

Leisure is the new productivity - sethbannon
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/12/opinions/schulte-leisure-productivity/index.html

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cryoshon
According to this (probably sugarcoated) article, the average person in the US
works more than 40 hours per week. Attendant to this claim is the assumption
that salaried employees are paid the same amount regardless of how much they
work.

We work more, and earn the same. We get zero guaranteed vacation days. We have
labor policies that are worse than many impoverished countries.

Our politicians are absolutely not working on solving this problem. What is
needed are large scale strikes with a few simple demands, but it won't happen
because people are too afraid of being cut loose and losing what little
security they have.

~~~
ripter
We've successfully dealt with this issue in the past.

"Ironically, it was only when Henry Ford took the wildly controversial step of
shuttering his automobile manufacturing factories on Saturday and cutting
daily work hours from the then-standard 12 to 8 that workers began not only
enjoying leisure time at home, but became more efficient and productive at
work."

If Google and other big corps shorten work hours, then other companies might
follow just like they did when Ford changed. Eventually it'll trickle up to
legislation.

~~~
cryoshon
So we're left waiting for the power players to make things better for us?

There's probably a better way that doesn't rely on them, I think.

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tarikjn
If (and I believe this), workers can be more productive with more leisure
time, these companies will eventually prevail.

Why try to regulate the market into doing it as she implies by comparing
European countries, where by the way, unemployment is very high for the young?
It is the surest way of doing it wrong.

Nothing prevents companies from offering more vacation time, but forcing it
with regulation will prevent a host of other good things to happen.

~~~
Matumio
For some companies it may be more profitable to burn out employees and replace
them with fresh meat. Do you even have a limitation on the weekly working
hours in the US? Nothing against free markets, but the point of them is to
improve our life.

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zenogais
Lost me at giving Henry Ford credit for the 40-hour workweek. Do you even read
history?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-
hour_day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day)

~~~
rifung
As far as I can tell, the link doesn't contradict what the post said. The
article is US centric, and the link you gave supports their claim that Ford
was the company which popularized the 40 hour work week.

"By 1905, the eight-hour day was widely installed in the printing trades – see
International Typographical Union (section) – but the vast majority of
Americans worked 12-14 hour days.

On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling
pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not
popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's
productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to
$60 million in two years), most soon followed suit."

~~~
wavefunction
The eight-hour workday is one of the fruits of the struggles of labor unions
before Ford Motors even got started. To then turn around and assign its
introduction to a capitalist is ridiculous on its face but the sort of pro-
corporate propaganda that is all too common in US culture.

~~~
ashark
Judging from the rest of the article, which argues for more time off because
it'll make workers more productive, it seems to be aimed precisely at
capitalists. In that context some ego-stroking historical revisionism
shouldn't be surprising.

If it's in service of bringing about better worker rights in the US it's... I
dunno, justified, I guess? Ends, means, and all that. Still gross.

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yoshizar
There is some pretty misleading writing in this article. Take the sentence
below:

"Some years, international comparisons of GDP per hours worked have found,
workers in Norway, Ireland, Denmark and even France, with their 30 days of
paid vacation every year, their café culture, their generous paid family leave
policies, their short work hours mandated by law and their new directive
forbidding some employers from expecting workers to check work-related texts
and emails after hours, beat us by a mile."

In other words,

In some years (not others), the GDP per hour worked is higher in countries
where employees work fewer hours per year.

If people work 20% less and are 10% more productive per hour when they do
work, they're still less productive in total than if they didn't reduce their
hours.

Why does a company care if their salaried employees are more productive per
hour? They just want that employee to maximize productivity over the
employee's lifetime with the company.

If the article has only historical anecdotes to demonstrate that employees are
more productive in absolute terms if they work fewer hours, that's not very
persuasive toward the point the author is trying to make, that major
industries and large companies should change because they get more value out
of having employees work fewer hours.

I'm not saying I disagree with the author's point, only that they are using
misleading evidence to try to support it.

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squozzer
It's quite possible that those who control the means of production already
know everything mentioned in the CNN and like things the way they are.

Salaried workers tend to be college-educated. Putting them on the treadmill
reduces their ability to innovate and thereby threaten the established order.

Hourly workers tend to have less education, which lowers their status and
reduces their ability to threaten the established order. So leisure for them
does not pose the same risks to the established order.

Quick, what were the professions of the following people - Jefferson, Lenin,
Castro, Ghandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah? Hint: they probably would have a hard time
dabbling in revolution today without failing to meet their quota of billable
hours.

~~~
Chinjut
Small correction: "Gandhi".

[The fact that you included Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah in your list suggests to
me you quite possibly are South Asian and thus perhaps are already aware of
this and simply made a typo; however, as this mistake (or, rather, its variant
"Ghandi") is so common (I see the misspelt version far more frequently in
Internet discussions than the correctly spelt one), and is related to frequent
misspelling of my own name, I use any opportunity I can to bring attention to
the correct spelling]

