jawfish

The Case for the Four Day Work Weekcomment
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