Why a Four Day Work Week Would be Good for America
May 7, 2008 · Print This Article
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
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I generally dislike additional legislation and regulatory solutions, so I’m not really a fan of the European solution.
How about this: don’t work for jerks! No matter what you do, you can find another place to do it, and you might be better off!
I for one, work a 6-7 day week, but am transitioning to almost 100% telecommuting and bicycle commuting. You get many of the same benefits of the 4 day week using those two, but without the lost productivity that might let your competition get ahead of you. But then, I’m very competitive.
Still, telecommuting and bicycles, for the win.
I am a HUGE fan of the four day work week- I had that schedule for about a year and loved the 4/3 lifestyle. The world would be a better, happier place if we all worked that way, but so would it be if we had sugarplum fairies dropping down yummy rays of taffy on our birthdays. We have about the same chances of seeing both happen. I’m afraid we lost our chance of going 4/3 at the beginning of the century and I don’t think there’s any looking back. There will be pockets to be found here and there, but right now it seems our country is hell bent on working as much as it possibly can.
Said the guy who is always working too much.
@Roy- We’re lucky people- most people wake up too early in the morning, put on clothes they don’t like, drive to an office they hate, and then do work they despise with people they barely tolerate, for a boss who IS most likely a jerk. Those folks would LOVE a four day work week.
Ha! I encourage them to work for my competition, then!
But in general, you’re probably right. But still, on those 4 days, do you really need to drive?
I agree that unfortunately it would be damn near impossible for it to actually happen on a large scale. Too bad, cause the rat race isn’t doing us any good. I think it sucks that the US is so far behind other countries when it comes to time off - it’s part of what makes us sick, fat, and in need of therapy. And the maternity leave thing is part of what really gets my goat. I think there should be some legally mandated time off (Roy, you’re not a Ron Paul guy, are you?)
And I totally agree about telecommuting - I’ve been doing it for two years and it’s so. nice. especially in the winter when it’s -6 degrees and the roads are covered in ice!
Ron Paul… hmmm… no, but my main problem with Libertarianism is my complete disbelief in claims that privately owned land is better preserved and more accessible than national parks. Grew up in a logging region. I don’t buy it. I likes me some national parks.
Mandatory time off reminds me of elementary school civics class, when someone proposed that everyone should get weekends off. When I asked who would run restaurants, movie theaters, and mall if no one could work… they were somewhat baffled. I think collective bargaining (or individual bargaining, if you have a rare or refined skill) can do a lot of what regulation could do, without all the… you know… politicians.
I like doing things like voting for Green Party candidates and Libertarians on the same ballot. Checks and balances!
A four day work week should not be legislated; Wrather, a law that places the overtly aggressive super-achievers that want to work 24/7 in institutions, where they can stay high on caffeine, snort coke if they like and wreak general havoc on their own kind, ’till heart attacks, strokes and breakdowns make them sick. At this point they will forfeit most the higher wages they earned to pay for their own health care, and suffer a large fine to be given to the hockey coaches , teachers, pastors and child care specialists they owe a personal debt to. A tariff on every extra hour they work should be levied to compensate the society they did not contribute to while grandstanding, and a special sum should be set aside to be distributed among the perfectly capable people they displace while on their ego-rampage.
The Rambo style of trodding in bloody fashion on everything in your way to arrive at a single minded goal are dead, and for good reason. It doesn’t work well! Ask President Bush!
The super psyched Rah! Rah! Rah! Gung - Ho! bullshit has led America to producing SUVs in a world short of oil, gas prices so high we are trading downsize or selling our cars outright, a fleet of jet passenger planes we can’t afford to fly, super jet fighter planes worth billions that lose against turban topped philosopher-desert rats, a mess in Iraq, not even close to victory of any sort, the legacy of loss in Viet Nam, an over-stressed population of fat-assed video game players, and an economy hopelessly mired in corrupt debt. maybe, just Maybe, we should try another philosophy, and it might as well start with a four day work week!
I don’t see a four day work week happening anytime in the near future. However there is hope for a 9/80 schedule. I currently work this schedule and it is great! Basically you work 9 hours a day, get three day weekends every other week, and the Friday you do work is an 8 hour shift. You don’t feel the extra hour and the long weekends are something to look forward to.
A lot of companies, especially in aerospace and technology, are using this schedule and I really think that it can easily makes it ways into other sectors of corporate America.
It depends who you ask. in your 20’s you don’t mind 8/5 because it gives you more time to party everynight and you don’t have to worry about getting up earlier. In your 30’s and even worse your 40’s raising kids and everything starts to hurt, your blood pressure rises, anxiety and stress from your party days start creeping on you, then those 4/10 sound real good.
so those of you in your 20’s keep your mouth shut for now and talk to the rest of us in about 20yrs when your metabolism reaches ours. and your realize that no matter how much you work your chances of becoming rich are slim to none.and the corp. that called itself a “FAMILY” , just so you can let your guard down, has abandoned your —.
All of this going green/global warming nonsense is a crock of @&$!!!! People need to wake up and live your lives and let others live theirs. The idea that the ice caps are going to melt and flood the earth and that we could actually destroy the earth is totally absurd. A four day work week is a great idea if a business owner DECIDES to do that, no one needs to decide for him/her. There is nothing wrong with making wise decisions such as recycling, conserving resources, exercising, eating right, etc. but leave me the hell alone if I CHOOSE not to!!!!!!!!!
I enjoy the zero day workweek. Getting laid off is awesome!
I think the 4 day work week is an excellent way of making America a better Country and a place where people the economy and our natural resoures count. We have gotten to the place “where its all work and no play…makes jack a dull boy” that an acronym for STRESS. So I say lets form a coalition and make it happpen so we can save lives, health and the economy from one change in our country’s ritual.
My opinion, I think working a 4day work is cool, no more 40hour work weeks and the pay should stay the same, meaning no more hourly wages. Wages should be set for employment type for example a clerical worker should be pulling in at least 35k yrly. I also think that paying social security should be an investment option, meaning you should be able to invest the money where you want, that’s what the government does with it, invest our social security monies we work so hard for. I also think that senior citizens should not have to pay taxes after thay have retired. what do you think?
I agree with a 4 day workweek to save gas but I also would like to get paid overtime for anything past 8 hours….
I have given plenty with less benefits and my retirement plan being all but eliminated…
This is an excellent idea. The fact that other countries have all this extra time off makes me sad.I know that at my job I waste about three hours a day ( when fully staffed) taking breaks or reading. I would much rarther be at home. I hope that one day the powers that be will pass a law mandating a 4 day work week for all!