Why does government set N hours at all? It's must be up to business! E.g., if I have a software company, I want my employees to work 20 hours a week. Isn't it obviously better way for everyone?
The US union that is now the AFL-CIO leadership in pushing for the 8 hour day led directly to making May 1st the international day for labor demonstrations, in part in commemoration of the Chicago Haymarket Massacre.
If you want your employers to be able work less, nothing is stopping you most places. But experience is that not having an upper bound caused employers to take massive advantage.
When laws were passed to mandate 8 hour work days, what % of companies had 8 hour work days already? 10%? 20%? 80%?
Nowadays we know that total productivity is higher if you have 8 hour work days, even though you work less total hours, because your productivity per hour is much higher. Was something like this known at the time? Or was the push to 8 hour work days only so that people could spend time with their family? What kinds of arguments were used?
Is a good read on the subject and the referenced links are even better (as usual). The 12 hour workday had to be fought for... that tells you something about what %age of employers had 8 hour workdays already, left to their own devices that percentage would be very close to 0. Each and every reduction in hours had to be fought for somehow.
When I was an employer in Canada and we had the standard NL holiday/compensation package our employees were so happy, and other companies nearby cautioned me not to be too open about it lest it 'would spread' and their employees would demand similar. Employers do not tend to be on the same side as their employees in arguments like these (though they should be: happy employee = loyal employee).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Duncan_Parnell
Here's a PDF that gives some stats from 1890 until the 1930's: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4124.pdf
Prior to the 1890's, it took decades to even get down to the 12, and then 10 hour workday.
I don't remember specifically when there started being actual research into the productivity effects of shorter work days, but it definitively was not known at the outset - at the outset, it was driven by workers rights movements.
But for the sake of argument, the percentage would be very low, probably pretty much limited to professionals that could work their own hours. Most people were working poor, for whom the workday was 10-16 hours long, six days per week (in the Western world).
To give you an idea of the significant lenghth of prior work hours, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day has a pair of phrases: "Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February revolution of 1848."
We know? Surely on a planet with 7 billion people, some of them can maintain their work efficiency for more than 8 hours. What about the Steve Jobs and John Carmack's of the world? I don't see them being 9-5 people.
I will never be a world class ballet dancer or world class basketball player simply by putting in a little more time than the next guy.
Plus, in certain fields, even if you are experiencing diminishing returns, you can still squeeze more value out of those additional hours than someone else can.
Imagine one Friday your company calls the law firm you have on retainer. The guy handling your case has already put in 50 hours this week and is only operating at 80% capacity. You are still going to get better work out of him than his coworker, because your guy has everything about your case stored in his head without reading any notes.
On the other hand, if someone was on some type of monitoring duty, where usually nothing happens but if something does happen it's very important that he make the right call (ie guard duty, nuclear power plant operator) I would want to split his work over many people.
Sometimes two 30-hour workers perform better than one 60-hour worker, and sometimes they perform worse.
In principle, this is stuff that insurance companies should be on top of...
During the week (when i work more protracted hours) I'm sleeping about 8 hours at least, and I'm also not beholden to an alarm, so I get as much sleep as my body needs. I think I'm probably one of the most well rested people I know, despite pulling twelve hour 'shifts' three days a week.
Obviously I'm more tired after I do the 12 hour shifts than during the week, but I haven't felt so tired that I was at risk of falling asleep on the road (which happened from time to time when I was in grad school).
If Steve Jobs would have worked less, he may not have been removed from the Apple Board. If he had spent more time with his family, maybe the Lisa wouldn't have had the connotations that it had.
These are not conclusive, but they do point us in a direction.
I'm a marxist, and I hate many forms of socialism. Karl Marx hated many forms of socialism. He even devoted a chapter of the Communist Manifesto to ripping apart forms of socialism he didn't like.
I believe even the 40-hour week is not statutory. At least in Denmark (maybe the same in Sweden?), the basic parameters of employment (maximum working hours, overtime pay, minimum wages, etc.), are negotiated between the employer's confederation and the union confederation, rather than set by statute. However, since the unionization rate is over 90% and the basic parameters are set through overall framework agreements (applying to all workplaces covered by the confederations, not separate company-by-company negotiations), these negotiated agreements de-facto set the conditions at almost all workplaces.
The Danish switch in 1992 from 40-hour to 37-hour weeks, for example, was entirely through union negotiations, not done by legislation.
Yes, the same is true up here.
On the other hand, you can see these regulations as a collective bargaining between employees and business. Individual employees have no negotiating power against any corporation, but they all together can elect a government that will have an upper hand there, so it's just market behaviours.
And no, what you said about 20 hours work week doesn't work like that. I believe that many employers would be happy to pay only 20 effective hours a week for a software engineers, but sorry, my workday consist of some time needed to concentrate, get in the flow, release some stress, let the brain work in the hammock time, and you also need to pay for this, since you won't get these effective 20 hours a week without these other 20 hours. It just doesn't work like that. Maybe I would agree to be paid only for 20 effective hours a week, but my rate in that case will easily go double.
Work hour limits are a reasonable solution in a democratic society where the majority doesn't want to be beholden to the work habits of the minority. Although, such a society should expect that some of those long-working folks will emigrate to countries like the U.S. where they can get outsized rewards for working longer than other people.
It's not that one company would have excess hours; all of them would. So, you would be free to find a new position. . . at another company with a 60 hour work week.
Look at the history of the labor movement. Those in power tended to abuse those that weren't; long hours, unsafe conditions, etc. Now, unless you work in a coal mine or foundry, we can count out unsafe work conditions.
That really leaves one other option. . . . . .
First off, it's not the same. There is no, or very low incentive for gun owners to commit crimes; especially when compared to the possible consequences.
If there are no protections for workers, though, there is every incentive for businesses to abuse their employees. History proves this statement true. That is, of course, unless I'm just not aware of a number of businesses who willingly limited their abuse before the labor movement.
And yes, the average startup and google and other tech sector businesses offer good perks. . . . That is not normal for a majority of careers, you know that, right?
And this, "Low skilled jobs? Who cares about them." Is either one of the most terrible statements I've read on HN, or one of the best trolls I've seen; boy, oh boy, did it get me worked up.
That is a terrible way to live. Do you understand how much of your life relies on low skilled jobs? Do you buy your food from a grocery store? Do you shop for clothes? Do you purchase anything that you don't personally create? At some point, low-skilled workers interacted with the goods you purchase.
The attitude that the only reason people work low-skill jobs is because they aren't smart or capable enough for anything else is very, very immature and incredibly ignorant. Specifically, your attitude that they apparently deserve to be treated worse and (in the context of our conversation) deserve to be abused by their employer because of their low-skilled jobs is awful, just simply awful. You should be ashamed.