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Shortening the work week?

Should the work week be reduced?


  • Total voters
    27
This is true at my wife's job. The company was once privately owned and offered a lot of nice perks and bonuses. Nothing really expensive, but things that made for a nice work enviroment: production or performance contests that gave some recognition and reward to top performers, usually one a month every department would have an extended lunch for some sort of party or social event, generous bonuses at Christmas, a few big company parties every year. The company had a very good retention rate and many long term workers.

Then they went corporate. All the little perks were gradually cut back and eliminated. Merit raises no longer exist, now you get a bare bones cost of living raise no matter how good or poor your performance is. The company has put in place more "policies" that regulate some of the stupidest and most minute details of the day. Salaried workers are expected to put more and more time in for no additional compensation.

And what's the result? The turn over rate is much higher, meaning the comany has to spend additional dollars training the new hires that are constantly replacing the ones who leave. And those new, raw employees are not nearly as efficient at getting work done as the people they are replacing. Plus many of the workers who are there now have a much lower morale and avoid doing anything extra or above and beyond because they know two things. One, they won't be rewarded in any fashion for their extra effort. Two, the company will start to expect teh extra effort and make it part of their jobs without adding compensation for the additonal responsibilities. People cut corners and do the minimum because they feel the company is the enemy. Where as before the company had a real family feel and many of the employees were very dedicated.

If you treat your employees like crap, the best you can expect is a minimal effort. Too many companies, especailly corporate ones, lose sight of this very basic fact.


That is EXACTLY what happened at my job, after the takeover. I'm the only person left with more than 3 years experience, and the corporate types are always bemoaning why the office has dropped to the dregs in efficiency. BECAUSE THERE'S NOBODY LEFT THAT KNOWS HOW TO DO THE JOB! :doh:
 
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.

it didn't pay living wages in the 1910's? how did they survive?


oh, wait, "living wage" has nothing to do with "enough to live on".
 
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.

It's called being an adult, this is what happens. 2-3 weeks is probably all you need off for vacation a year. Otherwise, get back to work.
 
You need a union then.. no extra pay for overtime.. tsk!

That's what it means to be paid salary. Salary means there's no hours connected to it, which may seem like a sweet deal till you realize it's because you're expected to work a hell of a lot more than 40 hours a week. I put in on average 60+. We get paid salary because the University couldn't afford to pay us hourly, not if we honestly reported our hours. In fact, that's the way it is in my field just about everywhere. Even places which try to get you to not work as much. Lazy jerks, hard work should never be considered a bad thing.
 
It's called being an adult, this is what happens. 2-3 weeks is probably all you need off for vacation a year. Otherwise, get back to work.

oh bs. that's what people are USED to, period. in the u.s. being an adult has nothing to do with how much vacation you want or need.
 
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:

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.

I see a 50% rise in real wages in just 30 years.

1870-1900.employment.of.workers.and.real.wages.graph.gif


Take a look at this website, it's very enlightening.

A History of the Standard of Living in the United States | Economic History Services

GDP per capita was growing at a robust rate between 1870 and 1913. Average heights were increasing (which would mean that food consumption was on the rise). In 1820, the US had an average GDP per capita, trailing Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland. We were way behind the UK and the Netherlands (the leader). By 1870 that was roughly the same (probably the Mexican-American War and especially the Civil War held us back). By 1913, though, we had shot up and lead the world. There was tremendous growth from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.

So I'll wait for some real data from you, not just pictures that shock our modern sensibilities and your opinions that you really just drew out of thin air, but data that puts life back then into proper perspective (that is, comparing to living conditions around the world back then and how much better that time period was to before then, any analysis comparing living conditions then to now is just disingenuous as the same case could be made anywhere around the world, of course we're better off now, so what, you need to look at what people were coming from to see how things were improving).
 
oh bs. that's what people are USED to, period. in the u.s. being an adult has nothing to do with how much vacation you want or need.

Yes it does. When you grow up, you have real world responsibilities. You have to work for a living. Why should you get paid for not working? It's great that employeres have some amount of paid vacation, but they don't need to put it in there. You're getting paid to not work, that's a pretty damned sweet deal. But it's not something you can have all the time, else you don't get any work done. Don't be lazy and get back to work.

Jesus, I think what some of y'all need is a few years on the farm to teach you about work ethic.
 
oh bs. that's what people are USED to, period. in the u.s. being an adult has nothing to do with how much vacation you want or need.

And you know what's best for people rather than people themselves knowing what's best for them, right?
 
Time enough for rest and relaxation when I'm retired (or dead).

