4 ms·

in france there were the 35h weeks by law. result... everyone mocked the country and employers gave everyone a manager title which has no 35h restriction. good

by zobzu 10y ago

in france there were the 35h weeks by law. result... everyone mocked the country and employers gave everyone a manager title which has no 35h restriction. good luck

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
That experiment started in February 2000, a time where telework and work from home and other policies were much less common. Automation in the past 17 years have invalidated a lot of 'work' people do as well. The idea that 40-50 is some magic number is the more ridicouls claim imo. If anything, progress, technology, and automation should naturally drive down hours needed per week. No one at my job does nearly the same amount of work we did 10-15 years ago. Our Fridays are all 'work from home' which is code for 'maybe check your email or finish up something.' Our work world is only changing. Rolling with the changes makes sense to me and 35 hour or 4 day work-weeks seem like the a rational change. We should be benefiting from automation, not punished by it by pretending to be busy or working at much slower paces in fear of layoffs. Also French experiemnt only lasted until 2004, when reforms were put in to raise the maximum amount of work allowable per month. I think its disingenuous to say that it 'failed.' It had a short 4 year run almost two decades ago. The world of 2017 is very different from the world of 2000-2004.
- minimuffins 10y ago
  > We should be benefiting from automation, not punished by it That's such a great point. It's a signal that something is wrong if automating tedious work away creates more misery instead of less.
  - bmmayer1 10y ago
    Getting paid to do a job = 'misery' now, apparently. Maybe we should all go back to working in the fields from sunrise to sunset and avoid all this 'tedious work' for regular pay, benefits, vacation time, lunch breaks and closing bells.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      If automation was creating 40-hour/week jobs with benefits, I think people would be pretty happy with it. Instead it's polarizing the labor market into underemployed service workers and overemployed professionals.
    - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      Children working in factories losing fingers every month got paid too. I think the idea that we've now, in 2017, reached perfection in employment is ridiculous. I also think "go do farmwork if your job sucks" is dismissive and below the standards of HN discussions. There's always something worse, that doesn't mean we shouldn't ever complain.
      - laughfactory 10y ago
        I agree. I have a job I love (after numerous jobs which sucked), but I'd still vote for less working hours/days so I could actually, you know, LIVE: spend time with family and friends, enjoy nature, have hobbies, etc. The way I see it half the week should be for work, and half for life. So we should all work Monday through Wednesday, and half a day on Thursday.
    - minimuffins 10y ago
      No one here is making a "back to nature" argument.
    - Apocryphon 10y ago
      Peasants don't get emails after sunset and their vacation time were entire seasons off between harvest and seeding.
      - bmmayer1 10y ago
        Sounds great to be a peasant. Wonder why so many peasants try so hard not to be one.[1] [1]https://www.ft.com/content/44096ed2-eeb0-11e4-a5cd-00144feab7de https://www.ft.com/content/44096ed2-eeb0-11e4-a5cd-00144feab...
- stuaxo 10y ago
  Up until the great depression this was taken for granted. There was even a "share the work" movement, something we could probably do with now.
david-given 10y ago
Is that 35h with lunch, or without lunch? Different countries measure it differently. e.g. I believe my contract says I have a 35h work week, but that doesn't include an hour a day for a lunch break. But I believe the US measurement does include the lunchbreak, which makes my 35h work week the same as the US 40h work week.
- s5fs 10y ago
  State law is what determines when and how breaks are to be taken. In most states, there is no law that requires an employer to give their employee breaks, let alone pay for them. In my experience, I've had mostly unpaid break times while an hourly employee. So it's common to earn 8 hours pay working 8-5, with two 15 minute "cigarette" breaks and a 30 minute lunch break.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Typically a 35 hour workweek is 7 hour days with up to an hour of unpaid lunch.
barnacs 10y ago
Don't rely on laws to fix this. Simply don't sign employment contracts that don't work for you. I think a lot of the HN crowd can afford that.
- mnsc 10y ago
  This will guarantee that a change won't happen. I think a whole lot more of the HN crowd and the greater crowd won't demand less hour when "everyone else" is doing "normal" hours, even if they might "afford" it. I think you underestimate the power of wanting to be normal. If enough special snowflake people would demand 6 hour work week that might become the new normal. But in my experience these demanding flake people seem to on the contrary be very confident that they can do 60 hr work weeks and be 10x productive so the demand is rather astronomical pay rather than fewer hours. Which is why currently the "normal" working hours instead seem to be increasing. But if you believe in free will. This is correct answer, because everybody get to choose to work 60 hrs and no laws should interfere with that. No matter how much research says that this is not a sustainable way of life.

