Forum Post: The 4-Hour Workday
Posted 10 years ago on Feb. 8, 2014, 3:58 p.m. EST by TGN
(48)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
We know that wages have remained relatively unchanged since 1978 for most of us. If wages had climbed with corresponding increases in productivity for the past 36 years, then what justification for an involuntary 40+ hour work week? A fair increase in wages would make a 4-Hour workday possible and open all kinds of new possibilities for workers. The wage issue still remains one of the key issues to be resolved.
According to this Sweden is planning to try out a 6 hour workday for some of its public sector employees.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-to-trial-sixhour-public-sector-workday-9248009.html
This article touts the benefits of a 35 hour work week:
http://ayearofproductivity.com/number-of-hours-work-a-week-to-be-the-most-productive-35/
The reason people have to work so much is products and rent keep rising why aren't they coming down ? We have less buying power than any generation before us ...the landlording business is the most profitable in the nation and when people can't afford prices instead of lowering them the fed steps in to subsidize them with section 8 at "market rate." Well if landlord corporations are price setting, market rate is whatever they want it to be, until people working full time not on section 8 - have to work 3 jobs to live someplace...and struggle to meet the ever rising product costs as the wealthy continue to get wealthy by collecting a check each month that has nothing to do with hard work or ingenuity ...the working class is being pillaged, we are pulling the carriage ... i ask who is poorer? People being subsidized to live?...or a couple working 3 jobs each to subsidize those people....and meet price set costs of fat cat landlords...time is freedom = a person working part time being subsidized, has more freedom and I would argue more buying power than said working class, caught between two entitled classes working 6 jobs between them...We need to instead boycott products like cars which are price set nation wide, and push to stop the mechanisms that make housing a business while taxing land investors as though it were not. Instead subsidizing people to meet landlord's rising costs- let prices fall...same goes with food costs, clothing, utilities, telecom...EDUCATION- all of it!!!! Government is subsidizing with working class labor to keep monopolies flush, while making us all poorer in the long run, they will not let prices come down...if you work know someone out there is getting food and housing paid for causing prices not to fall, while you work 6 jobs to make ends meet: It's not being done to help the poor ....when they are sinking the economy in the process, eventually we will all be eating out of a garbage heap while the overclass dines on gold plated dishes = it's temporary so it won't appear that they are screwing us all...when the working class becomes poor no more subsidies ....noone will survive = welcome to third world America
I met a fella, slightly obese and narcissistic. I met him at a homeless shelter. After spending some time with him it became clear that all he wanted out of life was to avoid work and have other people worship him. It suddenly made sense when he decided to run for mayor. That was the solution for his personality type. I realized then that I had just met an actual politician. No wonder our system has become the way it is. If he only had the money, he would have succeeded. Scary thought.
I spent some time in a community with 20 hours work weeks. It was pretty cool. You never got sick of the work you did and always looked forward to giving it your best. You also had plenty of time around it for your own life, adventure, education and creativity.
Seems like a better solution than creating jobs just for the sake of creating jobs, which seems fluffy and overcomplicated. More jobs would be available if people weren't forced to work so much for so little. Some of us would be greedy though and continue to fill all of our time racking up money, but money being the ultimate power is a problem too. Weirdness.
sad hour
http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000
An argument for the 4-hour workday by the IWW.
fucking brilliant - and so obvious. and who says no to this - both business parties
When I was a teen, I had one of the coolest jobs, as a mid size market radio announcer, for $10 an hour (non union). Christmas eve and New Years was $20 ph. After becoming a mom and getting practical jobs, I noticed if I made at least $10 an hour I could function, pay rent, feed kids etc. But nothing else. This was in the 90s and 15 years later. Now my son is working in maintenance/renovation and makes -- yup, $10 an hour. Mind you, the people are mostly nice, less psychological strain than at other jobs, but 30 years later you'd think the standards would have gone up. In New York you can't find a room affordable for that wage unless it's a slummy gross one. Forget savings or just living.
Gotta create a main street stock market that is completely autonomous from Wall Street, gotta have debt suspension rights so consumer debt does not automatically rise when a person loses income through no fault of their own.
www.debtsuspensionrights.blogspot.com www.debtneutralitypetition.com
Union YES!
I get an ad telling me unions support Alvera's in congress
possibly because only people in unions make enough money to afford it
You should have ordered the pastrami.
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the work force doubled when women went to work
Moot argument...we live in 2014 and women are here deal with it...we still get paid less than men I will give you a for instance ...construction workers and car salesmen get paid to take frequent scheduled hiatus when work slows they schedule their unemployment like a vacation they do this every 6 months ...the secretary plugs away at her menial wage but her tax dollars allow men their frequent breaks from their good paying jobs...when they come back they bitch at us for being in the work force and harass us for not smiling enough...well see we never get wages that they do and we don't get 6 months off to relax sometimes we're working 2 jobs always wondered why there is no secretary union amazing that someone gets paid 70000 a year to remove trash and yet they can't seem to justify a secretary as worthy of earning more than slightly above minimum wage?
Union YES!
http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2014/02/04/bls-numbers-reveal-unionization-cuts-the-gender-pay-gap-in-half-for-women/
Waitresses need unions...in this predominantly female field how many men work for free and then try to get paid by charming the clientele with their kind subservience all while looking cute and flirty enough to try to get the shifts with customers and not have the kitchen jerks purposely screw up the orders on you and then even after all of that some people still just won't tip...it's completely archaic!!!The restauraunt makes about 70.00 per client and the waitress gets 10...if she is lucky when people realiz e they overspent on drinks they usually give her the deduction to get back their difference
They pay the waiters more?
Yep, they need a union.
Then there's cashiers.
Tellers.
My credit union recently joined the UAW, they are satisfied.
Actually? Anybody working for an hourly wage needs a union..
In the UAW, if you work in the same classification, you get paid the same amount.
Union YES!
Women were already working. Women have always worked.
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Please. That's just bickering for bickering's sake. You know fewer women per capita worked in the past.
The statement she responded to was ambiguous.
It holds little meaning in fact.
On the other hand.
This is a true statement.
"Women have always worked."
Where's the bickering?
Looks to me, more like you're trying to incite some.
Ya, this never happened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls
Put your fucking crack pipe down.
You just bicker for the sake of bickering. You aren't interested in making Occupy better, just worse. Jart talked about you in this video of hers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCfjLfitMOM
And you come here to incite bickering, for what reason?
Who built your ivory tower?
PS. I can't recaLL GF EVER promoting Harry Reid.
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Nope. I was correcting. ;) You work for a PR firm. A PR firm that campaigned for a Libertarian. You are tied to a libertopian think tank.