this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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We are already more productive than any other time in history and we don't have a 4 day work week.
If we did get a 4 day work week, the owners would not scale our pay to accommodate for less hours on the job. 15/hr over 50 hours would turn into 15/hr over 40 hours, not 18.75/hr over 40 hours.
Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins as before. But the world does not need twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?
--Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness
i feel like capital vol 1 should be read by everyone.
my favorite part of this comment is framing 50 hours like a standard work week
A 4 day work week wouldn’t change anything for people working an hourly wage.
This is talking about redefining ‘full-time’ at a legislative level from being 36 hours to something less.
So would this not be worse for, for example, people on partial disability benefits who are allowed to retain benefits while working part time but not full time employment?
If nothing changes for them but they are now registered as full time employees, they lose their benefits for nothing in return. Who would this help?
I don’t think the work requirements for disability work that way, or are tied to the same legislation.
It would help people who work full-time. People who work hourly already don’t work M-F 8-5 most of the time.
Interesting. I was under the belief that disability benefit requiments basically meant "unable obtain and maintain full time employment due to a disability". After some research it seems it's more about how much money you earn than how many hours you work.
Are you not conflating Part Time/Hourly and Full time/Salary?
70% of Americans work full time and just under 60% of American workers are paid hourly wage.
For example, every factory I've worked in has been Full Time hours with hourly wage pay.
It's mostly Managerial/corporate positions that are salaried afaik.
AFAIK there is no such thing as hourly full-time in the US. Some places do the paychecks that way, but you are either part-time, full-time exempt, or full-time non-exempt.
Not what is happening in Spain, nor would it make any sense to mandate that… And you work 50 hours a week?
I'm not saying that the law would require all wages to stay the same, I'm saying that without the law specifically stating that wages MUST raise to accommodate, they will stay the same, resulting in overall less payment. We can't even get a federal minimum wage increase, certainly not a full wage increase tied to an hours reduction.
Yes, why? The example would still ring true with a reduction from 40 to 32 hours.
But… like… do you think someone would openly campaign with a plan that fucks everyone over? I… I just remembered that Trump is a thing…
But yea, such law would necessitate that
how does a law force companies to scale wages instead of firing? At-will employment is a thing. How does a law also retroactively make all at-will employment subject to investigation if they dont scale wages and fire instead? What laws around the world accomodate this kind of situation?
Lots of people advocate for things that have unforseen consequences. Its not impossible for that to happen, no?
Dude…
Company needs x amounts of work done for which it requires y amounts of employees. An av employee is not going to take exponentially more work on its shoulders all so that the companys profit line, so the company will keep all its employees it requires plus a few ceos…
Could some companies tittering on bankruption go up? Yes, but their and their owners/shareholders interest is to be secondary of that of the greater public
Is that not the case now? Companies only have the staff the require at any time, no? So if hours get cut, they cut staff, no? I'm all for reducing work weeks to 4 days, it honestly won't bother me even if I take a pay cut, I make enough right now so a pay cut won't hurt me. I'm just wondering how in the world is my employer going to feel incentivized to pay me more an hour to work fewer hours. Let's say I make $100/hour (I don't). I work 40 hours a week. $4000 a week, cool. Now a law happens: I can only work 32 hours for full time and more than that is overtime. I'm still making $100/hr, no? Okay, $3200 a week. That's fine and dandy if you make that much, but I'm just wondering how that helps people who make minimum wage and whatnot. They can just keep working 5 days, overtime now, to keep up their bills while I, a person who makes more than them, get to enjoy the sweat off of their back on my off day?
This already happens with weekends: poor people work them, not the rich. It's not a zero sum thing, but I'd absolutely prefer a solid UBI plan than a 32 hour work week. With a UBI, a 32 hour work week can just happen naturally as people work less.
Its not in their interest to pay you more, tough knuckies for them as it will be mandated
Why do you think you need their consent and support?
Thats what I was asking, will there be laws to ensure a raise in wages? What are those actual policies being proposed? Is the FCC going to enforce it? The trump FCC is gonna do it or what happens when the next republican president happens?
…. Yes, something being mandated means that it is change brought by law; a law is not a law if its not enforced
But what laws are being proposed by which lawmakers? You understand we need congress for this proposal, right? You say Bernie wants 32 hours, but is he for raising wages forcing all corporations and small businesses to raise their wages by 20%, or just raising the minimum wage? Who else in congress is on board with the laws he's proposing? Is there a bill? Until any of that happens it's all talk.
You do know this is not the fun kind of trolling? I don’t mimd you taking 30 seconds of my time
I dont find trolling potential leftists fun, so Im not sure what the fun kind of trolling is in this context. I dont benefit from trolling you because you might have information I want: The names of lawmakers and what policies or laws or bills they support to bring about fairer labor laws. You either have that information and are willing to part with it, or you arent willing to part with it, or you dont have the information. Im not sure which one is you since you remain deliberately obtuse.
So far you have given me: Bernie Sanders wants 32 hour work weeks for full time benefits. Very cool, but thats not legislation. Bernie is a legislator, he has done much better than creating a bill that says "32 hours for full time. Increase wages or else we will... be mad?" and he has made a lot of good bills and amendments in the past with much better language. I was hoping for a bit more from you is all. My bad.
You either have cognitive issues or you think wasting my time is funny
-What is the name of a politician that was mentioned in the post? You have the guy who promised to do the thing -While I cannot physically imagine why you are expecting hundreds of pages of a political program on lemmy instead of taking your lil hands and looking it up yourself, which I won’tbe doing for you, you know whats the supposed endgoal is! And then you can look up your preferrred analyst and choose to believe them or not!
And I am being obtuse…
Thanks for suggesting I look it up, I found this:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1332/text
This is a great example of something that addresses the concerns I have, I assumed you already saw this since you seem to be informed on the issue. Are there any more like it that can potentially address any other concerns I mentioned before?
Bare in mind, the amendment proposed in that house bill does not address any of the following:
None of the current FLSA text mandates any kind of salary or wage calculation, so the amendment has to include it if that's the solution proposed, which it seemingly is not. Again, you say I can look this stuff up and it's all available and this is all I could find. Surely you know more than me, right?
Look at how much time you saved and look how much better info you got…
I would have saved so much more time if you just answered my questions, and now all I am left with is obviously you have no clue about 32 hour work weeks. You also don't seem to be capable of expressing why you think this is a good idea. You are the obtuse one, in my finding. You think I'm the one trolling when obviously you are the one who is just saying things to argue for no reason. You contributed zero to this discussion. I was asking the questions. I found the information. I came up with the conclusions. All you did was say "I like bernie sanders her dur"