by zobzu 10y ago

in france there were the 35h weeks by law. result... everyone mocked the country and employers gave everyone a manager title which has no 35h restriction. good luck

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

That experiment started in February 2000, a time where telework and work from home and other policies were much less common. Automation in the past 17 years have invalidated a lot of 'work' people do as well. The idea that 40-50 is some magic number is the more ridicouls claim imo. If anything, progress, technology, and automation should naturally drive down hours needed per week. No one at my job does nearly the same amount of work we did 10-15 years ago. Our Fridays are all 'work from home' which is code for 'maybe check your email or finish up something.' Our work world is only changing. Rolling with the changes makes sense to me and 35 hour or 4 day work-weeks seem like the a rational change. We should be benefiting from automation, not punished by it by pretending to be busy or working at much slower paces in fear of layoffs. Also French experiemnt only lasted until 2004, when reforms were put in to raise the maximum amount of work allowable per month. I think its disingenuous to say that it 'failed.' It had a short 4 year run almost two decades ago. The world of 2017 is very different from the world of 2000-2004.

minimuffins 10y ago
> We should be benefiting from automation, not punished by it That's such a great point. It's a signal that something is wrong if automating tedious work away creates more misery instead of less.
- bmmayer1 10y ago
  Getting paid to do a job = 'misery' now, apparently. Maybe we should all go back to working in the fields from sunrise to sunset and avoid all this 'tedious work' for regular pay, benefits, vacation time, lunch breaks and closing bells.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    If automation was creating 40-hour/week jobs with benefits, I think people would be pretty happy with it. Instead it's polarizing the labor market into underemployed service workers and overemployed professionals.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    Children working in factories losing fingers every month got paid too. I think the idea that we've now, in 2017, reached perfection in employment is ridiculous. I also think "go do farmwork if your job sucks" is dismissive and below the standards of HN discussions. There's always something worse, that doesn't mean we shouldn't ever complain.
    - laughfactory 10y ago
      I agree. I have a job I love (after numerous jobs which sucked), but I'd still vote for less working hours/days so I could actually, you know, LIVE: spend time with family and friends, enjoy nature, have hobbies, etc. The way I see it half the week should be for work, and half for life. So we should all work Monday through Wednesday, and half a day on Thursday.
  - minimuffins 10y ago
    No one here is making a "back to nature" argument.
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    Peasants don't get emails after sunset and their vacation time were entire seasons off between harvest and seeding.
    - bmmayer1 10y ago
      Sounds great to be a peasant. Wonder why so many peasants try so hard not to be one.[1] [1]https://www.ft.com/content/44096ed2-eeb0-11e4-a5cd-00144feab7de https://www.ft.com/content/44096ed2-eeb0-11e4-a5cd-00144feab...
stuaxo 10y ago
Up until the great depression this was taken for granted. There was even a "share the work" movement, something we could probably do with now.

david-given 10y ago

Is that 35h with lunch, or without lunch? Different countries measure it differently. e.g. I believe my contract says I have a 35h work week, but that doesn't include an hour a day for a lunch break. But I believe the US measurement does include the lunchbreak, which makes my 35h work week the same as the US 40h work week.

s5fs 10y ago
State law is what determines when and how breaks are to be taken. In most states, there is no law that requires an employer to give their employee breaks, let alone pay for them. In my experience, I've had mostly unpaid break times while an hourly employee. So it's common to earn 8 hours pay working 8-5, with two 15 minute "cigarette" breaks and a 30 minute lunch break.
Spooky23 10y ago
Typically a 35 hour workweek is 7 hour days with up to an hour of unpaid lunch.

barnacs 10y ago

Don't rely on laws to fix this. Simply don't sign employment contracts that don't work for you. I think a lot of the HN crowd can afford that.

mnsc 10y ago
This will guarantee that a change won't happen. I think a whole lot more of the HN crowd and the greater crowd won't demand less hour when "everyone else" is doing "normal" hours, even if they might "afford" it. I think you underestimate the power of wanting to be normal. If enough special snowflake people would demand 6 hour work week that might become the new normal. But in my experience these demanding flake people seem to on the contrary be very confident that they can do 60 hr work weeks and be 10x productive so the demand is rather astronomical pay rather than fewer hours. Which is why currently the "normal" working hours instead seem to be increasing. But if you believe in free will. This is correct answer, because everybody get to choose to work 60 hrs and no laws should interfere with that. No matter how much research says that this is not a sustainable way of life.