[HN Gopher] A 32-Hour Workweek Is Long Overdue: Bernie Sanders i...
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A 32-Hour Workweek Is Long Overdue: Bernie Sanders is calling for a
reduction
Author : wahnfrieden
Score : 41 points
Date : 2023-04-24 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jacobin.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jacobin.com)
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| If this happens, which I doubt, I think it's just going to ensure
| that companies hire overseas instead.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Cross border labor tariffs can be used to blunt the benefit of
| offshoring to overseas labor markets with lesser regulations,
| in similar fashion to what the EU is doing with carbon tariffs
| [1]. Internalize the externalities. Regulation is an iterative
| process.
|
| [1] https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/green-
| taxation-0/carbo...
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| How will that even work with multinational companies?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's a good question and I am not a domain expert; I will
| bring it up with legislators the next time I speak with
| those I speak with to inquire as to what a reasonable
| statute implementation would look like when tied to a
| reduction in the work week via amending the FLSA [1]. Some
| flexibility for multinationals is warranted (as there are
| intangibles besides profit for international investment),
| but not "ship all work to where it's done with the cheapest
| labor while being permitted to extract as much as you can
| from the market you operate in."
|
| [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa
| uni_rule wrote:
| That threat holds zero weight as anything that could be so
| flippantly and easily offshored to save money and avoid
| regulation likely already has been. What's left must instead be
| jobs that don't exactly translate well to offshoring. This
| would have much broader implications in the modern service
| economy where the jobs can't exactly be moved elsewhere easily.
| Gunax wrote:
| My initial thought was: 'Why does this need to be top-down
| mandated by the law?' but it turns out the article addresses
| this:
|
| > Critics argue that it's fine if technological advances deliver
| the shorter workweek without government intervention, but that
| "top-down" interference in the free market is a bad idea. This
| idea doesn't stand up to even cursory scrutiny. If the reduction
| in hours was going to happen without being mandated, it would
| have happened long ago.
|
| But that doesn't actually answer the question of whether people
| want this. It could be that we would rather put increasing gains
| towards more money, rather than towards reducing working hours.
|
| The second reason I am skeptical is that higher income people
| apparently work more than the average. Presumably, those with
| high incomes have the negotiating power to reduce their hours. So
| we would expect this change to start at the top and trickle down,
| if that is what people wanted.
|
| I also came across a bunch of people arguing that reducing work
| hours will lead to more inequality, if that's a thing you care
| about.
|
| Ofcourse, I realise a lot of this libertarian work week is an
| ideal, and most people don't feel like they have a choice.
| pers0n wrote:
| We can't even get minimum vacation days, good luck on this.
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| I know I'll be downvoted for this, but if you don't like a 40
| hour workweek, make your own company. You'll be doing 60 - 80.
| silisili wrote:
| I'm not going to downvote you but you're comparing apples and
| oranges. You own the company. You decide if it lives or dies.
| And on that, you reap all the rewards.
|
| The people working for you don't have the upside that you do,
| so why should they care to invest as much time?
| tomcar288 wrote:
| 60 - 80 is much worse than 40.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Any HNers have personal experience with 32 hour work weeks in
| tech or otherwise?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=philmcp runs
| https://4dayweek.io
|
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32544315
| Arrath wrote:
| While not fully matching your question: I've done 4/10's (We
| did Mon-Thur with a full 3-day weekend) for long stints and
| both myself and my crews loved it. That extra day at home was a
| huge boon especially for the parents wanting more time with
| their kids, or anyone who had some time consuming crafty kind
| of hobbies. One of my guys finished a hand-made canoe about 3
| months faster than he'd figured he would.
|
| As for the working side of it, we found ourselves more
| efficient as we got more done in longer days than we would have
| with less time each day.
|
| For me, just the plain business day available to do errands
| that would have otherwise required me to pull long lunches or
| half days at work was a huge help. And on a more personal note:
| an extra weekend day gave my introvert ass a day to myself to
| catch up on the reading I wanted to do, or study something,
| whatever, while still having the 'normal' weekend to attend a
| bbq or party or some other thing my more social friends were
| always organizing.
|
| As saulpw said in a sister comment:
|
| > 4-days a week with consistent 3-day weekends was definitively
| the best work schedule I've ever had.