That's right about farms. Without our modern inventions people use to work sun up to sun down, alongside their entire family. A 40 hour work-week is trivial for many modern professions. Anyone under 35 not working >40 hours is limiting their career investment. Career investment compounds over time just like retirement investments. Invest as much as you can as early as you can..it pays off.
 
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It's called being an adult, this is what happens. 2-3 weeks is probably all you need off for vacation a year. Otherwise, get back to work.

I thought most places gave vacation time based on how long you had been there. Seems the fair way to do it. I think I was getting about 4 wks at 10yrs.
 
Spoken like someone who has never had to work hard for anything. It shows through. You've never been the struggling working class you accuse me of being. Either that or you are exactly the kind of boss I am talking about. Either way, sorry to step on your toes, your heiness.

I have been self-employed for 20 years. I routinely work a bare minimum of 60 hours/week and when deadlines are calling try 12 hours a day 7 days a week, much to my wife's chagrin. Everybody wants my life, they just don't want to do the hard work.

Stop acting like anyone owes you anything. Also, FYI, I take a week vacation about every two years.
 
Yes it does. When you grow up, you have real world responsibilities. You have to work for a living. Why should you get paid for not working? It's great that employeres have some amount of paid vacation, but they don't need to put it in there. You're getting paid to not work, that's a pretty damned sweet deal. But it's not something you can have all the time, else you don't get any work done. Don't be lazy and get back to work.

Jesus, I think what some of y'all need is a few years on the farm to teach you about work ethic.

real world responsbilities don't have to mean killing yourself for 50 years then retiring and dropping dead.
 
real world responsbilities don't have to mean killing yourself for 50 years then retiring and dropping dead.

Nope, but working 40+ hours a week with a few weeks of vacation days every year ain't gonna do that. For Christ's sake, is this what's happening to our country? People can't even work now because "they're going to drop dead" from work. No wonder things are falling off the map. We used to sit around and do things for ourselves. We could work hard, have the time to relax and enjoy life. But now it seems like people want to demand the college student life style through out the whole of their adult lives. My grandma still managed her farm well into her twilight years, worked hard even then, she didn't drop dead of work. Hell I worked that same farm for a good hunk of my youth. It's what made me hate dairy farming. Not dead yet. I put in over 60 hours a week, not dead yet.

I think it's high time we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, quit bitching about this and that, and get back to work. It's time to do something instead of sitting around on our fat asses demanding stuff. America had a little mid-life crisis, we got reckless with our money, shrugged off our responsibilities, and lived like there was no tomorrow trying to live it up. It was great, it was fun; it's time to get over it. Get back to work.
 
Nope, but working 40+ hours a week with a few weeks of vacation days every year ain't gonna do that. For Christ's sake, is this what's happening to our country? People can't even work now because "they're going to drop dead" from work. No wonder things are falling off the map. We used to sit around and do things for ourselves. We could work hard, have the time to relax and enjoy life. But now it seems like people want to demand the college student life style through out the whole of their adult lives. My grandma still managed her farm well into her twilight years, worked hard even then, she didn't drop dead of work. Hell I worked that same farm for a good hunk of my youth. It's what made me hate dairy farming. Not dead yet. I put in over 60 hours a week, not dead yet.

I think it's high time we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, quit bitching about this and that, and get back to work. It's time to do something instead of sitting around on our fat asses demanding stuff. America had a little mid-life crisis, we got reckless with our money, shrugged off our responsibilities, and lived like there was no tomorrow trying to live it up. It was great, it was fun; it's time to get over it. Get back to work.

i'm not bitching, i am getting ready to sail the caribbean.
 
i'm not bitching, i am getting ready to sail the caribbean.

Well good for you. Some of us have to work an honest days work though.
 
Well good for you. Some of us have to work an honest days work though.

i have, plenty of them.....back in damned day, i worked my butt off. ;-)
 
Nope, but working 40+ hours a week with a few weeks of vacation days every year ain't gonna do that. For Christ's sake, is this what's happening to our country? People can't even work now because "they're going to drop dead" from work. No wonder things are falling off the map. We used to sit around and do things for ourselves. We could work hard, have the time to relax and enjoy life. But now it seems like people want to demand the college student life style through out the whole of their adult lives. My grandma still managed her farm well into her twilight years, worked hard even then, she didn't drop dead of work. Hell I worked that same farm for a good hunk of my youth. It's what made me hate dairy farming. Not dead yet. I put in over 60 hours a week, not dead yet.

