The Case for the Four Day Work Week
admin posted in politics & culture, technologies on January 30th, 2009
- a sacrifice we can easily make.
Listening to NPR today ask a pundit about the proposed shut-down of Saturday mail service, I went through the usual 3 steps of techno-guy reaction.
First I sneered at snail mail. Second, I questioned the value of Saturday mail and mail delivery in general. Third I thought of one entity that would be hurt, the biggest single user of the US Mail, Netflix.
But then it hit me: ending Saturday mail delivery will save one sixth of the greenhouse gases and nasty pollution and fuel use and depreciation caused by that huge fleet of mail trucks. It might also have a tiny, but measurable effect on traffic, which would also save a little pollution and fuel. Plus all those workers won’t be commuting, and those long-haul trucks won’t be delivering to the distribution centers.
Then I thought: what if all non-retail non-essential business shut down on Saturday, wouldn’t that have the same positive result, only much larger?
Last I realized that the very best way to do this is just have a voluntary 4 day work week. Sure, some large segment of the economy can’t do this, but I bet the majority of firms could. We could run the stock exchanges 4 days, the government offices 4 days, office workers could go 4 days. It doesn’t need to be enacted into law, that’s too rigid and inefficient. But here’s a chance to ask for a nationwide sacrifice that might actually have personal benefits, like more time with children, more time to help others, more time to learn new skills. More time for relaxing would itself pay dividends. Employers would save money on energy, at least.
Victory gardens and war bonds may come later in this down cycle, but for now, I think a four-day work week would be a good idea.
here are three of thousands of sites that have also suggested it:
MotherJones on a 4 day school plan
Utah tries it
a blog discusses the ramifications
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February 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Whoa! You’re asking me, an American, to sacrifice the 24/7/365 flexibility — i.e. FREEDOM — for which our forebears and other bears fought and died? Sacrilege! Mon dieu! What if I needed chicken parts….a fan belt…a 12-pack?
Still, you do have a point. Or two. In fact, when I was but a starry eyed lad, I blithely assumed that by now we WOULD have REDUCED our hours spent in workaday toil. Yeah.
Here in this corner of the upper northeast, most of the local government offices went to a four-day week last summer, back before fuel prices fell off a cliff. (OK, OK, rolled down a hill.) I don’t see any sign of that changing, now that all have become accustomed to a three-day weekend. Maybe we should just all work for the gummint….
Getting schools down to four days would generate major savings and environmental benefits. But, of course, this would only be possible if all employers did the same, and on the same days; otherwise, parents might have to pay for their OWN child-care. There’s also the issue that our students don’t seem to be excelling on a five-day schedule, and likely wouldn’t do any better on four. Unless, perhaps, we went to a 12-month school year?
As to the USPS, I think they’re actually thinking about cutting a Tuesday, rather than a Saturday; the idea being to eliminate the slow-mail day. Wonder how that would work out for businesses…especially if FedEx, DHL, UPS and the rest did the same (pretty sure I know how it would work out for the USPS if they didn’t). The distribution and bulk-mail facilities are currently 24/7 operations, and I doubt that would change, although perhaps they could go to 24/6. Oh no, wait, they’re union.
All in all, an interesting and quite possibly beneficial concept, but one with at least a few major stumbling blocks, possibly knee-breakers. And, in harsh point of fact, all this may be taking care of itself without any effort on our part: As companies fold and people lose their jobs, both roadway congestion and polution indices should already be showing signs of improvement.