I think it is a great idea! I do not know why more businesses do not move to a 4 day week. Maybe they need a more recent study that clearly shows it is beneficial to profits.
Agreed! The thing I find most interesting about this study is that even employers liked it. I'm sure they see that people are happier and less likely to leave, which is good for them.
I have a friend who works at a company that has four nine-hour shifts a wekk. Even that small of a change would be great. Three-day weekends are a definite bolster to my mental health.
That could be good! My sister is a nurse who does something similar. She has much more non-work time just because there's one less day to commute and such.
I think 4 day work weeks are great. I myself worked 4 days at the end of my career.
Nonetheless, I oppose laws that would make them compulsory. If the benefits are as clear as this article suggests, it should be a simple matter to convince employers of that. That employers have not generally adopted 4 day work weeks indicates that the tradeoffs are not as clearly beneficial Joe asserts. If they were, no compulsion would be needed.
Yes, you could say that. Coercion is per se a bad idea. If we are truly pro-choice, we should allow employers and employees to make choices. Often these will not be the choices that we ourselves would make, but in a pluralistic society, shouldn't we allow our fellow citizens to make the choices that seem right to them even if they don't seem right to us?
If we follow that logic to its natural conclusion, then society would be lawless.
And I strongly disagree that we should let employers "make decisions, even if we don't agree with it." For example, employers have always chosen to use child labor, which we should absolutely outlaw. Same with exorbitant working hours.
Hardly lawless. Take minors. They have always been treated differently under the law because they are not able to make decisions for themselves. That's why we outlaw certain forms of child labor, but not all. (My first real job was before I was 18 and involved scooping ice cream after school for (legally) less than minimum wage. It did me no harm.)
Nor does it mean that employers make the decisions. No one takes a job unless they believe that having the job is better than not having the job. And no one is compelled to keep a job. Millions of people quit their jobs every year, some several times in one year.
And, what is "exorbitant working hours"? The person who ran the company where I used to work did himself work exorbitant hours. It wasn't unusual to see him working past midnight. And he worked 7 days a week. By doing that, he build a company from nothing to being in the Fortune 500 and he (a very liberal Democrat) became very wealthy. He also provided jobs for thousands upon thousands of people, some of whom also worked long hours. Would you make that illegal?
"No one takes a job unless they believe that having the job is better than not having the job. And no one is compelled to keep a job. "
This would be true if the U.S. guaranteed basic social services and necessities to life. As we do not, anyone who is not independently wealthy is compelled to keep a job so that they can afford rent, food, water, etc.
Joe, what I meant was that no one is compelled to keep a particular job. Most of us have had jobs at some point in our lives that we didn't like. We did those jobs because we had to eat, pay the rent and utilities, etc., not because we liked them or found them fulfilling. Not every job can be our dream job. Eventually, we move on to something else.
And some of it is choice. We may stay in a less than ideal job because we don't want to move, or we don't want to take the time and effort to improve our skills to get a better job, or because it's easy and not everyone wants to work hard.
None of that is dependent upon guaranteed social services.
Your point about employers adopting what's best for them is valid, but doesn't take into consideration what is best for employees. A hypothetical to consider: what if the effects of the 4 day workweek were unnoticeable for employers, but there were still outstanding benefits for workers? What then? Because there are so many benefits for employees, perhaps compulsion is needed. Look at the minimum wage, OSHA, etc., would those exist without compulsion? No.
I think it is a great idea! I do not know why more businesses do not move to a 4 day week. Maybe they need a more recent study that clearly shows it is beneficial to profits.
Agreed! The thing I find most interesting about this study is that even employers liked it. I'm sure they see that people are happier and less likely to leave, which is good for them.
I have a friend who works at a company that has four nine-hour shifts a wekk. Even that small of a change would be great. Three-day weekends are a definite bolster to my mental health.
That could be good! My sister is a nurse who does something similar. She has much more non-work time just because there's one less day to commute and such.
I think 4 day work weeks are great. I myself worked 4 days at the end of my career.
Nonetheless, I oppose laws that would make them compulsory. If the benefits are as clear as this article suggests, it should be a simple matter to convince employers of that. That employers have not generally adopted 4 day work weeks indicates that the tradeoffs are not as clearly beneficial Joe asserts. If they were, no compulsion would be needed.
I disagree. Couldn't you say the same thing about a 5-day work week? That's mandated into law.
Yes, you could say that. Coercion is per se a bad idea. If we are truly pro-choice, we should allow employers and employees to make choices. Often these will not be the choices that we ourselves would make, but in a pluralistic society, shouldn't we allow our fellow citizens to make the choices that seem right to them even if they don't seem right to us?
If we follow that logic to its natural conclusion, then society would be lawless.
And I strongly disagree that we should let employers "make decisions, even if we don't agree with it." For example, employers have always chosen to use child labor, which we should absolutely outlaw. Same with exorbitant working hours.
Hardly lawless. Take minors. They have always been treated differently under the law because they are not able to make decisions for themselves. That's why we outlaw certain forms of child labor, but not all. (My first real job was before I was 18 and involved scooping ice cream after school for (legally) less than minimum wage. It did me no harm.)
Nor does it mean that employers make the decisions. No one takes a job unless they believe that having the job is better than not having the job. And no one is compelled to keep a job. Millions of people quit their jobs every year, some several times in one year.
And, what is "exorbitant working hours"? The person who ran the company where I used to work did himself work exorbitant hours. It wasn't unusual to see him working past midnight. And he worked 7 days a week. By doing that, he build a company from nothing to being in the Fortune 500 and he (a very liberal Democrat) became very wealthy. He also provided jobs for thousands upon thousands of people, some of whom also worked long hours. Would you make that illegal?
"No one takes a job unless they believe that having the job is better than not having the job. And no one is compelled to keep a job. "
This would be true if the U.S. guaranteed basic social services and necessities to life. As we do not, anyone who is not independently wealthy is compelled to keep a job so that they can afford rent, food, water, etc.
Joe, what I meant was that no one is compelled to keep a particular job. Most of us have had jobs at some point in our lives that we didn't like. We did those jobs because we had to eat, pay the rent and utilities, etc., not because we liked them or found them fulfilling. Not every job can be our dream job. Eventually, we move on to something else.
And some of it is choice. We may stay in a less than ideal job because we don't want to move, or we don't want to take the time and effort to improve our skills to get a better job, or because it's easy and not everyone wants to work hard.
None of that is dependent upon guaranteed social services.
Your point about employers adopting what's best for them is valid, but doesn't take into consideration what is best for employees. A hypothetical to consider: what if the effects of the 4 day workweek were unnoticeable for employers, but there were still outstanding benefits for workers? What then? Because there are so many benefits for employees, perhaps compulsion is needed. Look at the minimum wage, OSHA, etc., would those exist without compulsion? No.
Well, I hope not. Minimum wage is a terrible, anti-choice policy.
You know how you get rid of minimum wage? Universal basic income.