The 40 hour work week conspiracy

I think it is a complete missconception that companies are moving offshore just to save on labour cost.....
Of course that is a benifit but not the objective.

Lets take China, cheap labour for sure and still is...

BUT, it is also now (thanks to jobs created) one of the biggest markets!!!!

The big Corps are just increasing their CONSUMER BASE!!!!

Smart move I must say. Lets face it, western countries are living beyond their means using credit....

Big Corps are bringing vast amounts of people into the consumer market..

BRILLIANT I say....

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
OP here is a group pushing for this same concept brought to you by NEF think-tank. They have been doing research in this area. Check out their facts sheet.

neweconomics.org...

I'll take a closer look at this

Thanks for finding it.

Originally posted by ~Lucidity

A 20-hour work week would be nice. Everyone still employed could split their job with an unemployed person (or in some case even two unemployed people)!

There are salaried employees in the U.S. who now work 1.5 to 2 jobs and 55-65 hours a week to make up the slack of the "offshored" and "laid off."

A 20-hour work week? Dream on. Then again, real reform always starts with a dream...

It's kind of a revolutionary idea isn't it.

"WORK 20 HOURS A WEEK AND PAY ZERO TAXES"

I would say that there are many unemployed people who be grateful to be able to work 20 hours a week, while many who are working 60 hours a week would breath a sigh of relief at being able to share the load.

I have met many unemployed people and many that are losing or walking away from thier homes. It's not good. If you just drive around and look at the surface of things everything looks fine, but underneath it's bad.

They are mad, desperate, afraid and losing hope. I can't say that I blame them.

It's really, really bad.

It's worse than you think.

I listen to MSNBC, C-Span, BBC, NPR and monitor various other print and non-print reporting on and offline and they (Our rulers) are so completley out of touch with reality it's not even funny. The only ones making money are the traders who are trading bailout money.

Our economy is completely fuc*ed.

We need a reboot. And we need it fast.


[edit on 5-6-2010 by Freedom or Death]

Originally posted by Freedom or Death

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
OP here is a group pushing for this same concept brought to you by NEF think-tank. They have been doing research in this area. Check out their facts sheet.

neweconomics.org...

I'll take a closer look at this

Thanks for finding it.

I'll be honest, they mention some great concepts...but they don't want any structural change to the monetary system. They want carbon taxes and the like. I think to have a truly fair 20 hour work week...it needs to benefit all people rich and poor. The only thing I can think of would be a restructuring of industries that support life operate as not for profit. Companies selling life's necessities should never become for profit as it raises the cost of everything else.

I would just like to go back to 40hrs!

I regularly do 50 or 60hrs. Over last xmas I pulled a 76hr week. The week before last I did 68hrs and this week I was sick. What a surprise. When I called in sick it was like I shot the Queen.

At least I get paid overtime.

Originally posted by virgom129

People need to unite against the "money men", Rothchilds etc..

This is what we have now.

Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor.

People need to get mad and they need to unite to crush Capitalism.

We need Socialism for the poor and Capitalism for the rich.

40+ hour work weeks are pointless and ridiculous considering our technology level.

The entire point of human advancement is to make our lives less difficult and the work less time consuming.

It's time we finally got rid of the mentality that we need to spend the beginning and end of our lives in institutions, and in between working nonstop with just enough time set aside for sleeping and eating. Freedom?



[edit on 5-6-2010 by Looking_Glass]

I've been to Europe a few times with my boyfriend and he would get so mad when we would go to a shop and there would be a sign hanging on the door..."On Holiday, be back in a few weeks."....I LOVED THOSE SIGNS!!!!! My God, the freedom in that.

Whoever came up with this idea of working 40 hours a week, giving YOUR LIfE AWAY to a f'ing corporation that doesn't give a damn what you give to them. They just take....and take....and take. And they did not earn it. We earn it for them.

People WAKE UP! We work 5 months out of the year for our MASTERS.
OUR SYSTEM IS BROKEN...they are stealing from us!! But more importantly, they are STEALING FROM OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.
They have enslaved us ALL. And we sit here on this #ng fence as if it had nothing to do with our lives.

I like the idea of people working a 20hr week, personally I work 25hrs by chioce because of a good wage.

