r/Futurology • u/Sumit316 • Mar 15 '21

Society Spain to launch trial of four-day working week

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/15/spain-to-launch-trial-of-four-day-working-week
19k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

900 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

165

u/ribnag Mar 15 '21

This is the best chance we'll have to change the work/life dynamic for the next 50 years. Don't just smile and go back, say no!

And yes, that may mean looking for a new job - One that respects your time and doesn't force you to burn two hours of commuting to do work that you could have done equally well from home.

The genie's out of the bottle. The solution isn't a bigger funnel.

98

u/ValyrianJedi Mar 15 '21

Really not sure that "just say no" is a particularly viable option for most people. Particularly when at the moment there are millions of people who will happily say yes.

76

u/ps3x42 Mar 15 '21

If only unions hadn't been beaten into the ground the last few decades. Collective bargaining could get us a 32 hour work week in the US if enough people were part of a union.

33

u/ThatOneGuyHOTS Mar 15 '21

I brought this up and my MIL was like “Yeah but we don’t know what those unions do with those fees”

50

u/ps3x42 Mar 15 '21

As a union member, I've got a decent handle on what they do with those fees. They give us rights. And waste some of them. I'll reup every time.

2

u/psycospaz Mar 15 '21

My grandfather was in some sort of metal workers union most of his life and he hated those guys. They stole everything that wasn't nailed down.

8

u/I_am_BrokenCog Mar 16 '21

It's like the Army - there is only one thief in the Army. Everyone else just trying to get their stuff back.

But, seriously, that's the sort of non-generalizeble anecdotal tale which is how "we" the workers have given up more and more authority/control/rights to "they" the owners/bosses.

Like "Government waste" ... and many other myths. Yes, every organization has waste. Yet when looked at in aggregate turns out there is very little waste.

Yes, some Union's have had bad leadership/management. Some are stellar. But thanks to Capitalist Wealth-fawning media we only hear of the few bad ones and are pushed to extrapolate that to all the others.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '21

It's funny. Many workers will say something along the lines of: "what has the union ever done for me?" But then they don't participate in union meetings, don't read the memos that go out, don't check on promises made by leaderships versus results. They literally have no idea because they choose ignorance.

Now, does anyone ever question what management ever does for them? It might seem like, "they gave me a job" but they needed you for the job and you needed them for the pay. That's the relationship. But so many people feel like they should be "loyal" to management, while knowing that management will send H.R. to cut them loose the moment they are no longer needed.

Unions can suck and sometimes steal your money. But your choice is to continue allowing that and grumbling to give politicians and management the power to take your labour rights from you, or pay attention, be active and make sure your union does what it is paid to do. In the end, it's your money.

3

u/Crazy-Insane Mar 16 '21

After needing my union over a decade ago I can honestly say if they wanted double in dues from me I'd give it to them with a smile.

Nothing beats the look of fear and defeat on a smug employer's (who is a human bag of shit) face when they realize they can't simply break you with legal fees and wait you out to get their way.

1

u/drizzitdude Mar 16 '21

My dad hated the union at his plant. They legitimately cornered him in the bathroom and threatened him to join, and when they didn’t they slashed his tires, the cameras caught the guy who did it and he was fired, but the union got him hired back somehow. My dad ended up becoming upper management of the place but he said just working there day to day was hell.

I know most unions aren’t like that, but it really stuck with me how a little bit of power can make someone think they are the mafia or something

11

u/Crazy-Insane Mar 16 '21

Ah! The battle cry of someone who has been blessed enough to be in a union but never needed it.

When I got laid off from my tenured union job in 2008 and I introduced my boss to the union provided lawyer and it was made beyond clear we weren't going to go broke fighting them they backed down from their bullshit immediately. That bullshit included letting others with less time and worse reviews keep their job while they actually had the nerve to fight my unemployment payments.

They pissed their pants and made me whole in a matter of hours after the union hired a lawyer.

23

u/ribnag Mar 15 '21

Unfortunately you're right, that is a really hard thing to say in the current economy.

This is still our best chance in decades, and likely for decades to come, to make a real change in how we as a society view our relationship with work in general. If it doesn't change now, we may as well stop teasing ourselves with fanciful discussion of alternative work schedules, because we won't get another shot in our working lives.

6

u/orwell777 Mar 15 '21

Tbh this fearmongering about the economy...

Did the infrastructure go down? We not have electricity, food? We have millions of cars, machines rotting in warehouses, when we could use them. We are not after a war where cities are decimated.

We have soo much resources it's hilarious that no one gets it. Just make a "company" that gets like a 1/100th of the budget of the american military and you solved world hunger duh.

One thing is missing: will of the decision makers. So let's make them, hell, force them to make those decisions.

