Originally published at: Bernie Sanders calls for four-day work week. | Boing Boing
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We’re getting closer to the Keynesian dream. The pandemic has helped workers and shareholders alike realise the amount of waste and BS in corporate 9-5 jobs. We just need more slacking and less greed.
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For some jobsites that are farther away, we would sometimes work 4 ten hour days.
Even with the much longer individual work days (when you factor in the travel time), having a three day weekend was universally popular.
I am surprised the company did not try to push for this to be standard, because of the fuel savings of one less travel day with all the company vehicles, with one less break and lunch time for the same 40 hour work week as a bonus.
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Come on now, there are MBAs and HR managers who need to justify their existence. Cost savings and efficiency can’t get in the way of that!
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Even better, looks like these studies are just 32 hour weeks. Just dropping the fifth day.
If we eliminate all posting on BB during the first 4 days and put them on the no longer work time fifth day, then super easy to keep the same productivity.
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The 32 hour work week does sound great, but that is not the option we were presented with. 
As the sign off to one of my favorite podcasts goes: Fuck Capitalism, Go Home.
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Four 10-hour workdays a week are great for those who can adjust their schedule but I hope companies don’t neglect the working parents who need to pick their kids up from daycare by 5:30. As is often the case there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
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A four day school schedule has also been discussed, in general terms.
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My last job we did a trial period, one month, everyone loved it, took a week or so to get into the flow, but the 4-3 pattern was great, and things got done just as well. I say go for it.
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From the article, they looked explicitly at 32 hour work weeks.
If I could, sign me up. Friday’s are pretty useless at work. I have some coworkers that already work 4 days, but they had to take a pay cut, an option I do not want.
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This will be a really, really hard sell in America, I think. Corporate management are not generally evidence-based, at least not in all the tech companies I worked at. Hell, we’d have been thrilled for an actual 40 hour week and an 8 hour day. Despite all the evidence on more hours actually lowering productivity, there was no way to ever convince them of that. It’s a cult of belief in US corporate management that more hours are always better. If you’re in the office longer, you must be getting more done, right? They can’t see past that basic fallacy.
That said, the Build For Tomorrow podcast did a great story on this. The way researchers look at this is that the shorter work weeks we were all promised via technology actually have happened. You have to look at the data the right way, though.
First of all, measured over a person’s life, we work way less than we used to. We have adolescence and retirements now, which didn’t used to exist. Retirement ages are also gradually dropping over time and adolescence has gotten longer as people stay in school and at home longer.
Furthermore, more and more people are doing a job they choose. That’s a huge thing that actually counts as working less in most cases. Nobody actually wants to do nothing all day. Left to their own devices, people still want to work at something. They want to be productive and have purpose. However it needs to be something they choose and enjoy. That never used to happen, and now happens quite a bit.
It’s a good perspective- don’t assume that because you still work 40hrs/wk that you don’t work less than your grandparents. You do. Quite a bit less.
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This is not exactly news. They’ve been piloting it since at least the 70s with overwhelmingly positive results. Let’s just say I’m not quite sure what some of my colleagues actually do on their WFH days, but we seem to get by in the office.
ETA
I’m with the Wobblies: four hour day, four day week.
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Yes, not exactly, but what seems new is how much more attention this idea is getting. Which is good news to me!
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We’ve got a loon worming his way up middle management who seems to get wood at the thought of making us all go into the office again is a good idea (fuck knows where he thinks we’ll put all the staff we’ve hired in the last 3 years).
I shudder to think of his opinion on a four day week. Hopefully, he’s Peter principled this wayas far as he can 
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Well I hope so. I just seem to have lived through so many false dawns in this. Every year brings news of successful pilot studies and yet…
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