which is crazy. They want to work us to the highest efficiency possible but give us no rest and relaxation.
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Relax on the weekends and in the evenings. Or, take off more time, just don't expect your employer to pay you for doing nothing.

Try running a business and see how many days you take off.
 
ludahai said:
Well, in Taiwan, we have an eight-hour workday five days a week plus four-hours every other Saturday. Typically, we have a long lunch break where it is customary to take a short nap after eating lunch. This is also done in schools through high school as well.
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Is this private company policy, a central government mandate, or the traditional work cycle of Taiwan?

I ask because, technically, there really isn't much in the way of hour restrictions in the U.S. They vary from state to state, so it's usually determined more by company policy or union negotiation than government statute.

The only restrictions on a federal level that I know about is in regards to child labor, and most children can only work in rural or agricultural jobs.

8-hour work days became popular in the early 20th century when the U.S. became industrialized. During the early industrialization, workers worked a 10-hour day, but this was far too long for families. So they went on strike to work an 8-hour work day. 8-hour shifts are also good because they divide the day up evenly into 3 shifts, so some businesses can run 24-hours-a-day using 3 shifts with each shift being 8 hours.
 
Ikari said:
We don't need to work less. I mean, who the hell do you think we are? Greece? I'm not opposed to a 4 10 hour work days to have 3 "weekends". But then I always think "if I can work 4 10 hour days, why not 5 10 hour days?" Get more done that way. Well, in my line of work there's no set hours other than the expectation that you're always working.
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Well, let's be fair now - some jobs are more demanding than others. I think more demanding, especially physically demanding labor, should have shorter hours or 4 10-hour work days to allow those workers the time to rest and rejuvenate.
 
TheGirlNextDoor said:
Hell, I'd love to be able to ONLY work 5 days a week for 40 hours!! I've been working 6-7 days a week at 60+.
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Sounds like you have a job with expectations like mine. Salary....it's a rip off.
 
USA_1 said:
Yes it is. Economic conditions have changed how some do business.
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It wouldn't necessarily be the most profitable for the employer, however if employees/ employer agreed, it would be the nicest thing to do. Not sure, but if they were under union rules, not sure if it would be permited. Anyone know? Seems they would have to lay of people with least senority and not be able to cut other's hours.
 
samsmart said:
Is this private company policy, a central government mandate, or the traditional work cycle of Taiwan?

I ask because, technically, there really isn't much in the way of hour restrictions in the U.S. They vary from state to state, so it's usually determined more by company policy or union negotiation than government statute.

The only restrictions on a federal level that I know about is in regards to child labor, and most children can only work in rural or agricultural jobs.

8-hour work days became popular in the early 20th century when the U.S. became industrialized. During the early industrialization, workers worked a 10-hour day, but this was far too long for families. So they went on strike to work an 8-hour work day. 8-hour shifts are also good because they divide the day up evenly into 3 shifts, so some businesses can run 24-hours-a-day using 3 shifts with each shift being 8 hours.
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The 84-hour biweekly schedule is government rule (though there is a proposal to reduce to 40-hour workweeks and get rid of the alternating 1/2 day workdays on Saturday), but the post-lunch nap is engrained local custom... Frankly, I think it makes Taiwanese more efficient in the afternoon as the body's natural cycle calls for rest in the early afternoon...
 
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