I could earn far more by working a full 36 with my employer but I like the time with family and persuing my own things. When I first dropped my hours people asked me how can you afford it surley you will have less money and they where right but my responce was two fold 1. how much is time with your family worth to you? 2.live within your means

sure number 2 means I can't buy a lot of stuff but all my bills get paid and theres a little left over for the odd family day out and we save for a holiday each year.

By working 25hours I have managed to see my kids learn to walk talk and enjoy the extra time with them and thats priceless to me, working say 40hrs or more for money that can't buy time with the kids seems silly to me.

I also think the biggest problem facing the 20hr week is the service industry, I work for a UK telecoms company and we produce nothing so theres no way for productivity to double so I can't see that being a feisable approch and seeing as the UK has quickly become a service and call centre country it would need a different approach.

I have an idea on that thought, If people worked less hours they would be happer meaning you get more work out of them I still doubt it will be double but a happy worker is a productive worker.

I think that the 40 hour work week is awful. By the time people get home, no one has the energy to do anything.

It's not really living in my opinion. Its being stuck in a horrible place for most people.

So, let me see if I have this correct:
1) Cut hours in half.
2) Double salaries so employees take home as much as they used to.
3) Double employees so companies make as much product as they used to.
4) Prices for goods remains the same.

Explain how that works again? I mean, if the employer is doubling their "overhead" through doubling salaries, the money to cover those expenditures must come from somewhere so if prices remain the same where does the money come from?Well, okay, I suppose they may save some money on workers' compensation insurance and other benefits due to the reduced hours per employee but payroll costs would increase because higher salaries could potentially move people into different tax brackets- the change in hours by the government would likely include changes to overtime laws and tax codes, and more payroll checks to cut potentially including the cost of postage to mail checks to employees.

How would that affect those in service and construction industries?

Take myself, for example: 20 hours a week? That means I'd only work 2 days a week. Often, one "project" or "site" requires 3 days of work to complete and our company receives payment in a manner similar to "piecework": prices we can charge are negotiated in advance and we get paid according to how much and what type of work we do. Also, we often come across situations where something unanticipated reveals itself and causes delays to the work. We lose productivity if we don't have the same crew working a site from start through finish simply because different people do things slightly differently and you spend time trying to figure out what the other crew was doing and why. Additionally, almost all of the work we do is subject to "maintenance windows"; work is "service affecting" which means we have to take equipment offline and this occurs during the nighttime hours were the impact to the systems would be minimal.
If you're curious, I work installing and upgrading cellular communications facilities and although we have quality control standards and such in place, the actual "physical" work involved including cabling and such is very much open to creativity due primarilly to the fact that someone else installed the things that we are now reconfiguring and adapting to new technologies. Very little of our work is "cookie cutter" type and cannot be compared to buiding houses, cars, furniture, toys, or pretty much anything that can be blueprinted and mass produced including food preparation work as well.

And my final thoughts- I'd go crazy, as well as drive my family crazy too, if I was idle 5 days out of the week. The 40 hour week schedule works just fine for me and the nature of my work is served well by it. Fortunately, it's pretty hard to outsource this type of work so there's a bit of stability inherent in the work too.

20 hour work weeks would be awsome
if you wanted you could work two jobs in the same amount of time and afford all the things you want because you could make 2x as much
so if you needed a new car it would only take you 6 months and you could buy it with cash
imagine actually having some time to do the things you wanted to do

while there at it they could shut down the stock exchange permanently

I have often thought that a 32 hour work week (4 days on, 3 days off) would greatly improve productivity and lower stress levels.

5 days is too long to work without a break, especially when you factor in things like the longer, more stressful commutes that people have to endure.

2 days is not enough time to get non-work related things accomplished and still have time to enjoy life. That extra day would also allow a lot more travel to see relatives that live far enough away that a 2-day weekend is not sufficient. I personally have relatives in 3 different cities where I need at least 3 days off to visit them because of the length of time it takes to drive there and back. Needless to say I don't visit them very often.

I got laid off in November, and I haven't been this stress-free in years. I've begun to work for myself from home, and I really doubt that I will ever work for someone else ever again. I have had it with being a slave to other people's schedules and demands, for THEIR financial gain. I'd rather scrape by and live without the stress.

