Legislation to eliminate the 40 hr work week

[cola]

Why do we still have a 40 hour work week? Studies have shown that people who work 9 - 5 jobs actually only get about three hours of work done.
40 hours is 1/3rd of your time for five days a week.

Covid has shown that with the exception of a few fields (healthcare, perhaps) an 8 hr workday with commute is unnecessary. Many companies are performing just as well with remote workers working from home.
No crisis should go to waste and I’m hoping this is the one positive from covid.

One thing that needs to go to bring this to fruition is elimination of the hourly rate. Jobs should not be based on hours it should be based on productivity. All jobs should be salary, with an hourly rate added for over time.

If Jim goes to work everyday and busts his tail and finishes his work in 8 hrs and goes home, he should not get paid less than Bob who comes to work everyday and takes 8 smoke breaks and milks the clock for an extra hour everyday to make up the time he wastes loligagging ...
Thoughts?

 

[Lynx nkaf]

Why do we still have a 40 hour work week? Studies have shown that people work 9 - 5 jobs actually only get about three hours of work done.
40 hours is 1/3rd of your time for five days a week.

Covid has shown that with the exception of a few fields (healthcare, perhaps) an 8 hr workday with commute is unnecessary. Many companies are performing just as well with remote workers working from home.
No crisis should go to waste and I’m hoping this is the one positive from covid.

One thing that needs to go to bring this to fruition is elimination of the hourly rate. Jobs should not be based on hours it should be based on productivity.

If Jim goes to work everyday and busts his tail and finishes his work in 8 hrs and goes home, he should not get paid less than Bob who comes to work everyday and takes 8 smoke breaks and milks the clock for an extra hour everyday to make up the time he wastes loligagging ...
Thoughts?

I like this topic.
What do you do again cola?

 

[cola]

I like this topic.
What do you do again cola?

Account manager for a beverage distribution company, part time nurse tech, door dash, club bouncer. I have like four jobs, mostly out of boredom more than necessity. Could survive off the main job, the other jobs are mostly for my savings account and because I like to make major purchases with cash vs credit.

 

[zekko]

I bet a lot of healthcare work 60 hour weeks.

 

[mrgoodstuff]

Some of us are more productive with our time actually working 90% or more of the time and not using the job as a social club.

 

[cola]

Some of us are more productive with our time actually working 90% or more of the time and not using the job as a social club.

What type of work do you do? Think about this, if you worked really hard 6 hrs a day could you not get the same amount of work done?

 

[zekko]

What about businesses who wany their workers to works 36 hour weeks so they can call them part time and not pay benefits?

 

[mrgoodstuff]

What type of work do you do? Think about this, if you worked really hard 6 hrs a day could you not get the same amount of work done?

Dude, I work like a machine already. There is not harder and faster to go...

 

[Lynx nkaf]

Account manager for a beverage distribution company, part time nurse tech, door dash, club bouncer. I have like four jobs, mostly out of boredom more than necessity. Could survive off the main job, the other jobs are mostly for my savings account and because I like to make major purchases with cash vs credit.

that's fantastic! I like your ethic and way of doing things.
So I work hourly in essential services and I am good with 40 hours. We all work 40 hours here in one shift or another and it divides the production equally.
We get a complete shift minus the exact number of minutes in a break in a day for production. Almost factory-like. Robot-like.
I love the military strictness and I thrive in these kinds of environments.


If I can share this though,
I would love to only work 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. This blue collar work demands higher comittment than that.

 

[cola]

What about businesses who wany their workers to works 36 hour weeks so they can call them part time and not pay benefits?

The new full time standard would have to change to 32 hrs

 

[Lookatu]

If you work for certain global companies, they may implement their work standards from their headquarters from their home country. For example, I worked for a French Conglomerate that had an office in the US. We were only mandated to work 35hour work weeks and we had full benefits. They were also generous in giving us 15+ paid holidays, extra week of vacation after the 1st year, vacations were not accrued but kicked in fully at the beginning of the year, etc.
The Non for profit place I work at now only requires 37.5 hours and EVERYONE sticks to that and doesn't work any more than that. No time cards or micro-management so I often take hour lunches. My boss came from a consultancy background so all he cares about is the work getting done and not how many hours you work. I've avg'd 6.5-7 hours of actual work during my time there.

