Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance | Hacker News Reader

Gothenburg's six-hour work day experiment hangs in the balance

thelocal.se

29 pointsptaipale18 comments

"Deputy Mayor and Moderate party spokesperson Maria Ryden, who is one of the politicians behind the motion told The Local she felt it was "unfair" to continue the project, because it was not sustainable in the long term.

"We might as well stop now," she argued."

This is nuts, don't they understand the point of a test?

I read it: outcome of the test has been seen already, and continuing it is just unfair to others.

(The outcome being that yes, people who can work shorter hours for same salary are of course happier, but the benefits do not outweigh the higher employment costs.)

It's not just about cost vs. happiness. Shorter workdays reduce mistakes and having more data is going to help show long term trends that are not necessarily obvious.

I suspect work type is going to play a huge role in optimum work day length with 8 really being more about factory's for high value items vs. office work vs. Surgeons.

Well, to be clear, there is disagreement on whether the benefits outweigh the higher employment costs. Seems this is really an attempt to avoid having to deal with a broader discussion about how to make these benefits available to everyone.

I read it: handwringing over it being "unfair" that some people in a test group are happier than their peers, and an ideological opposition to entertaining the thought of extending this happiness any further.

Since there is a very real cost increase in arranging care with six hour workday instead of ~8 hours -- you need to hire more people to do the work -- this is not just about ideological opposition; it's about economics, its about efficiency of the public sector.

It can also be interpreted as we've tried, the data we collected shows us that its unsustainable and did not provide sufficient improvements to counter the downsides and we see no point of continuing.

Not every trial has to run it's full course some times you can have enough information before that.

That's not really what the article says though. It's being wrapped up because: "A motion from the opposition centre-right Moderate party is calling for the pilot project to be wrapped up prematurely."

The feeling I'm getting from this article is that the positions of both sides are being smudged out of recognizability. There's a trace of a sensible argument being made on both side, but they're both completely unsupported in that article. Pending further sources, the only conclusion I can come to from this article is "completely insufficient information".

The idea of a six hour workday is an extremely politically divisive issue in Sweden. It's even controversial _within_ the Swedish left. The Moderate party in Gothenburg isn't being driven by a lack of understanding but by ideology (the Moderate party being the largest conservative party in Sweden).

Can you help us understand more about the test? The benefits seemed great, but obviously the cost was subsidized by the government. Did they feel that a shift to 6-hour workdays would be fully subsidized by the government, and hence the test shows it's unworkable? Or did they think it would be funded by employers, and were willing to saddle them with the costs? I'd be interested in more background.

There is no general test. A home for the elderly in Gothenburg with about 70 employees is trailing shortening working hours. It's done as a test to see how it affects productivity, working environment etc, and meant to serve as basis for future political decisions.

In Swedish: http://arbetet.se/2015/08/03/112559/

There's also a few other tests around Swedn but overall I guess way less than 1k people.

The moderate party is the most Conservative party in Sweden. Think privatisation, reducing employee rights, lower taxes. It isn't exactly surprising they are opposed to this.

Gothenburg is traditionally a social democrat city (the biggest left wing party).

"...a second high-profile trial in Gothenburg, at a surgery unit at Sahlgrenska University hospital, also recently reported increased productivity and a reduction in sick leave, although labour costs have gone up there too."

The issue in both cases is, understandably, labor costs. But couldn't the data be interpreted as indicating that labor cost savings are realized by lowering quality of care?

I mean employee health and well-being may not be the concern of the organization but clearly they could be connected directly to the bottom line. Burning through employees entails not-insignificant costs even in industries composed primarily of un-/low-skilled labor, does it not?

I'm glad they actually tried this. I'm still pretty sure 6 hour workdays make sense - but not in every profession.

This trial is in nursing, I think it makes sense in this role. I work in a hospital and many nurses are on 12 hour shifts. Knowing many of them, after 2 or 3 days of 12 hour shifts, they go home and need a day or two just to recover. Shorter shifts would definitely improve this.

However, the biggest issue is labour and associated costs. If you did 6 hour shifts, you would like need more staff and that means more pension costs, more benefit costs etc. But I guess this is why they are running the trial.

> Knowing many of them, after 2 or 3 days of 12 hour shifts, they go home and need a day or two just to recover. Shorter shifts would definitely improve this.

Many shift work people like the ability to do their full work week in 3.5 days, and have a 3.5 day weekend.

I had a similar schedule when doing restaurant work: 2 - 16 hour days followed by an early 8, with the next 4 days off. It's a lot more efficient than 5 - 8 hour days.

The nurses might like it but management might not. Long shifts would likely, as the article points out, result in more sick time. Then you are paying for the staff's sick time and also overtime for the person that is covering. In addition, long 12-16 shifts likely result in higher work place accidents and workers compensation claims.

A very complex situation obviously.

What I gather from the article is that one of the parties, more on the right, called for ending the experiment. Parties call for things all the time.

I would assume this is just a public outcoming: to stop the trial would probably need a similar vote from the same council of people who voted to start the trial.

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