I wrote this for the Canberra Times, but it’s paywalled. Here’s the version I submitted. You can get to the published version using archive.is if you know how As another working week begins, many of us will be looking back wistfully at the back-to-back four day weeks we just enjoyed on either side of the Easter Break. That raises the question: why not make every week a four-day week?
I am no educational expert but I am a parent and I personally think the Australian school year is too long. I think it would be good for students and teachers to move to a four day week. I can assure you that by Friday (and December) very little learning gets done. Students and teachers are both exhausted. Kids need time to be kids (and teachers need time to decompress from what is a demanding job). Life is so short and we need time to enjoy it more. You don’t need money to enjoy yourself: go for a walk, borrow a book from the library.
"lengthened the school day by half an hour" - this would be a real backward step. That last hour of a school day exhausts children and every extra minute has negative marginal returns.
I should state that various chronic health issues might influence my view here, but I think five shorter days would be far better than four days of work.
A 30 hour work week comprising five 6 hour days would boost productivity and give people more time each day for living life. 6 hours in a day also fits with working shifts; organisations could move from three 8 hour shifts to four 6 hour shifts each day.
Gaining an extra 2 hours each work day has a different texture to gaining an extra day off. I think it prioritises community and regular recreation rather than escape and living for the weekend. Think having friends over for cassoulet and red wine on a week night rather than going camping. Given that many people will work two of those days from home, concerns about excess commuting no longer apply.
Productivity is often used as a baton by business thugs to beat down wage claims. They argue that only productivity increases warrant wage increases. This attitude conveniently ignores the corrosive effect of inflation and the technological changes that have occurred since the year 2000. Today’s workers are all computer literate and internet savvy. They can do searches in half the time and can now do multitasking while in meetings via Zoom, or some other software avenue. Yet none of these new work skills are recognised by bosses who want to suppress wage growth.
The legalistic structure set up to enforce wage determination is slow and cumbersome. Apart from the National Wage Case, that only happens once a year - prices are currently rising every month - there are no quick avenues for general wage adjustments to protect real wages.
In the current atmosphere of wage theft - this includes unpaid overtime but may also actually be literally true - the four day working week may be the only way workers can get wage justice. Like the proposal put forward to limit employer access to workers outside working hours - a form of unpaid overtime - the four day working week proposal, put forward so eloquently by Professor Quiggin, will face considerable resistance from the business lobby. They will trot out all their old objections - all countered by Professor Quiggin. But the hidden agenda of many business owners and managers is to continue to suppress wage growth no matter what is said logically about this proposal. The wage theft of the past twenty years has been unprecedented in my life time. It may have been common before 1970, a time when I was not in the workforce, but it is blatant in many of our current industries. Then there is all the unpaid overtime that has become common since 1990. When I started full time work in 1977, it was made clear to me that unpaid overtime was not to be tolerated. Back then my union was strong and vigorous. Today most unions are weak and ineffective. So it’s the individual workplaces that must now stand up and demand their rights.
The great market power that all workers have is to refuse to be exploited. This is strengthened by the current shortages in Australia’s labour market. If bosses refuse to give ground then workers can leave for other workplaces.
Labour market power is no longer confined to greedy bosses who only want to make super normal profits; and/or justify excessively high salaries for themselves.
A four day working week will restore balance in the Profit to Wage share of Australia’s National Income. With over thirteen million people in Australia’s workforce, and less than three million bosses and managers, the apparent democratic outcome is to listen to the majority and ignore minority objections. But which politician has that sort of courage, that would see them ignore the rich and powerful employers? Perhaps this will only happen in an election year.
Interested in whether you have thought about this in the context of Claudia Goldin’s notion of ‘greedy jobs’, demanding jobs for which the hourly wage increases with the number or type of hours worked (evenings, weekends, holidays), and which tend to exacerbate gender pay gaps and inequality. From experience in such jobs, they are very challenging to make work on a 4-day basis (I have tried, and still am). But the potential benefits are also significant.
