this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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I mean, a four day work week still benefits blue collar jobs, though it's understandably more difficult to implement this in a some blue collar workspaces, and I dont claim to have the answer for how to do it by any means.
Factories benefit from higher efficiency, and less downtime, which can be achieved with more employees, working less, being less tired, more satisfied with their pay and benefits, and having fewer accidents which interrupt production.
It can be done, but other systems also need changing to help it along.
I think the problem there is that there's a lot of workplaces looking for extra people. Losing 1/5th of your workforce, but not financially is how I assume employers look at it.
The fact people are more efficient probably doesn't mean more efficient than working 8 extra hours to them.
I could really do with a 4day workweek. And I don't mean working 40h in 4 days.
I absolute agree with you that that is how employers are viewing it and I agree with your disagreement with people in the industry that suggest the solution is ten hour days for blue collar workers.
(One of) The problem(s) behind this is that the capital class seemingly does not care what the evidence shows, and are only interested in what feels more productive. To them, it feels more productive to have fewer workers, for longer hours, with less safety measures, and because they feel it's more efficient, that means it must be (because it costs ~~more~~ "less"). Until we change that, or sufficiently collectivize to force them to change, it's gonna be hard to move the needle.
100% this right here. The owner-class have been deluding themselves for damn near 100 years at this point that we're not working long enough or hard enough. Henry Ford figured out exactly how much work he could squeeze out of an assembly line peon, set the requirement at exactly that point, and structured the entire operation around that 8 hours a day, five days per week quotient.
The modern CEO runs on feelings of "Well I work 12 hours per day 7 days per week, so it's not much to ask that my rank-and-file workers put in an extra hour or two per day for the sake of the company!" while discounting or ignoring the fact that there's a compensation gap of approximately 100x or more. Not everybody is CEO-brained enough to pull a 12 hour day every day and still have energy left over to perform basic functions in what little free time they have remaining that isn't dedicated to sleeping.
In reality, we need to be organizing to force companies to start paying us what they owe, and if they don't want to match our salaries with the astronomical increase in production that has taken place over the years thanks to computerization and automation, then they need to let us have more time off from work without a reduction in pay. It's only fair.