Without some regulation , why would the work week become shorter ? for many people , working a 40 hour work week barely covers their expenses. why would they want to work less ?
I've always thought that a 30 hr work week should be regulated, forcing employees to demand higher wages in order to survive, forcing employers to raise wages, and forcing CEOs to be paid less, thus reducing the income gap.
If that sort of thing was effective, income inequality would have dropped over the past 60 years as government regulations raised the minimum wage and shortened the work week. Instead, it dramatically increased.
The problem is that minimum wage has never overtaken inflation. So in fact the minimum wage has effectively fallen over the last 60 years. Plus, the gains in production due to automation has worked to concentrate wealth at the top. The point is we can't say regulation wouldn't be effective considering trends of income distribution.
I'm not 100% I agree with the grandparent, but how do you know that the income inequality would have been even worse without these regulations?
"Reducing the income gap" is not an inherently good thing. If it is, you should be thrilled with the current economy: incomes for the rich have fallen more on a percentage basis than for the poor and middle class.
Without a union , workers has almost no power in today's market.
The 40 hour work week barely covers their expenses because time is an arbitrary metric being used to derive some sort of implicit value on labor. The unit of measure needs to change.
The 40 hour work week exists because Henry Ford found through studies that productivity increased when employees worked no more than 8 hours/day, 40 hours/week. That was assembly line work in the early 20th century, and since then, I'm not aware of any other studies done about worker productivity and the amount of time worked.