John, the arithmetic in para 4 is a little rounded. If productivity has increased by 20 %, don't we now produce in 4 days what we used to produce in 4.8 days?
I am no educational expert but I am a parent and I personally think the Australian school year is too long. I think it would be good for students and teachers to move to a four day week. I can assure you that by Friday (and December) very little learning gets done. Students and teachers are both exhausted. Kids need time to be kids (and teachers need time to decompress from what is a demanding job). Life is so short and we need time to enjoy it more. You don’t need money to enjoy yourself: go for a walk, borrow a book from the library.
Things to come, according to ChatGPT? In panel 7, a woman has melded with her laptop.
"lengthened the school day by half an hour" - this would be a real backward step. That last hour of a school day exhausts children and every extra minute has negative marginal returns.
I should state that various chronic health issues might influence my view here, but I think five shorter days would be far better than four days of work.
A 30 hour work week comprising five 6 hour days would boost productivity and give people more time each day for living life. 6 hours in a day also fits with working shifts; organisations could move from three 8 hour shifts to four 6 hour shifts each day.
Gaining an extra 2 hours each work day has a different texture to gaining an extra day off. I think it prioritises community and regular recreation rather than escape and living for the weekend. Think having friends over for cassoulet and red wine on a week night rather than going camping. Given that many people will work two of those days from home, concerns about excess commuting no longer apply.
Productivity is often used as a baton by business thugs to beat down wage claims. They argue that only productivity increases warrant wage increases. This attitude conveniently ignores the corrosive effect of inflation and the technological changes that have occurred since the year 2000. Today’s workers are all computer literate and internet savvy. They can do searches in half the time and can now do multitasking while in meetings via Zoom, or some other software avenue. Yet none of these new work skills are recognised by bosses who want to suppress wage growth.
The legalistic structure set up to enforce wage determination is slow and cumbersome. Apart from the National Wage Case, that only happens once a year - prices are currently rising every month - there are no quick avenues for general wage adjustments to protect real wages.
In the current atmosphere of wage theft - this includes unpaid overtime but may also actually be literally true - the four day working week may be the only way workers can get wage justice. Like the proposal put forward to limit employer access to workers outside working hours - a form of unpaid overtime - the four day working week proposal, put forward so eloquently by Professor Quiggin, will face considerable resistance from the business lobby. They will trot out all their old objections - all countered by Professor Quiggin. But the hidden agenda of many business owners and managers is to continue to suppress wage growth no matter what is said logically about this proposal. The wage theft of the past twenty years has been unprecedented in my life time. It may have been common before 1970, a time when I was not in the workforce, but it is blatant in many of our current industries. Then there is all the unpaid overtime that has become common since 1990. When I started full time work in 1977, it was made clear to me that unpaid overtime was not to be tolerated. Back then my union was strong and vigorous. Today most unions are weak and ineffective. So it’s the individual workplaces that must now stand up and demand their rights.
The great market power that all workers have is to refuse to be exploited. This is strengthened by the current shortages in Australia’s labour market. If bosses refuse to give ground then workers can leave for other workplaces.
Labour market power is no longer confined to greedy bosses who only want to make super normal profits; and/or justify excessively high salaries for themselves.
A four day working week will restore balance in the Profit to Wage share of Australia’s National Income. With over thirteen million people in Australia’s workforce, and less than three million bosses and managers, the apparent democratic outcome is to listen to the majority and ignore minority objections. But which politician has that sort of courage, that would see them ignore the rich and powerful employers? Perhaps this will only happen in an election year.
Interested in whether you have thought about this in the context of Claudia Goldin’s notion of ‘greedy jobs’, demanding jobs for which the hourly wage increases with the number or type of hours worked (evenings, weekends, holidays), and which tend to exacerbate gender pay gaps and inequality. From experience in such jobs, they are very challenging to make work on a 4-day basis (I have tried, and still am). But the potential benefits are also significant.
John, the arithmetic in para 4 is a little rounded. If productivity has increased by 20 %, don't we now produce in 4 days what we used to produce in 4.8 days?