
In Britain, Calls for a 4-Day Week. Can It Be Done? - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/business/britain-four-day-workweek.html
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maxfurman
Yes, please. So much office time is wasted. Putting the "full-time" line at 32
hours instead of 40 hours would immeasurably increase the quality of life for
many.

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olliej
This wouldn’t work for wages workers unless there’s a 20+% increase in hourly
workers. Given that that seems unlikely to happen hourly workers would have to
retain the same number of hours worked anyway, only now spread across two
jobs.

Unless this is purely about salaried work, in which case you’re dealing with a
completely different set of problems, a trivial example: do teachers, etc now
also get 4 day weeks? If so does school get reduced to 4 days/week or do you
have day to day variances in which teachers are in the school? If it’s now
four days/week hourly workers again get screwed because now they need to earn
more to cover child care.

Etc, etc

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gaspoweredcat
umm no, most people struggle to get by working the hours they do, unless there
is some sort of very significant increase in the minimum wage without the
general cost of living increasing to counter it there is no way itll work

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w4tson
Maybe people struggle because there’s always more work to do. And maybe people
aren’t good at taking a break.

Also, the 2 day weekend is an arbitrary construct.

Plus think of all the millions more people volunteering, looking after their
elderly loved ones, going to the park, spending money in shops.

I think a 4 day week makes perfect sense

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Kognito
Well done for reading only the first few words of the post you replied to.
They were talking about the financial impact to those who work on an hourly
wage.

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toomuchtodo
Increase the hourly wage to account for 8 less hours in the work week.

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King-Aaron
It sounds so easy when you just say it like that.

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ninedays
Couldn't it be the case? France managed several times to reduce the number of
hours while maintaining the exact same salaries. Not saying this is perfect or
it should be the only thing that's done but I really don't see any argument on
why it cannot be done.

Edit : typos

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Findeton
Please don't force me to work less than I want to.

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eesmith
That really depends on your job, doesn't it? There are many jobs (eg, truck
driver, airline pilot) where workers are forced to stop work in order to
sleep.

I believe the goal is that you should not face negative consequences for
deciding to work only 4 days per week.

I also believe that "force" is only indirect - you can work as much as you
want to, so long as your employer pays you overtime. Your extra productivity
may justify paying time-and-a-half, yes?

Of course, programmers in the US aren't really subject to overtime law in the
first place, thanks to computer industry trade groups who pushed for that
exemption back in 1991 -
[https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/business/computer-
program...](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/business/computer-programmers-
to-lose-overtime-pay.html) .

