The way the post is worded right now seems to be phrased in a way that 3-day weekends are blindingly obvious, but if you look at the history of labour rights I dont see why anyone expects it to just happen without a massive amount of organising
The five-day work-week came about because Henry Ford declared it to be so in 1926, and wasn't made any sort of law until 1939.
Ultimately, the decision to move to four-day work weeks can only be made by CEOs or equivalents, and while some have, most haven't. At my previous company, the head of HR proposed it, the CTO agreed, and it went to the CEO, who said no. He didn't want the CTO org to have benefits the rest of the company didn't have, and didn't want to extend a four-day work week to all departments.
When they continue to have trouble filling open job positions because they aren't competing will in the market, perhaps he'll change his mind.
Not how it happened when going 6 to 5 days. People made it happen. And OP is one of them.
People (trade unionists) made eight-hour workdays happen, but Henry Ford made a five-day workday happen[0]. As I stated, most labor rights came about because of blood, sweat, and tears. Just... not that particular one, oddly enough.
The fact that Ford's five-day work weeks were made up of eight-hour days, for that you can think unions and the hard work of many people! But the shift from six days to five, not so much.
P.S. OP was probably not working age in 1926, as they would need to be to have made the shift happen originally.
0. https://www.truthorfiction.com/henry-ford-invented-the-5-day...
And it probably goes without saying that most people would not be OK with a pay cut--which might have to actually be more than 20% given the cost of benefits is fairly fixed.
On paper, it may have seemed like the right move, but it was huge demoralizing to the engineering org to be told, essentially: we will neither pay enough to be competitive, nor offer any other compensatory advantages, primarily in deference to this other department that we do pay well.
The morale question was apparently only considered in one direction.
Seems like all anti-work propaganda (ie: r/antiwork) to me, there's no meat. You could turn this post into an inductive proof saying it is so obvious that having X-1 days is better than X days of work until you get smacked in the face trying to hand wave that 1->0 will have no impact on productivity.
This ignores that there have been trials about this. Companies trying 4 day work weeks have found their workers to be more productive.
Also, consider that worker productivity has gone up since the 70s, but wages haven't kept pace.
In surveys, most people say they'd rather have 4 day work week. 5 days is in second place. then it goes down from 3.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say...
I'd compare it to getting rid of smaller coins. Sure, it would cause some rounding hassle, but the last time we got rid of a coin the smallest remaining one was worth more than a 2020 quarter.
It seems pretty obvious to me, based on the non-linear utility of money, that as productivity increases the ideal work week shrinks. Is that not a good enough sketch of a proof?
A 3-day work week (aka 40% less productivity if you assume a perfectly linear relationship between time working and productivity) would still mean a nice little gain for the capitalist compared to 1979 numbers.
If you've worked, you've contributed to that 44% productivity gain. Why should you need to revolt or organize to get what you've already worked for? Capitalists are taking a larger and larger share every year. Is that ethical?
I get that pragmatically many aspects in life are a power struggle, but "throwing the question back" is really a way of putting the burden of fixing an unfair system back on the victim.
Benefits costs do a better job explaining increasing wage inequality, but again not all of it and doesn’t address what’s happening outside the US
It used to take a room full of highly trained engineers using slide-rules, protractors, and graphing paper to design the newest car or plane. Now it's done in AutoCAD. But it's not obvious to me why the employee should collect the difference for the capital investment poured into technology.
In other words, it's not as if humans have evolved since the 1970s to be more productive. Any gains are entirely the consequence of investments in tech and tools and modern managerial techniques.
As for tech and tools, who do you think made those things if not humans?
We created a system that heavily favors the capitalist starting with the Industrial Revolution. Prior to that most of society was subsistence farming. Encouraging capital investment in new machines and factories through laws/policies made sense to help raise society (and thus the workers) out of that situation. We have made enough progress since then that there are now barely any subsistence farmers in the US.
Why should we continue to embrace policies favoring the capitalist? Why should we continue to award 100% of the gains of new technologies to capitalists? Maybe they should only get those gains for a few years, or they should get half and half should go to the workers?
Because they assume the risk of these ventures. Ever hear the statistics about how 95% of startups fail in the first x years? Meanwhile, the guy clicking around in AutoCAD did nothing to further the rise of productivity. Why should he be gifted the benefits of other's toil simply for breathing?
But, remember, that’s before considering the impact of healthcare costs (which are majority paid by capitalists and majority benefiting the workers).
I'm not so sure about the healthcare argument. The link I included above compares productivity to compensation. I'd assume compensation includes the value of benefits like healthcare but I could be wrong. I'd also argue that many of the rising healthcare costs are being rewarded as profit to the capitalists so it might not be as cut-and-dry even if healthcare is a large source of the pay-productivity gap.
How is this possible? Wouldn't capitalists willing to take a smaller share (higher wages, better product for lower price) out-compete those that don't? It seems to me that the major advantage of capitalism is protection from this type of situation?
"Job Stability" being a factor in the labor market is a perfect example. People are afraid to leave a stable job for a less stable one even it pays more because they know it takes time and effort and luck to find another job (aka imperfections in the job market). If your unstable job disappears, that might mean there's no money for food or no health insurance. This puts a huge thumb on the scale in favor of the capitalist. If they can offer "stability" then they can also lower their wages considerably.
While some fraction has gone to the corporations/shareholders ("capitalists"), what fraction of the productivity gains has turned into cheaper consumer goods, aka (can't point at the data, just many who comment on it) the populace owns a lot more 'stuff' like electronics than they did 43 years ago, aka QOL gains resulting from productivity.
Or is it just silly of me to not assume that ~100% of gained productivity went straight into corporations'/shareholders' pockets?
Don't forget the massive growth at all levels of government.
Also don't forget that wages are not the right measure - total compensation is. Total compensation is often 150% of wages (things like health insurance, retirement plans, 401k matching contributions, etc.). All those "employer-paid" benefits are actually coming out of your paycheck.
Because you won't get it otherwise. They're not going to give it back or forgo it in future because controlling a greater share of resources gives them more leverage.