Why a Four Day Work Week Would be Good for America

Stress has permeated American culture. Heart disease is on the rise, more people are on anxiety meds than ever, people are jetting off to appointments and meetings all day long and even children have rigidly scheduled daily lives. We are a country that could really use a breather. Yet, our culture encourages us to work harder and longer, especially as the economy starts to falter.

Being exhausted, stressed out, anxious and overextended isn’t the only consequence of the tough American work week. Long commutes cause pollution and are a big drain on energy resources. As gas prices are rising, people are trying to find ways to cut back, but our country wasn’t built for mass public transportation and we still have to get to work. The solution that some people are promoting could have a positive effect not only on oil consumption, but American life in general: a four day work week.

The idea is taking root in communities around the country. From King 5 News:

The state of West Virginia is considering a four-day week for government workers there.

Working four days instead of five would mean 20 percent fewer trips to and from work, reducing gasoline consumption by an estimated 65 million gallons per day, not to mention more time with family, and for Mike Cummings, a bit more hope for the future.

“I think this would help with a lot of the planet’s problems, I think it would help with our oil problems and give them a little better life,” he said.

Marion County Florida recently switched to a four-day work week for county workers. They expect to save $250,000 in energy costs this year alone.

Would you work an extra two hours per day, four days a week in order to have a three day weekend? Doesn’t the system of living to work, rather than working to live, seem unfair to you? The idea that we have to spend so much of our lives away from our friends and family, doing things we most often don’t even like doing just so we can support ourselves is a difficult one to swallow, yet it’s the expected system in this country. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way.

The benefits of a four day work week wouldn’t just affect oil consumption and our stress levels. The increase in family time could be just what our culture needs, and people need to be able to cultivate interests outside of their employment. Imagine how much more well rounded we’d be as people if we spent that extra day volunteering in our communities, reading books, gardening, exercising and participating in other beneficial activities.

Nobody has identified and explained the benefits of a four day work week better than Aaron Newton at Groovy Green. He’s come up with not three, not ten but sixteen individual benefits to the idea. They include reduced oil consumption, reduced greenhouse gases, reduced worker exposure to pollutants, less traffic congestion, less money spent on roads, reduced personal expenses for workers, fewer auto accidents, less time spent in the car, a reduction in absenteeism, increased productivity, more time with family, decreased labor costs, decreased operational costs, reduced childcare costs, a transition into the informal economy and just plain being happier. Here’s a snippet of what he had to say about it:

Peak oil and climate change could make for turbulent business waters ahead. This country needs more business leaders willing to navigate these waters not by burdening their workforce with limitations or restrictions but with a willingness to try new strategies. Ideas such as this one should be strongly considered by corporate America or maybe it’s time for the Federal government to revisit this issue through law. New ways of working really could benefit both businesses and employees. It’s important in the time ahead not to simply saddle the workers of America with the rising costs of energy and ecological destruction.

There are lots options concerning the number of hours a 4 Day Work Week could contain. Employees could work 10 hours a day and keep a 40 hour work week. Or they could simply eliminate an entire day and drop down to a 32 hour work week. In between is the idea of working 4 days a week, 9 hours a day. But regardless of how many hours people work, the important part to remember is that most tasks are going to get accomplished each week just as they did before. A recent survey by salary.com of over 10,000 American workers revealed that on average, we waste more than 2 hours each day surfing the web or making phone calls to friends.

Increased productivity could be the clincher for companies, who tend to see everything according to the bottom line. Having happier employees that are more satisfied in their lives and grateful for a schedule that gives them more free time could certainly make a big difference. When employee morale is up, more work gets done – it’s simple.

Americans are already getting the short end of the stick when it comes to time off. Compared to other nations, we hardly get any vacation time at all, and when you look at perks like mandatory paid maternity leave and sick days, we look even more stretched and overworked. Employees in Germany, Austria, France, Britain, Spain and Sweden get at least 20 legally mandated days off per year. Doesn’t that make you feel like you’re missing out? Meanwhile, the companies we’re working for are making a profit off of our willingness to perform as ‘labor units’ rather than living, breathing people with lives outside of our work. The rich are growing richer, but those of us actually making the sacrifices haven’t seen our income increase in years.

So, how do we get started? Most of the companies in America won’t make the jump until larger corporations have proven it’s a success. Perhaps if some of those among the 100 Best Companies to Work for – Google, Edward Jones, Goldman Sachs and REI for example – started it up, we could see a trickle down effect as others began following their lead.

Besides that, people need to start demanding more benefits. Imagine if every employee in a major corporation got together and told their bosses they need more time off. Certainly, there are a lot of issues involved in making this switch and it wouldn’t catch on overnight, but even if only a fraction of American workers were able to negotiate a four day work week, we’d be better off overall.

Link [King 5 News] + [Groovy Green]

Photo credit: Flickr user Burning Image + 20th Century Fox

Paper Company Finds that Green Makes Good Business Sense

Grays Harbor Paper went under in 1992, and not just jobs were lost – as families made hard choices and were forced to move, some committed suicide. 600 people in the nearby rural cities of Hoquiam and Aberdeen lost their jobs. Things were bleak overall, and Bill Quigg had quite a task in front of him when he bought the company in 1993.

That’s why he decided to make a big change: the traditional paper industry wasn’t working in these small logging towns, partially because of the protected status of the endangered spotted owl, which calls the forests in this area of Washington state home. Where workers once cursed the owl for putting them out of work, Quigg saw a solution: using 100 percent recycled paper instead of cutting down trees. And, he didn’t stop there – the plant is now entirely powered by biomass fuel derived from logging waste.

Quigg isn’t doing it for the earth. It’s all about money. From Mother Jones:

“Politically I am on the right side of Genghis Khan,” says Quigg. “I’m not a lefty wacko.” Nevertheless, “We make the greenest products, and we make them with the greenest fuel,” he enthusiastically boasts. “Nobody else does that. We have the audacity to think we can change the market. If you buy local and smarter, you save a tremendous amount of fossil fuel.”

Regardless of Quigg’s motivations, Grays Harbor Paper stands to be an excellent model for green practices reviving depressed rural areas as well as green business practices in general. As other companies watch, perhaps down the line we’ll see more following the same path to being successful and eco-friendly at the same time. They’re not mutually exclusive, folks!

Link [Mother Jones]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons