Comments on: Britain needs a 21 hour working week

By: SLK

SLK — Tue, 11 May 2010 09:10:14 +0000

I think this is a cause worth campaigning for. What does the rest of the EU say about this matter? I believe that 21hours could be the basic working week as opposed to the massive 40hours (or a lot more). It is too much and cannot be sustained for a lifetime. People are not machines.

However, I think this really depends upon the sector. In manufacturing (blue collar jobs) 21 hours a week would not sustain the company or the worker. As it is, people all over the world in office (or white collar jobs) enjoy greater flexibility in work and the labour process – though some would say that office work brings its own sort of dissatisfaction.

In this case there has to be benefits (should such a decrease in the hours of a working week occur) for people in production.

Ceridian – The Future of Work

The moral basis for 21hours a week is based on the idea (I believe) that if living standards are improved (for example – time for leisure, health, good food, family etc.) that people will get by with less money. There may be some middle way between the existing system and an imposed 21 hour working week. Germany would entertain this idea at least as their culture is very family orientated (for instance – they do not open their shops on a Sunday so people who work in the retail sector do not have to work on this day). Here in Britain, on the other hand, this would never wash. We work the most hours in Europe.

Blame Thatcher and Reagan.

Seriously though, the 21 hour week is thought of as a measure to improve productivity overall and reduce levels of national unemployment with the effect of alleviating the social defecit of this. On an individual level, 21 hours may or may not be enough as it is almost certain that wages/salary will not increase if the working week is downsized.

If this were to be brought in -the worst part would be the initial period when people readjust to having less wages but more spare time. The implications of 21hours a week of work for all would be huge and extensive.

People live to work and I think this attitude can be traced back to, what Max Weber called ‘The Protestant work ethic’. This label is more relevant to the times in which this socioligist deemed it a phenomenon of industrial society (19th Century). But the idea of a ‘work ethic’ or a moral obligation to work oneself into the ground (in effect) with excessive hours of gainful employment dominates the culture of work.

I work around 20hours a week and earn enough to get by. I like to have time to think. I have always been told that ‘time to think’ is a dangerous thing. I think this goes hand in hand with the notion that ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’.

By: Unions and environmentalism – uneasy bedfellows? | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:55:11 +0000

[...] Second is the call for a 21 hour working week made by NEF authors in 21 hours and summarised here at Left Foot Forwards. [...]

By: Anna Coote

Anna Coote — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:16:24 +0000

Thanks for all the comments and a good debate. It is a pity some of you get so angry but perhaps that is due to stress arising from overwork, unemployment or anxieties related to earnings, consumption and status. If you read nef’s report, “21 Hours”, you will see that our proposal for moving to a much shorter working week is designed to address all of these problems – and more! As we argue, the assumption that the economy should keep on growing simply isn’t feasible, for social, economic and environmental reasons.
Tom Walker sent me this observation from JK Galbraith (1958), which underlines my point that there is no such thing as a new idea, only good ideas that deserve a fresh look. “If we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is plausible to seek to increase the supply, to decrease the waste, to make better use of the stocks that are available, and to develop substitutes. But what of the appetite itself? Surely this is the ultimate source of the problem. If it continues its geometric course, will it not one day have to be restrained? Yet in the literature of the resource problem this is the forbidden question. Over it hangs a nearly total silence. It is as though, in the discussion of the chance for avoiding automobile accidents, we agree not to make any mention of speed!”
And for those who worry about an over-bearing state, it is worth remembering that, among much else, the state (with the unions) brought us our weekends, paid holidays and parental leave.

By: Joe Mulhall

Joe Mulhall — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:05:04 +0000

It is progressive policy ideas such as this that could really make a difference at the next election if Labour where bold enough adopt them. It might also put pay to the rise of the far right in economically deprived areas. It could provide the much needed jobs for people who currently feel abandoned. On that note, not sure if anyone else on here got today’s email from the Hope not Hate campaign regarding a new publication. I just donated and would encourage others to do so as well. Unison are doubling every donation!!!

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/DoubleDonation

By: David Ellis

David Ellis — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:01:18 +0000

Philip Walker: `It’s called progress’.

But what a crooked path that progress takes eh Philip? Capitalism relies on growth to compensate for mass unemployment. That compensating factor just disappeared with functioning banks.

By: David Ellis

David Ellis — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:58:35 +0000

Tim: in that case I expect you’ll have no objection to the further reduction of the working week to 21 hours straight away so that men and women can look after their own children, elderly and communities.

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:06:48 +0000

“Under capitalism rising productivity is always met with job cuts rather than wage increases or cuts in the length of the working week.”

Dunno which planet’s version of capitalism you’ve been studying mate but it sure as hell ain’t this one’s.

We’ve had more or less capitalism in the UK since its first bat squeaks around 1750. Since then real wages (that means after we’ve dealt with inflation) have risen by a factor of around 10. The working week has around halved. The number of jobs has risen from perhaps 4 million or so to around 30 million.

So, capitalism has provided more jobs at higher wages for less hours worked. Not sure it’s possible to have a more emphatic rejection of your wibbles really.

By: NR

NR — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:53:41 +0000

Don Quixote: that, if anything, is the weakest part of the argument. Business works to push the cultural norm of working life towards efficiency and productivity, only restrained by legislation and whatever the pool qualified labour is willing to put up with.

If you want to make 21hrs a week the norm you would have to coerce business into such an inefficient employment practice. Should you manage to get that kind of legislation passed (and frankly I wouldn’t get your hopes up with the current crop of politicians), business will either pack up and leave (if they can get the work done more cheaply by tapping a less qualified labour pool), or they’ll stay put and move to 21 hours. But they’ll move so quickly there won’t be anything resembling choice for the employees. About the same amount of choice as we have now, in fact.

By: Tim Rose

Tim Rose — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:09:53 +0000

Bring it on! Great idea. When I began my working life (in the late 1960s would you believe) it was taken for granted we were about to begin an age of increased leisure. Like most conventional wisdoms, this proved utterly wrong and the opposite happened. Keep up the good work!

By: Philip Walker

Philip Walker — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:59:57 +0000

David Ellis: If you were right, then thousands of years of human development would have resulted in the vast majority of us being unemployed. Instead, thousands of years of human development has gone from us making flint axes to making iPods. The labour freed up by rising productivity makes its way — eventually! — into other industries. Thus, you need to look at the economy as a whole, and there you see that unemployment does not rise significantly, but rather rising productivity increases our overall output and leisure.

It’s called ‘progress’.