What if you could work just four days a week but get paid for five?
That’s essentially what Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, has been agitating for in ongoing labor talks in Detroit.
The reform-minded union leader envisions a 32-hour work week for 40 hours of pay, and overtime for anything more.
As wild as that might sound, he’s leaning on a concept that has captured the imagination of workers all over the world, thanks to widely publicized trials. Microsoft ran a month-long pilot in Japan in 2019 and reported hugely positive results, including a 40% increase in productivity. More recently, dozens of companies in the U.S., Canada, and Europe have participated in ongoing trials that have likewise been deemed successful.
But Fain’s push — alongside other “audacious demands” (Fain’s own words) the UAW has laid on the table — is noteworthy because of how radical a change it would represent.
“Our members are working 60, 70, even 80 hours a week just to make ends meet,” Fain said on a Facebook Live event last month. “That’s not a living. That’s barely surviving, and it needs to stop.”
Most office jobs do less than 30 hours of actual work per week. This is way overdue.
Shit, I’d take four 10-hour workdays and a day off over five 8-hour workdays. It’s not about the hours per week, but about being able to enjoy a full day to myself.
I wouldn’t. That’s four days of hell for 3 days of catching up on everything. That’s you essentially having 4 days of doing nothing but work, getting to work, and managing family, with no time to do really anything else. All of your chores, all of your preparation, everything have to be done during those 3 days. That would be brutal.
You’d be surprised how many people waste 2 hours simply decompressing from their 8 hour day as is.
Any office worker who tells you they do 40 hours of work a week is lying. There’s so much time wasting, gossip, water cooler talk, or just staring at the wall. People are burned out after 30 hours. Everyone feels more rejuvenated after a three day weekend, 2 days just isn’t enough to come back feeling refreshed, so Monday is usually a wash anyway as we get back in the zone
Accounting might be an exception to this rule but otherwise spot on.
You’ve been in the office mines.
I hope it sticks and grows. We all need this. 😔
Long overdue. People are so conditioned to the 40+ hour week that they will immediately say they’ll settle for 4 10-hour days, and while I would like even that (because I work remote and could essentially make it 4 8-hour days), it’s just not good enough after all these years of the ownership class sucking up all the benefits of productivity gains. Honestly, we should be on 24-hour weeks by this point, but 32 hours is a start. Unfortunately, this is being presented as an outrageous demand from various outlets. I wish them the best in their fight for worker rights.
As much as I support this, I’d be shocked if they were able to reproduce what Microsoft experienced in a white collar environment. White collar engineering gigs are VERY different than a factory line that has been optimized for efficiency for decades.
I don’t think the results are going to be as drastic but my old company used to do analytics on our production floor alongside OT and workforce experience. Our goal would be something like 8-9 units per day to finish the week’s schedule.
For weeks we had less than 60hrs OT we typically hit our quota by noon Friday. Employees who had OT were more error-prone costing us time down the line and were much more likely to turnover.
It got to the point where we instituted an efficiency bonus. Basically, if the plant could consume less than ~60 hours of OT cumulatively and hit quota, the plant could go home around 2 or 3 pm on Friday and get paid an efficiency bonus on the next check. That bonus was pretty much as much if not more than you’d make doing overtime.
Management and workers got big bonuses too if they avoided any OSHA recordables for 30, 60, 90, and 120 days. Things like double production bonuses (so basically a second paycheck) plus special longer lunches, cookouts, happy hours, etc. And if you were a sales rep, sales manager, etc. with any theoretical impact on plant worker’s lives, your first few weeks have you out on the production floor training at every station. Then you have required QA where you inspect at least two units a day alongside plant workers.
Teaches you to respect the people who make you money and gives you a real understanding of what you are asking of when you try to squeeze more profits somewhere. You’ll have to face Jimmy in electrical who’s pissed that he had to stay late and miss his kid’s football game because you scheduled two specialty-wired units back to back for a small commission check. You realize you have to keep Jimmy happy though, because he’s been there 8 years and is 15 minutes faster per unit than the next best person. You keep your damn mouth shut when you see Jimmy taking an extra break. He earned it. You want more people like him. You invest in your workers. Even our billionaire owner knew that.
The place next door was like the exact opposite and corporate would never let them change policy so they kept losing workers every time we had openings. Like it’s not rocket science. You pay and treat your workers well and they make you a shit ton of money and everyone’s (mostly) happy.
4x10 hour work weeks are nice. I had negotiated for that at one location I worked at. I had Wednesday off. This had me working only 2 days in a row and with that Wednesday off I could get errands done that are normally difficult on weekends.
That said I do not think they should only have to work 32 hours for 40 hours of pay. Maybe that is their way of asking for too much and allowing the company to feel like they negotiated a little.
The argument is that the 40 hour standard was introduced when we were much less efficient with our labour, thanks to technology our productivity has skyrocketed while wages and working hours remain largely the same. The companies have been enjoying all the success while the workers who actually produce the value of the companies get scraps
Then make the standard 32 hours to keep full-time benefit but get paid for 32 hours. Additionally, all of these technologies that aid in efficiency are purchased by the company, and the workers are not working as hard as they used to.
If it were being sold as they want to make a Full time job be 32 hours and a 25% increase in hourly pay, it would actually sound more reasonable and essentially be the same…
But ultimately if all the worker bees start earning more and producing less, the cost of stuff will increases to adjust.
Right now we produce in 40 hours what used to be 200 hours and the corps are the only ones benefitting from that. We’re being screwed here. They can easily afford to pay us the same for 32 and still profit billions. And if they price gouge to punish us then the government can step in to slap them for it. You don’t have to just stand there and let corps fuck you over forever and you thank them for the honor, demand better because you deserve it
Still the argument stands, we produce more because of technology advancements (funded by the companies), which in turn makes the job actually easier and usually safer. If the cost of business increases because working less hours for the same amount of money, the product’s cost will increase.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a worker bee also. But I work hard at what I do and make an honest days pay for an honest days work. I would love more money for less effort but ultimately I just see it all being a wash or saving less as everything gets more and more expensive. I do not see the government currently stepping in for the price gouging that is already going on.
