21 hour working week

[Levo]

Wow!
"13. In 1973, a nationwide coal miners’ strike in Great Britain forced the government to impose an emergency 3-day workweek upon the nation’s economy. The curtailed work schedule lasted for a period of three to four months. When the crisis had ended, economists were startled to learn that industrial production had dropped by only 6%. Improved productivity, combined with a drop in absenteeism, had made up the difference in lost production from the shorter hours.

(From Awake, November 8, 1974, originally noted in Vision)

14. The negotiating exhibit for shorter working hours of the Australian Council of Trade Unions gives this example of improved efficiency: “A dramatic example is provided by the Melbourne firm Trico Pty. Ltd. The firm employs 204 people who work a 35 hour/ 4 day week. Since the introduction of the 4 day week the company has found that costs have not increased. Costs are saved by not running the plant on the 5th day. Additionally, absenteeism h as dropped from 13.2% to 2.1%.”

[Varislintu]

To be honest, sometimes it seems like, office work can be done in 6 hours. Or, its productive time is often not longer than that.
Or if there are lots to do, and not even the 8-9 hours are enough to finish, then it means you needed a longer break after 4-5 hours no matter what, and you are likely to spend even an hour unproductive.

This. From what I've seen of office work environments, people take out much more "break" time than what's officially allotted to them. They stop to talk to each other, their coffee breaks stretch, they stretch their legs by walking around. All just to physically and mentally cope with the fact that they have to spend 8 hours at the job. People usually can't do anything very creative for 8 hours, some of it becomes idle time just to rest your brain. My thinking is that if they got the same pay to finish the same tasks as before, but were only allowed to be at work, say, 7 or 6 hours, their effectiveness would probably go up, and they'd still manage somewhat the same work load. Then they'd go somewhere else to exercise and socialize. Which is probably a lot healthier.

Well, I know there are some big problems with the idea of a shorter full-time work week standard, but I can't help but feel it would benefit a lot of people in certain types of work.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

This. From what I've seen of office work environments, people take out much more "break" time than what's officially allotted to them. They stop to talk to each other, their coffee breaks stretch, they stretch their legs by walking around.

... read a thread about a 21 hour working week...

I agree with you both. I think I would be just as productive, and maybe even more, when I'd work 6 or 7 hours. Also because you would have less sleep deprivation.

[Car]

You misunderstood me: working four days counts as parttime as well, doesn't it? Yes, some people may work only in the morning, but it obviously depends on the job what's possible.

I got that, but that part-time work isn't that common here, I think.

You seem to contradict yourself here... On the one hand there are the people who can't afford working less because they wouldn't have enough money to live anymore; for those people it won't work. But there are also people with quite expensive lifestyles who take much for granted and that can change, can't it?
I realise of course that those people don't want to change... But with a crisis like this people start to realise they can't go on like this anyway.

No, because they don't want to change. I don't see any change there, people seem to start making debts instead.

I hadn't understood that they were saying you should get paid for 40 hours while working 30. That doesn't really make sense to me.

That's what the suggestion in the letter was about: Working 30 hours, but getting paid for 40. Indeed, it doesn't make sense, but that's what it says.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

You seem to contradict yourself here... On the one hand there are the people who can't afford working less because they wouldn't have enough money to live anymore; for those people it won't work. But there are also people with quite expensive lifestyles who take much for granted and that can change, can't it?
I realise of course that those people don't want to change... But with a crisis like this people start to realise they can't go on like this anyway.

No, because they don't want to change. I don't see any change there, people seem to start making debts instead.

Really? But this whole crisis started because of debts, right? It doesn't seem so logically that people would make more debts now... People in the Netherlands are being accused of making too little debts, maybe it's different in Germany (just like the 4 days jobs ).

[Car]

It seems that overall, the debts went down again, but more young people are in debt. Its often said that the middle class has more debt due to lower real wages and higher expenses, but I couldn't find any stats about that right now.

[Lietmotiv]

Actually, at least in my case, there are days(on average about 4-5/month when there's not much to do at work, but I anyway spend there 8 hours ), but there are also days (on average about 3/month), when I arrive in the office at 9 and leave the office at 23:00. My work is quite dinamic, a lot of meetings/ video-conference, sometimes it happens to travel abroad(which means extra money), so it's difficult to calculate the real time I work. Sometimes it happens to work at home on week-ends, but fortunately the last time did that was in December.
But considering the fact that I'm used to spend quite a lot, mostly on gas, clothes, travelling durring week-ends, dinner in restaurants and so on, I wouldn't want to work 2 times less and earn 2 times less.

[JackFrost]

I understand your point, but no. The other shift would be filled with the other 20-twenty-something-hour worker who would pay his tax as well.

It would still mean less taxes being collected because there is a large exemption from paying for everyone. I never have paid any federal or provincial income taxes because I didn't make enough to be paying them. The threshold is $12,000 now, but you can still use many credits and not pay tax up to the first $30,000 or more if you know the math and rules well.

If we eliminate the credits and exemptions, you'll be shifting the tax burden onto the low-income people, which would be a very unpopular move.

Not wanting to sound negative all the time, personally, I would be happy with 35/work week (instead of the standard 40 hours) since it would still leave me some money. I kinda hate it that I will need a lot of money, but what other choice do I have? Yeah...

Oh, if anyone gets confused, I'm using the Canadian system to see how the 21-hour work week would work.

Here you can only go to the doctor's in really narrow time-periods.

Hospitals usually have an ER where there is always a doctor or nurse ready to check on you. o.O That's why I see them open 24/7.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

I understand your point, but no. The other shift would be filled with the other 20-twenty-something-hour worker who would pay his tax as well.

It would still mean less taxes being collected because there is a large exemption from paying for everyone. I never have paid any federal or provincial income taxes because I didn't make enough to be paying them. The threshold is $12,000 now, but you can still use many credits and not pay tax up to the first $30,000 or more if you know the math and rules well.

This may be true, but a working week with less hours means that more people will be able to have a job, so they will have to pay more taxes than when they don't have a job, or at least they won't receive money from the state anymore.
But it's true, I have never paid much taxes either, on the contrary: I always got money back. But I guess that when you work you automatically pay for certain things. Actually I don't know much about this...