Germany eyes a four-day week to help prevent mass layoffs
weforum.org
weforum.org
Now the productivity gains actually did happen, however what the economists didn't predict is that all the gains went to only benefit very few (essentially the holders of capital) and inequality would increase significantly preventing most people to reduce their work hours even if they wanted.
Keynes rejected Marx, who explains that while the capitalist class maintains state power the workers will continue to be exploited.
He also rejected Lenin, who explains how imperialism’s constant expansion most intensely exploits the periphery, where most production gets moved to.
I'm curious if you would adjust your own standard of living accordingly, you could finance it with a 15h workweek just fine. But this for sure does not apply to low wage jobs.
While inequality is now clearly on the rise (and it's a big problem), afaik there also have been times in history when it was consistently higher. https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality seems to have some good charts and context here.
Sort of like when you pay people a bit better than average for the industry, thereby fostering improved employee retention and lower turnover. It pays for itself over time and has additional benefits down the line.
This seems like a good idea to me. The 40 hour work week grew out of technology improving productivity such that some people were making good money and then there was higher unemployment to go with that. It was intended to share the wealth, primarily. Now we look back on normal working conditions prior to that and deem them to be inhumane.
That is likely already close to the sweet spot, at least for automotive workers.
https://butterflyeconomy.blogspot.com/2020/08/shorter-work-w...
Some people really, really like having a regular three-day weekend and will do just fine getting in their hours in four days. Others may well prefer a five day week with fewer hours per day.
If we could cut hours and give people choices as to how to allocate them, more people might get on board with the idea.
Probably they took the average of all employments. Because many people have a part-time job the average is pushed down. This makes the numbers less useful.
I would bet the average is so low because of a large part of low paying part-time jobs, which are heavily subventioned / pay no or low social security & taxes, saved likely also the disincentivation of pmarried mothers working full time (not by law, but in effect).
Using part time to discriminate is more of a US phenomenon. Most older people and people with kids prefer 80% jobs which have correctly prorated salary, so 80% may average higher salary than 100% in these countries. Other jobs also. There are still some connections in pay like food service is open to students, part time, and lower paid.
from the article: In 2018, it won workers the right to reduce their working week from 35 hours to 28 for two years to increase flexibility, particularly for workers with caring responsibilities.
this is not talking about averages, but about full-time work hours.
> At 34.2 hours, Germany already has one of the shortest average working weeks in Europe. And there are loud voices calling for it to be shorter still.
And then the "graphic of usual hours of work of employees", and then goes on with 35h per week (in the metal working industry).
As others pointed out, 40h per week is quite often the standard, the lower average cited right in the beginning can be explained differently, than large parts of the population enjoying a relaxed safe full-time employment with less than 40h per week, which is kind of implied by the setup of the article.
ig-metall is the largest union representing about 2/5 of all unionized employees in germany. keep in mind that in most cases a union agreement is applied to all employees, not just the union members, so many more jobs than union members are affected.
that said, there is likely something wrong with that 34.5 average because i found other articles claiming an average of 37.5 and yet another of 41 hours.
while i still believe that the 35 hour week has a large impact on the result, it is less large than i thought.
Yes, but those union agreements are per industry and/or company, depending if there is an industry agreement or not. That's why the hours are listed per industry.
And they only apply to non-members, if the union has the mandate to negotiate on behalf of all workers, e.g. there is not another competing union with a sizable membership (not sure about the exact criteria).
I worked at SAP, and ig-metall is a union there (not the only one). Different industry, no industry-wide union agreements. Ergo 40h per week. This is also the default by law, if the exact hours are not defined.
I bet, you won't see much part-time work in many fields and professions.
My colleague had a baby. He would like to spend more time with the baby. He asked to reduce his hours. The boss said yes because its the law and we no longer live in the middle ages.
Lots of people I know do 4 days a week - there isn’t much social pressure to work 5.
Which kind of implies a social pressure.
Would you claim that it is the same outside of line of work?
From what I understand, people who enjoy a large degree of freedom already, they can get those things relatively easy. Parental leave, working from home, part-time, all part of the privilege that comes with the job.
But that is a limited subset of society.
Middle-management or upper-management in IT? Outside of IT?
At least from what I hear from Germany, not working _overtime_ for middle- or upper-management, as a medical doctor at a university hospital, many research positions is considered "lack of commitment". Almost irregardless of what you deliver. Probably you won't get fired, but you have to be exceptionally good so it doesn't reflect badly on you.
Every german car maker has an electric car shipping.
They know the market better than you.
Of course, the option to have a 4-day week should be on the table, but this shouldn't be mandated by decree - but instead, a choice the worker and the employer can negotiate and come to a market driven agreement. Otherwise, you'd be building in market inefficiencies, and this leads to wastage.
In both cases, the individual is limited in their choice. Without legal restrictions, the individuals choice is restricted by economic and social constraints. E.g. in low paying jobs, less hours is not an option, because of low pay, and in "high" paying jobs, it isn't because you won't have the job long. Precisely because of the implication you give "more hours -> wanting to work harder". And partly because your employer doesn't want to go through the hassle of having to handle different work schedules, managing more people.
The "European" variant is a collective choice countering the socioeconomic pressure.
In Europe you are "forced" to have a medical insurance, in the US, you are free to choose/lose it with your employment.
I would claim, socioeconomic constraints are limiting your choices much more, than laws do.
Why is this confined to only the people already working?
That is: if I have the opportunity & desire to work on something, you shouldn't interfere with it. But me having the desire to work on something shouldn't require you go provide the opportunity.
But whatever our beliefs, we already have sets of rules, legal and social, which limit people's choices in the job market. The ability to hire people is a privilege which comes with responsibilities, part of which is a responsibility to society. This is why developed countries have minimum wages.
Now as to what extent or whether at all, you can place limitations on employers without placing limitations on employees, now that is an argument worth exploring.
if people want to work 5 days a week, it's because 5 days is the norm, and noone gives much choice.
the norm used to be 6 days, then 5.5 days, and it was a big campaign in germany to get it down to 5.
btw the current norm is actually 35 hours for office work, 7 hours per day, or, if you do 8 hours per day 4.5 days. now they want to shave another 7 hours of that to 28.
all such a regulation does is to define what is the default. it does not dictate that i am only allowed to work those hours. i am still free to negotiate less hours if i want to. negotiating more is harder because of overtime rules but it's possible.
The article didn't provide details, but I'm imagining if workers are capped at four day workweeks, but businesses still operate five to seven days a week, then you can get more coverage without burnout.
Certainly there would be overhead of not just more people to train and coordination between people operating on different four day windows, but frankly, what is management being paid to do if not figure out problems such as this? Already you hear about sectors from medicine to law to investment banking where despite earning high salaries, workers are forced to endure ridiculously long hours and deal with high stress. Why not spread the workload?
Reminds me of job-sharing proposals.
Germany is a relatively low-wage country considering its productivity, but also its factories are highly automated. If these variables change, production will continue to move to cheaper European countries, just like US production moves to Mexico.
Tax the shit out of companies that pull these kind of stunts to skirt the law. Tariff their products at the border. If those countries are on the EU, Germany can use its clout to "force" these kind of rules on other countries. This soft power is real, as seen in Greece in 2013. If the Visegrad countries complain, kick Hungary out of the EU for their rule-of-law violations, it's only several years out of date.
Most of this could fit under the "COVID" umbrella.
It was a good idea until there.
Why not just get the money off the money tree and pay the unemployed an unemployment wage.