Is it time for the four-day work week?

April 1, 2021 10:29 PM

A raise or a four-day week; biggest German union seals new deal - "Germany's largest trade union, IG Metall, agreed a 2.3% wage increase, to be paid either in full or as part of a switch to a four-day week, in a key industrial region, setting the benchmark for 3.9 million metal and engineering workers nationwide."[1]

also btw...

• Spain Is Going to Trial a 4-Day Work Week. Could the Idea Go Mainstream Post-Pandemic? - "What Spain can learn from companies and towns that have experimented with a four-day work week."[2]
• Tell Your Boss the Four-Day Week Is Coming Soon - "A century after the invention of the weekend, more companies are adding another day."

and elsewhere on the labor front...

• Why Amazon's Union Vote Matters - "The vote in Alabama is a temperature check on beliefs about Amazon and labor unions in the United States."[3]
• Worker-Owned Businesses Are Having a Moment - "The co-op—a throwback business model—has gained interest during the pandemic. Thank impact investing."

posted by kliuless (23 comments total)

I have negotiated Wednesdays off. It is life-changing. Like a mini-weekend. You never work more than two days in a row, you have a weekday you can do your stuff on when things are open and available, you are refreshed on a Thursday. Am never going back.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:51 AM on April 2, 2021 [33 favorites]

Wouldn't a four day week mean a 20% wage increase? The article also talks about 18.4% and 27.6%, so I'm confused.

Anyway, when I was growing up, my parents had every other Friday off. It was a pretty common perk in my region, as a commute-cutting strategy. Not quite the same as a 4 day week, but did allow for some of the same scheduling flexibility and long weekends. When the Friday off coincided with a Monday holiday, that was golden.
posted by basalganglia at 4:09 AM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

Strong unions are fucking boss. You should be in one!
posted by furnace.heart at 6:36 AM on April 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

My work week is four days and I love it. Having Fridays to catch up on things, schedule medical appointments, etc is perfect for our family lifestyle. There are hints of a change of role for me that would mean more money but 5 days. I’m trying to graciously skirt the issue, for now.
posted by pearlybob at 6:38 AM on April 2, 2021

The four day week has been a thing that people have been predicting for my entire life and it hasn't happened yet.
posted by octothorpe at 7:02 AM on April 2, 2021 [6 favorites]

In 2018 they got a 28 hour work week (some caveats apply).

What this space for knock on effect. (I know I know, many variables apply. I'm not taking sides, I'm only interested in data.

(Then there's uncertainty over Tesla.)
posted by BWA at 7:03 AM on April 2, 2021

I think that most American salary workers would just like a week that's only 40 hours long.
posted by octothorpe at 7:10 AM on April 2, 2021 [25 favorites]

Anyway, when I was growing up, my parents had every other Friday off. It was a pretty common perk in my region, as a commute-cutting strategy. Not quite the same as a 4 day week, but did allow for some of the same scheduling flexibility and long weekends.

Usually with the every other Friday off things I’ve seen your working 9 hours Monday-Thursday and 8 on the on Friday to maintain 80 hours every 2 weeks.

When the Friday off coincided with a Monday holiday, that was golden.

It’s better when it’s the Friday after the Holiday then you can take Tuesday-Thursday off and have a 9 day vacation for only three charged holiday days.
posted by jmauro at 7:16 AM on April 2, 2021

Wouldn't a four day week mean a 20% wage increase

Could be the same number of hours, just packed into 4 days instead of 5.
posted by xigxag at 7:38 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't a four day week mean a 20% wage increase

A lot of these 4-day-a-week studies have shown that productivity hasn't gone down even when the hours have. Something about increased efficiency when you know you have less time to accomplish things in (and maybe when your morale is higher and you're not dead on your feet). I also remember a lot of studies like that coming out twenty-odd years ago, about how European employees might work 35 hours a week, but their productivity was no lower than that of their American counterparts who worked 40+.