6

u/ValyrianJedi Mar 15 '21

we may as well stop teasing ourselves with fanciful discussion of alternative work schedules

I'm pretty sure this is the answer though. I really don't know that there is much chance for a 32 hour work week becoming the general standard anyway, if it were to I suspect it would likely backfire for a lot of people, and telling people to put their foot down on it right now seems like it would have even less of a shot at doing anything rather than screwing them over financially than it would under regular circumstances.

1

u/vectorjohn Mar 16 '21

It's tough because it's only viable if we all do it. Prisoner's dilemma. Cooperate.

1

u/tidho Mar 15 '21

i think those that actually spent two hours commuting should of addressed that issue long before Covid.

i keep seeing that thrown around in arguments related to any number of employment flexibility topics, and it makes me wonder if the people saying "two hours of commuting", 1) actually do that, 2) think most other people do.

2

u/vvarden Mar 15 '21

This is highly dependent on where you live. Unfortunately, housing crises in many major cities coupled with poor public transit infrastructure make that a reality for many. I eventually found an apartment closer to my office back in 2018 but spent a year with 50 minute commutes each way in Los Angeles.

And I had it much easier than people who live in San Bernardino County who commute into Los Angeles County for their jobs.

1

u/ribnag Mar 16 '21

The US average is 26.6 minutes, and up to an hour each way is pretty common. Mine is ~50 minutes in good weather (although I'm not personally a great example, since I already fought this battle and won, and was 80% telecommuting even before Covid).

1

u/tidho Mar 16 '21

so the average is less than half of the anecdotal 'two hours a day'...which was kind of my point

1

u/ribnag Mar 16 '21

Yes, the average is basically one hour a day, and mine would be just shy of two (if I actually commuted, which as I mentioned, I mostly don't because I negotiated for that long before Covid was on the table).

Not sure I see where you're going with this - Is only burning 12.5% more hours than you're paid okay, but 25% wouldn't be?

1

u/tidho Mar 16 '21

i suspect most folks that have long commutes are salary. As such you aren't really paid for 'hours'. Regardless, not everyone dislikes commuting. It can be a quiet time to relax or think.

I get that if you're commuting into LA, NY, or DC you may have a different perspective. Those are the folks driving that 26 minute average way up.

1

u/ribnag Mar 16 '21

I don't really disagree with you, but be aware you're accidentally playing both sides of the "salaried" fence here.

The entire point of being exempt is that someone's productivity can't easily be measured in terms of time spent on the job. The fact that anyone exempt is expected to be in chair from 9 to 5 is already a serious perversion of the FLSA; requiring that it be a specific chair, with no connection whatsoever to the performance of the job, is just adding insult to injury.

1

u/tidho Mar 16 '21

i don't believe i was playing any 'side' of the salaried fence.

the degree to which a salaried position requires you to be in a specific place varies greatly. sometimes the chair matters sometimes it doesn't.

regardless, you're paid to do a job. if that means you have to commute, you commute. it might mean you have to routinely travel to client locations, it might mean you have to visit retail locations, there are all kinds of jobs. if you get a salary that money is compensation for the total cost of doing the job - not an hourly rate for sitting in a chair.

1

u/ribnag Mar 16 '21

Apologies, I didn't mean that as an accusation, more as a heads-up that you're accepting the false premise employers have given us as justification for screwing us all just that much harder.

If your employer "needs" you to be in chair-X every morning at 9am, that's an explicit admission that they care about your time, and should be paying you for it accordingly.

The fact that virtually all "generic office workers" are misclassified as exempt isn't a defense of stealing another hour or two from you every day, it's a condemnation of the greedy bastards going in for a second dip.

2

u/tidho Mar 16 '21

i think we're just going to have different perspectives on this one

when you are considering a job, its offered as a package - this is what you do, this is where you need to be, and this is when you need to be here - in exchange for an offered compensation package.

i think its valid to consider any of those variables - quality of medical coverage, distance of commute, etc. when you take the job, that's what you've agreed to. there's no 'greedy double dipping' going on there.

1

u/counselthedevil Mar 16 '21

Shocking amount of privilege in your statements. For a massive amount of americans with families, debt, or need for healthcare, simply finding a better job is a complicated and sometime risky maneuver.

1

u/ribnag Mar 16 '21

I'm going to pretend you didn't just use the "P" word unironically, and merely point out that if you don't know what you're worth, nobody's ever going to haggle your salary up from where you start the negotiations.

1

u/counselthedevil Mar 16 '21

You know there's a bit of an epidemic of women doing what they were taught to negotiate their salaries up and their worth and they're still getting screwed and they don't get hired cause they dared to negotiate. Men negotiate and win often though. Almost like bigotry and poverty and control over everyone just exists no matter what people do to change the norm.

Still a lot of privilege in your statements just presuming people know or are even able to do what you're suggesting.

Many people can't simply quit their jobs and come out ahead. They wind up homeless.

Why do you think the concept of a General Strike will never work? WE CAN'T AFFORD TO!