I think it's high time we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, quit bitching about this and that, and get back to work. It's time to do something instead of sitting around on our fat asses demanding stuff. America had a little mid-life crisis, we got reckless with our money, shrugged off our responsibilities, and lived like there was no tomorrow trying to live it up. It was great, it was fun; it's time to get over it. Get back to work.

You are focusing too much on the personal responsibility angle and not looking at the economy as a whole. I think other people in this thread have contributed great personal anecdotes regarding the problem. Corporations impose negative incentives to get people to work, but it's causing economic downfall. Our country is in the economic dumps not because workers are lazy, but because corporations and wall street robbed us, and they did it because of lack of oversight, and they had lack of oversight because corporate policy seems to get a hall pass with everything it does.

Corporations can do just as well by treating workers well, and that includes vacation time. Google is one of the biggest grossing companies in the U.S. right now, and its vacation time is based on tenure. The longer you are there, the more paid time off you get. Workers that aren't stressed perform better and it creates more innovation. Forcing workers into boxes, clocking very second and minute detail of their days, and giving them no time off leads to poor performance. This has been proven time and time again. I've read (please don't ask me for a source because I don't remember the site I read it, you'll just have to trust me) that many Google workers don't even take their vacation time because working there is such a joy. Their treatment of employees is so famous that workers are flocking to them in droves. They have their pick of the top minds of the nation and even the world, even over Microsoft or Apple.

Employment isn't just employment, it's your lifestyle. There is no REAL separation between life and work, or the welfare of the nation and the economy of the nation. How people relate to their work matters to the happiness quotient of our society. You spend a big chunk of the week there and you want your quality of life to be good. The corporate culture of the U.S. is largely focused on those negative incentives, but it doesn't have to be. The whole employment model of the U.S. could be geared toward actually ensuring the population at large is healthy and happy with their jobs and it wouldn't take that much effort to accomplish it. But instead it is geared more toward extreme maximization of profits for the top echelon, to absurd degrees... like, monitoring people's internet use, and tracking how long they are in the washroom by monitoring their FOB use. It's insane.

If your employer is a fascist then you won't want to work for them - or, if you are stuck with them, you won't want to go out of your way to help them. You'll cut corners and it will be about your survival only, instead of survival of the community.
 
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I see a 50% rise in real wages in just 30 years.

1870-1900.employment.of.workers.and.real.wages.graph.gif


Take a look at this website, it's very enlightening.

A History of the Standard of Living in the United States | Economic History Services

GDP per capita was growing at a robust rate between 1870 and 1913. Average heights were increasing (which would mean that food consumption was on the rise). In 1820, the US had an average GDP per capita, trailing Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland. We were way behind the UK and the Netherlands (the leader). By 1870 that was roughly the same (probably the Mexican-American War and especially the Civil War held us back). By 1913, though, we had shot up and lead the world. There was tremendous growth from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.

So I'll wait for some real data from you, not just pictures that shock our modern sensibilities and your opinions that you really just drew out of thin air, but data that puts life back then into proper perspective (that is, comparing to living conditions around the world back then and how much better that time period was to before then, any analysis comparing living conditions then to now is just disingenuous as the same case could be made anywhere around the world, of course we're better off now, so what, you need to look at what people were coming from to see how things were improving).

gosh Phatz; that period must have been marked by high unionization, large government spending projects, and high marginal tax rates, huh? :)
 
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.

If I want to work 40 hours, then I should be able to work 40 hours. Hell, if I want to work 60 hours, then I should be able to work 60 hours. The government has absolutely no business limiting the hours I want to work. Let the lazy work fewer hours, if they want to, but leave me the hell alone. I pack my own chute, thank you.
 
But keep in mind that the work week is capped at 40 to mark when overtime is being calculated. Meaning that employers avoid permitting or requesting people work that long - and if they do work longer - they get paid more.

I think '40 being the magic number to qualify as full time' is too steep. . . .I think there should be a window - 36-40 hours being classified and treated as full time would be ideal. This would give some people who are paid hourly - but classified as full-time - a little bit of earned flex in their work hours.

Anything over 40 would be good for overtime pay, as it is now.

But anything between 36-40 would net those full-time benefits.
 
I work for a company that won't give you 40 even after working there for 4 years with stellar praise and reports of acheivement. I feel I am entitled to some benefits considering the money I've made this company.
 
I work for a company that won't give you 40 even after working there for 4 years with stellar praise and reports of acheivement. I feel I am entitled to some benefits considering the money I've made this company.


Agreed. the money you have already made is the benefit you are entitled to.
 
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