The 4-Day Week
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MS, Totally agree.
Clearly, Blair, the Labour Government wasn’t acting in the interests of workers when it added an opt-out clause to the EU Working Hours Directive.
The EU Working Hours Directive was brought about to protect workers health and safety from being exploited due to working excessive hours.
The Labour opt-out clause gave ruthless rogue capitalist employers carte blanche to carry on…putting profits before workers health and safety!
When workers approach us at our stalls, they tell us: if that’s Socialism* then they don’t want anything to do with Socialism.
Labour always acts in the interests of the wealthy idle robber baron class enemy, the capitalist class.*It hasn’t anything to do Socialism
The United Arab Emirates is cutting its working week to four-and-a-half days and moving its weekend from Friday-Saturday to Saturday-Sunday.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/07/uae-cuts-working-week-and-shifts-weekend-back-a-day
A California tech company introduced a four-day work-week and says that its productivity has skyrocketed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bolt-company-four-day-work-week-b1988325.html
A British arm of the camera company Canon will this year become one of the latest businesses to trial a four-day working week with no loss of pay, as part of a six-month trial run by academics at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jan/16/canon-uk-arm-trial-four-day-week-pilot-shorter-working
Here’s why UK teachers need a four-day week
A telecoms firm, a video games developer and a training company have become the latest businesses to join a four-day working week trial as scrutiny increases of work/life balance during the pandemic.
Yo Telecom’s 90 employees will move from a 40-hour working week to a four-day, 32-hour working week with no reduction in pay for six months starting in June. They will be accompanied by game developer Hutch, with 120 employees, and MBL Seminars, with 70 employees.
The trial is being run by academics at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, plus Boston College in the US and thinktank Autonomy. It is being overseen by 4 Day Week Global, a campaign group.
The UK pilot study appears to have gained momentum in recent weeks, with the 10th business on the verge of signing up, with more than 500 workers. Hundreds more businesses have signed up to information sessions, suggesting they are seriously considering testing the move.
A report by the commissioner and thinktank Autonomy found that about two-thirds of Welsh people would ideally work a four-day week and almost 60% said they would support the Welsh government piloting a scheme to move towards it.
The report says moving to a four-day week in the Welsh public sector could be particularly effective as sickness rates are high and giving staff an extra day off could help to tackle this.
Belgium announced Tuesday a package of labor reforms that includes affording workers the right to request a four-day work week.
Under the deal, “employees can work a maximum of 9.5 hours per day, with the possibility of extending to 10 hours per day via a collective agreement between the company and trade unions to allow employees to complete their full-time working week in just four days.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/15/belgian-workers-win-right-request-four-day-week
Another call for a four-day week
A four-day week with no loss of pay would save parents thousands of pounds a year in childcare and commuting costs, according to a thinktank that suggests the policy could help to alleviate the cost of living crisis.
Someone with a child under two would save £1,440 in childcare and £340 from commuting on average across a year if they did not have to travel to work one day a week, the leftwing thinktank Autonomy calculated.
After a 6 month trial of the 61 companies that took part, 56 said they would continue with the four-day week, at least for now, while 18 said the policy was a permanent change.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/feb/21/four-day-week-uk-trial-success-pattern
39% said they were less stressed, 40% were sleeping better and 54% said it was easier to balance work and home responsibilities. The number of sick days taken during the trial fell by about two-thirds and 57% fewer staff left the firms taking part compared with the same period a year earlier.
Joe Ryle, the director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, called the trial a “major breakthrough moment”, adding: “Across a wide variety of sectors, wellbeing has improved dramatically for staff; and business productivity has either been maintained or improved in nearly every case. We’re really pleased with the results and hopefully it does show that the time to roll out a four-day week more widely has surely come.”
Is South Korea going to buck the trend?
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/east-asia/south-korea-labour-reform-working-women-b2298028.html
It was reported that South Korean president wanted to allow people to work up to 69 hours a week – up from 52 hours.
South Korean labour minister on Thursday said that lifting the weekly work hour cap to 69 hours from 52 will actually help working mothers by cutting working hours during pregnancy or while raising children as it means they can bank overtime hours in exchange for time off, a plan hoped would promote family growth alongside productivity.
“It will make it legal to work from 9am to midnight for five days in a row. There is no regard for workers’ health and rest,” the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions criticised.
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