Anyway, if productivity stays the same, why should salaries be lowered? Same pay for the same amount of actual work done.
posted by trig at 7:53 AM on April 2, 2021 [9 favorites]

Anyway, if productivity stays the same, why should salaries be lowered? Same pay for the same amount of actual work done.

Because people are illogical and routinely ignore data that is in conflict with their worldview.

This includes moralizing about work ethic, and a false belief employers will squeeze more work out of someone with more hours logged. I’m sure you know this, but god this is one of those areas that drives me nuts. We’ve known this for a long time, known that certain types of work have a cognitive limit, know how terrible context switching is, etc... and yet the majority of employers (and employees, to be fair) continue to operate on what they “know” vs evidence.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:04 AM on April 2, 2021 [6 favorites]

It looks like the countries where these experiments are happening are largely countries that (maybe not coincidentally) already have stronger worker protections and, in some cases, stricter limits on hours worked than in places like the US. So it's not inevitable that ideas like "fewer hours should mean less pay" and "we should squeeze the most out of our employees" will win out. In those countries. (If we're really lucky, the results will be strong enough to start turning the tide against American-style approaches to employment elsewhere as well.)
posted by trig at 8:16 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

France went to a 35-hour work week (down from 39) in 2000, primarily as a means to reduce unemployment. Here’s an interesting (mixed) review of the context and results.
posted by darkstar at 8:54 AM on April 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

Give everyone a 20% raise and the landlords are going to want their taste (plus we'll all just bid up home valuations another +20% ceteris paribus too).

But give everyone 20% more leisure and what are the landlords gonna do??
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:19 AM on April 2, 2021 [9 favorites]

Considering how much money is made by leisure industries, you'd think they'd get together and start lobbying for this.
posted by trig at 10:38 AM on April 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

Strong unions are fucking boss. You should be in one!

This always cracks me up. Unions get busted 9 times out of 10, and no one with any sort of bills or family is going to risk trying to get a union, when also just weird how it happens after the union is certified the business goes bankrupt or otherwise closes locations.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:53 AM on April 2, 2021

Unions get busted 9 times out of 10

I'm assuming you're referring to the US context as AFAICT this claim wouldn't make much sense in Germany or Spain. Not sure what "busted" means exactly, but the win rate for union organizing drives in the US appears to be around 70%.
posted by Not A Thing at 11:04 AM on April 2, 2021 [13 favorites]

What I want is more 20-hours-a-week jobs. It is very difficult to go from being a full-time parent to a full-time employee; if there were more part-time jobs it could be a huge gain for women trying to return to the workforce.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:54 PM on April 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

More 20-hour-a-week jobs would be awesome, and even more so if they also came with benefits (at least in the US). It would make transitioning into semi-retirement at an earlier age much more appealing, too.

The worst thing about working a part time job in the States is that you don’t get health insurance and, even if it’s a government-affiliated job, you still don’t get pension benefits. Even pro-rated benefits would be a huge improvement.

But as it is right now, some unscrupulous companies (*coughWal-Martcough*) would rather keep hordes of part-timers because they don’t have to pay benefits or provide any of the other standard expectations of job security that full-timers may receive.

And don’t even get me started on the adjunct faculty issue in Higher Ed.
posted by darkstar at 1:05 PM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

(as an aside: has federal legislation been proposed at any point to require benefits for part time jobs? If so, when and how did that play out?)
posted by trig at 1:50 PM on April 2, 2021

Even better, untangle healthcare from being employer-provided. It’s a stupid system.
posted by jimw at 8:35 PM on April 2, 2021 [17 favorites]

My previous workplace offered four day, ten hour shifts to select employees in a trial program. With no exception, every single participant opted to continue that schedule when it was offered on a permanent basis.
posted by dances with hamsters at 5:16 PM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

Given how many "eight hour" shifts end up being ten hours, you'd be a fool to do otherwise.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:53 PM on April 9, 2021 [4 favorites]