Of course, it helps that I stayed in my smallish house and didn't keep buying bigger and bigger houses and getting needless crap like boats and ATVs with a HELOC like the rest of the country during the housing bubble. I am right-side up in my house and I have next to no consumer debt.

who cares get back to work and stop moaning!!

sheesh

Originally posted by Freedom or Death

Originally posted by virgom129

People need to unite against the "money men", Rothchilds etc..

This is what we have now.

Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor.

People need to get mad and they need to unite to crush Capitalism.

We need Socialism for the poor and Capitalism for the rich.

Unite against the money men, yes, but nobody needs socialism. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Originally posted by Freedom or Death

Originally posted by AidanK

So would this mean a doubling of wages?

Yes wages would have to double, but prices would not increase because productivity would double.

Inflation would remain in check.

I just can't see employers doing this. Pay twice as much for half the work just doesn't make sense for the employer.

It would make sense to employers if they understood that thier profits would double because productivity would double.

Un co-operative employers could be forced to capitulate if they refused to see the logic in the argument.

[edit on 5-6-2010 by Freedom or Death]

Increased productivity rarely equals increased profits. If you are selling something only so many people want, can afford, need, can use, will become aware of...producing twice as many will just load you up with expensive inventory and a limitless supply of expensive stored goods. If you are a service provider, you will have twice as much productivity how? Explain how this would work in a restaurant, bar, grocery store, pharmacy, etc.

I am not really seeing how productivity doubles anyway but I am sure if I keep reading you will get to that. I just wanted to point out before I even bothered that all of this seems to be built upon the fantasy that increased productivity equals increased profits.

Pretty much every job I have ever had would go bankrupt by doubling productivity because there is no mechanism that would coincidentally double the customer need.

Okay, just reading thorugh the OPs original post again and subsequent posts, the 20 hour work week idea is stupid. You're basically wanting everyone in the country to work part-time and employ twice as many people. 20 hours a week is just plain lazy. I'm for shorter work weeks but come on, I don't expect everything for nothing.

All of your posts are spoken like a true socialist. I think what you'd really like is to not work at all and have the good life handed to you on a silver platter. At whose expense?

I'm really not going to get into this discussion, either, because you're clearly not living in the same reality as the rest of us.

Okay, just reading thorugh the OPs original post again and subsequent posts, the 20 hour work week idea is stupid. You're basically wanting everyone in the country to work part-time and employ twice as many people. 20 hours a week is just plain lazy. I'm for shorter work weeks but come on, I don't expect everything for nothing.

All of your posts are spoken like a true socialist. I think what you'd really like is to not work at all and have the good life handed to you on a silver platter. At whose expense?

I'm really not going to get into this discussion, either, because you're clearly not living in the same reality as the rest of us.

Real problem is the lack of flexibility in current system.
There are many unemployed people, and many employed people that work for too long. This is the root of the problem.

One solution I see is to let the employee bring a helper with him and share the money. Or have the jobs more goal oriented than time oriented, thus allowing the employee to regulate his work time himself. There are many jobs where this is feasible.

There are people that have to work for 60 hours a week or more (Foxconn..), while many unemployed have nothing to do.

Originally posted by AidanK

We have the technology to decrease the 40 hr work week to a 20 hour work week, without a theoretical loss in quality of life or income.

All it would take is a congressional act to enact such a scheme.

[edit on 4-6-2010 by Freedom or Death]

So would this mean a doubling of wages? I just can't see employers doing this. Pay twice as much for half the work just doesn't make sense for the employer. I would love it I could work just 20 hours per week for the same pay but it's just not going to happen. Nice thought ====

This concept is an Idea I realized that could benefit humanity and the economy! there would be no or almost no unemployment BUT there is another piece to the puzzle!

Its the COST of living, the cost of living has been artificially inflated to prevent people from working 20 hours a week and then spend some quality time to better themselves.

The KEY element to lower dramatically the cost of living is FREE ENERGY, 90% of the cost of good in the world is related to...OIL!!! get free energy and you lower the cost of good by 90% think about it! free transportation! free heating, free cooling, free light, free manufacturing, free production, free testing, the only cost would be labor!

There for if we get the free energy device = new civilization and better overall quality of life!, including the 5 -10-15-20 hours a week works schedule!