Work Reform

I work a 4x10 workweek right now. Huge improvement on my quality of life. I use my free weekday to handle chores and shopping and appointments, then actually spend my weekend with my family. I've been doing this for about 3 years.

I know I'll lose this someday. Eventually somebody will use it against me. That's the day I'll start entertaining new opportunities.

🥳

Now let's go for 12 hour tit for tat work weeks!

Nú skulum við fara í 12 tíma vinnuvikur þar sem við skiptum á milli!

Yes, but what about the suffering?

Don't worry. Us Americans will entirely ignore that other 1st world nations have a better quality of life and we'll continue to allow our abusers to abuse us more.

There were fears of a drop in productivity, increased costs for businesses and difficulties in adapting to maintain service levels. However, the Icelandic experience has swept these fears under the carpet.

I don’t think that metaphor means what they think it means.

I would love that. Just one more day, one more day a week to do my own activities. That would help so much with all the anxieties.

This is where unions really dropped the ball. I feel in the eighties and even back in the seventies they were pushing for overtime over increased staffing and thus membership plus not going for lower work week. Its crazy that the work week increased over the last 50 years (well in the us).

How does a 36-hour workweek work out to a four-day workweek?

Here in Norway everyone in sneezing distance of a union deal has a five-day workweek at 7.5 hours a day, for 37.5 hours in total. (The law says six days at 8 hours; the half-hour difference is in practice lunch, which is your own time with a union deal and the boss' time without. I think we could go down to 7h a day and get an hour of lunch like our neighbours.)

The Icelandic experiment began in 2015 with a pilot phase involving around 2,500 employees, or just over 1% of the country’s working population. Following the resounding success of this initiative, with 86% of the employees involved expressing their support, the project was made official in 2019 . Today, almost 90% of Icelandic workers benefit from a reduced working week of 36 hours, compared with 40 hours previously, with no loss of pay. Initial concerns about the four-day week were widespread, both in Iceland and elsewhere in the world. There were fears of a drop in productivity, increased costs for businesses and difficulties in adapting to maintain service levels. However, the Icelandic experience has swept these fears under the carpet.

The Icelandic experiment began in 2015 with a pilot phase involving around 2,500 employees, or just over 1% of the country’s working population. Following the resounding success of this initiative, with 86% of the employees involved expressing their support, the project was made official in 2019 . Today, almost 90% of Icelandic workers benefit from a reduced working week of 36 hours, compared with 40 hours previously, with no loss of pay. Initial concerns about the four-day week were widespread, both in Iceland and elsewhere in the world. There were fears of a drop in productivity, increased costs for businesses and difficulties in adapting to maintain service levels. However, the Icelandic experience has swept these fears under the carpet.