|
| Totally, 110% agree.
| warp wrote:
| At one of my first jobs I negotiated two raises into less hours
| (i.e. taking less hours instead of more money), so going from
| 40 hours/week to 36 hours/week and then 32 hours/week for the
| same salary.
|
| For me the change from 40 to 36 was more significant, in that
| that was enough to schedule all my errands on the one afternoon
| per week I was off, ensuring that my weekend was always a real
| weekend with time to relax and hang out with friends.
|
| Even stuff where your employer should just give you time off
| for (e.g. going to the dentist and stuff like that), is just
| less hassle if you can just schedule that in your errand
| day/afternoon.
| suprjami wrote:
| At one point I had so much PTO built up that I was asked to
| reduce it. I took 6 months of Mondays off.
|
| It was great, I got so much done on personal projects, and it
| was convenient having a day off during business hours too. It
| sucked going back to 5 day weeks.
|
| I didn't track my work productivity, but I'm usually a very
| productive person anyway.
| saulpw wrote:
| I did 4-days-a-week for a few years at a startup. I was as-
| productive, or potentially moreso (difficult to determine,
| since I started the job on that schedule). Initially I intended
| my day off to be flexible, but it was easiest for me and people
| I worked with, to be off the same day every week. I tried a few
| things, and Friday worked the best, for consistent 3-day
| weekends. Wednesday did not work for me, as it broke up my week
| too much and made it difficult to get into the flow.
|
| I remember having a realization one Tuesday early on, that I
| "only" had 2 more days until the end of the week, so I better
| get cracking! This was a striking contrast to the 5-day
| workweek, in which I would take more breaks and goof off more.
| Also, with a 2-day weekend, I feel like I spent 1.5 days
| recovering and doing life errands, and only by Sunday evening
| did I have any energy for my personal projects, and then of
| course it's hard to get into anything because I only had a few
| hours and had to get reasonable sleep before the workweek
| started the next morning.
|
| With consistent 3-day weekends, I would still need the same 1.5
| days to catch up on life, but errands were easier to squeeze in
| on Fridays, and I would have the same energy for personal side
| projects...but starting on Saturday evening instead. Now I
| could get into something for a few hours on Saturday evening,
| stay up late hacking if I wanted, and spend all Sunday
| continuing with it. Enough time to make some real progress. The
| difference in my personal satisfaction between 4- and 5- day
| weeks was night-and-day.
|
| The common assumption for someone who wants to work 4-day-a-
| week is that they want to work as little as possible, and
| 4-days is what they think they can get away with (either
| socially or salary-wise). Well, I tried 3-day weeks briefly,
| and it wasn't really that great. 3 days wasn't quite enough to
| get fully absorbed into my paid work each week, and I felt like
| (and was treated more like) a part-timer. I also tried 32 hours
| over 5 days (~6 hours a day, or 3x 8 + 2x 4), and it felt more
| like an "easier" traditional work schedule, but it didn't leave
| me the same capacity for my personal endeavors, even though the
| hours should have been similar. (Maybe because I'm a night owl,
| so being able to stay up late and sleep in completely changes
| the tone of the day for me.)
|
| 4-days a week with consistent 3-day weekends was definitively
| the best work schedule I've ever had.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I think there should be a lot more focus on getting people to
| work only 40 hours. There are lots of people who have to work
| overtime without getting paid extra for it. There are lots of
| "managers" who aren't or managers who are paid little that have
| to work overtime. The exempt salary limit should be much higher.
| I think the software development exemption should be removed but
| at least we get well paid. Some countries have maximum hours.
|
| Equally bad, there are lots of hourly employees who work 32 hours
| and would like to work 40 hours and get benefits.
|
| Pushing 32 hour work week feels tone deaf when lots of people
| aren't working 40 hours.
| belval wrote:
| I'd argue that one comes with the other though. Once 32 hours
| is normalized, 40+ hours becomes an outlier, which means that
| 50+ becomes an extreme outlier.
|
| Within a few decades culture changes and working 40 hours would
| be looked at in much the same way we work at 50+ hours. Even
| then there will still be people working 80+ hours to make ends
| meet but fixing that is basically fixing poverty which is
| definitely much harder.
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