So bottom line is, there are jobs and companies out there that don't adhere to the 40hr work minimum. You just have to find it.

 

[Kotaix]

There is already a lot of talk about this from political circles, I see it as a tactic for vote buying for lazy people because the people proposing it are just interested in political favor and half-ass the proposals. This could be done but it would have to have unprecedented political and social approval to get it pushed thru. I believe france works 32 hours a week.

I think that companies will be much more willing to allow work-from-home since it's already been proven it can work. This will come naturally, my company was already looking for feedback on WFH before the covid pandemic and things lined up perfectly for it to work. I know I'll be working from home a few times a week even after the pandemic is forgotten.

Things will eventually skew this direction with automation taking over.

 

[AttackFormation]

You still have a 40 hour work week because:

#1 - Paying the same full time salary becomes more expensive per hour the shorter the work week is. Someone being paid 1000$ a week who works 30 hours per week requires a higher hourly wage than if they worked 40 hours. The people in charge obviously don't like this, and see #4 for why academic economics would agree that there is no way to solve this.

#2 - The higher the demand for labor, the better the negotiating position labor receives. In this case labor's position is improved because more workers are needed to fill the same amount of working time. This higher demand means labor could better negotiate for better conditions: sick leave, parental leave, vacation, safety measures, less stressful work (work intensification), profit sharing, and whatever else they feel would make them happier and healthier. This is obviously bad for non-workers.

#3 - Alternative economic systems have failed to replace capitalism, which is the system our economic relations exist under. There were three main alternatives: libertarian socialism has been violently crushed every time it has appeared, state socialism became its own system of repression as libertarian socialism predicted it would, and "democratic socialism" in practice turned into what is today social democracy which aims to preserve capitalism instead of replacing it.

#4 - Academic economics is dominated by right-wing theory. They would deny that a shorter work week is possible for reasons I won't make this post longer by going into. See for example: https://real-economics.blogspot.com/2016/03/hawb-1800s-doctrine-of-high-wages-how.html

#5 - You can see this summarized if you check out the labor histories of countries which escalate into state-sanctioned and private repressions to keep labor in its place. The Soviet Union, a state socialist country, used repression like that too - and so does China today who have a "company union", like in fascist corporatism. America's labor history is a great example of how private capitalists in collusion with the state, and exploiting identity politics (racism, genderism, nativism, even craft unions vs industrial unions), come together to dominate labor and resort to more openly repressive means (massacres, imprisonments, raids, threats, shootings) when necessary.

 

[cola]

I've never worked a 40 hour week in my life. Maybe, when I retire.

What do you do?

 

[Lookatu]

I'm a business owner. No clock for me. A 40 hour work week does sound nice, though.

Lol, my dad was a small biz owner so I can totally relate...

 

[JayAce]

If I got paid the same overall as I do now and had 8 less hours a week... sign me up

 

[zekko]

A lot of employers work their employees well over 40 hours because it's cheaper to pay them overtime than to take on more employees, and pay to train them and pay their benefits. 40 hours would be a reduction in work hours for a lot of people.

 

[FairShake]

I bet a lot of healthcare work 60 hour weeks.

Not uncommon. Especially lately.

 

[Georgepithyou]

Whats to stop the companies from just outsorucing all work since its cheaper? It can all be done remotely so why hire locals?

 

[xplt]

Working from home is way more productive for me. No one who disturbs you by walking in the office and talking BS, when you need to concentrate - but I can't do everything from home, I have to be present in the company.

I did a lot for showing our management, what's possible in the last months. VPN's, Videoconferencing, Screensharing... Never really needed or wanted here. However, mostly wasted energy, but that's no wonder in this conservative region.

This crisis will go to waste, at least in my company. My boss openly told me, that he doesn't trust us and he wants us to be present in the company - there are some people of our stuff to blame, who are suddenly working overtime from home, but leaving the company strictly after eight hours when inhouse. But it was also a decision of our motherconcern to bring the people back in the office.

Homeoffice was only used to minimize the risk of an infection in the company, we're back with 100% of our staff. The crisis is used for implementing short-time work till end of the year without a real reason and eliminating existing overtime hours and holidays.

I totally agree to OP, that Homeoffice, fewer hours and the flexibility it brings would benefit us in many ways.
I'm hoping that this will be noticed somewhere else in germany. Let my company fail here, showing me again, that a job is only a job and my life doesn't depent on it.