The billionaires join Bernie Sanders in weighing in on four-day workweek. Here's what CEOs who actually made the move say
The billionaires join Bernie Sanders in weighing in on four-day workweek. Here's what CEOs who actually made the move say
Billionaires Barry Diller and Steve Cohen added to four-day workweek debate as support for the idea rises and companies that made the move say it's a win.
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I think each company has to do what’s best for them.
I mainly work in sales and a four day work week wouldn’t interest me. It’d impact my sales.
I work 5-6 days a week 2-3 hours per day.
When you let "each company do what's best for them" we get mining companies hiring pinkerton to murder miners. We get Triangle Shirtwaist. We get Bhopal.
We need the force of law behind things like this, or we get fucked by greed, every single time. You do what's best for you, but corporations need laws.
I am not sure how you got murdering people from what I said.
I don’t want a law pushing four day work weeks. Doesn’t interest me. I’m fine with each company picking the schedule they want to offer.
OK. And what I'm telling you is that without a law, it won't happen.
How did I get from here to there? The 5-day work week literally saved lives. Saved peoples' bodies. Extended lifespans. Gave children back their parents. I don't think a single labor regulation has ever protected workers as much as the 5-day week.
The 4-day week would take it further. It's worth doing, and it will not happen if we let every corporation decide for themselves.
Just playing devil’s advocate here, but doesn’t the article prove that it has happened?
And now, being a bit more genuine, I think it’s tricky with places where people aren’t salaried. Like people who make most of their money through commissions and bonuses based on sales targets (car salespeople, etc). Also caregiving, where margins are slim because of shitty insurance reimbursements and caregivers get paid based on hourly work
It has happened at some companies. We didn’t need a law. The company and employees decide what was best for them. If I went to a four day work week, it’d cut my pay by about 100k. No thanks. Since I don’t work much per day, I’ll gladly do the 5 for the extra money.
Well, the idea behind the law is that you keep your current pay. I just think it's impractical in situations where pay is driven by commission or where margins are cutthroat
Honest I’d rather see mandatory vacations, mandatory 401k match, etc. I think those are more important.
I’d rather see 4 weeks of vacation required by law or a 10% of your pay put into a 401k.
Yeah, those are both valid points. Although I'd also say that bills like that do get introduced, probably with much greater odds of passing than this one.
I know many people with shit vacation. I think Everyone can get behind a minimum standard for vacation. Everyone should support a 401k match since pensions for the most part aren’t coming back.
The idea and the reality will be different. I work on commission. Not being available would cost me a lot of money. Imagine we already have a nursing shortage. Now we cut their hours and we have an even larger shortage. We’d have to pay more in taxes to hire more cops, firefighters, etc.
In a labor market like we have. It would radically increase cost and taxes.
It’s something that sounds great on paper but in the real world it falls apart pretty quickly when forced
Sure, I work in healthcare and any clinician (nurse, doc, etc.) would be seriously impacted. It's an industry where most companies are in the red, especially post-COVID. Cutting hours would be impossible.
But, there is also an argument to be made that we need to radically restructure things. CEO pay has ballooned relative to entry level jobs and this pushes for a rebalancing of that. Healthcare CEOs, at least in most non-profit/teaching health systems, aren't paid anything like other CEOs.
CEO pay has ballooned relative to entry level jobs and this pushes for a rebalancing of that
I’d fully support a ratio for anyone public company. You want to be on the stock market. Fine. You’re total compensation can’t be more then 20x the lowest employee.
Who said anything about removing a law? You seem to be on some weird tangent unrelated to what I said.
I have zero interest in a four day work week. We voted on it at work and it failed miserably.
Just because you want one; doesn’t mean everyone else wants it.
Good news! Nobody wants to cut your hours. Bernie Sanders' proposal would cut the standard work week down from 40 hours to 32. Since you already work less than 32 hours per week, this change would have no impact on you.
I think the thing is you are already working less than a 4 day week (32 hr .. ) your doing 18 at most so I don't think you really can comment on this one ...
Do it for hourly people or give the choice to allow workers to do five. For many jobs it would just mean people working more hours per day to keep up with the volume.
That's the ponit same pay as 40 hr for 32 hr. . Better work/life balanced. I know it will not matter to you as you pick your hrs but there are a ton of people that are not that lucky.. if they whant to work 40 nothing is stopping them the company will just have to pay 8hrs of overtime.
The answer is more workers..
Would love to reduce the number of hours worked while retaining same comp. However, I don’t think more workers is a viable solution, because that’d imply companies eating the 20% extra cost. Whether or not they can get it through shareholders and the board aside, fact that the amount of working aged adults are shrinking (due to boomers retiring and lesser children in later generations) makes it much harder to add more head counts. There must be ways to improve efficiency without corporate/shareholder greed, and that’s a tough pill for the world to swallow without very drastic changes (UBI for example).
But there it is... if the top took a hiar cut that would cover it. Lower entrance requirements to get the job.. means more eligible works.. it's a tuff one yes. Is there enuff workers maybe. But it's worth a try.
I’m stuck in middle management, and have many middle and senior management peers, so I see both sides of the arguments here getting pushed back hard. I cannot begin to imagine the top willing to take a cut, there’s no benefit for them what so ever. Anything lower tries to justify will just be brushed off. On the flip side, I definitely do not want to reduce entrance requirements… bad hires hurts my team’s performance in non linear fashion.
If meaningful changes were to happen, it would have to be mandated by laws and regulations, but I don’t see a path for those laws and regulations to change without drastic societal changes that would support such.
We already have a worker shortage. So no the answer isn’t more workers.
My gf is salary and works 50 hours a week. Four days a week means she’s working 12-13 hour days. She doesn’t want that.
We don't have a worker shortage we have a shortage of well paying jobs. If companies pay better than people will take the jobs.. and that sucks she has to work so much has they try hiring at better wages or you know she could say no...
I agree some of what you've said in this threat, but we 100% have a worker shortage. I work in healthcare and there just aren't people out there with the qualifications we need. There are not enough doctors or nurses in the US. The govt funds a lot of healthcare education (nursing and medical schools). The govt isn't expanding slots and schools often can't find teachers anyway (for nursing anyway, not docs as much).
The answer is obviously immigration, but that's an ethical issue in healthcare. Bringing in people who want to be nurses and docs usually means taking them from developing nations. As the US population gets older and we have fewer young people, we just won't have enough people working in healthcare.
We have a worker shortage. Look at the unemployment rate. I think last time I looked it was 3.2 which means we can’t fill jobs. Companies pay well enough. We have jobs that pay about 300k and we get very few applications because is the shortage. It’s well known there is a cybersecurity shortage, nursing as well.
Not EVERYONE on salary is exempt from overtime pay.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17d-overtime-professional
Also, drivers and farmers are exempt from overtime pay, but you should check it out. Salaried overtime pay is a HUGE point of wage theft.
That is true but I’ve never worked a salary job with overtime. I also agree it should be more of a thing. I’m not a fan of companies working people 60-80 hours a week because they are “salary”. That was never the intent for salary. This bill as stated will never pass. I’m not sure Bernie has ever really got any bills to pass.
I agree. The government should not get in the way of companies - no matter what.
Did you drop the /s?
Some people just drink the kool-aid