Is Now (Finally) The Time To Make Weekends Longer?

Could a four-day work week be the future? In this Roots of Resistance episode, host Felecia from Felecia for the Win breaks down the workers’ movements that fought for better working conditions we still benefit from today, and how today’s push for a four-day week continues that legacy.

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ROOTS OF RESISTANCE is produced by Houston Public Media for PBS in partnership with Micole Productions.

[bellmattwebb]

I'm going to try for the three day work week. That way, when i fail and only get a four day work week, the owner class will still feel as if they have won.

[kimberlyterasaki]

The sad part about the Triangle shirt waist factory fire was that the women actually went on strike shortly before the fire, partially in protest of the locked doors and lacking safety. Unfortunately, their deaths spoke louder than their strike.

[Northwest]

Yes, economists predicted this decades ago, but we are working more and paid less

[KM]

As a high school teacher, a four-day work week for me would mean a four-day school week for the students. Easily doable if this is the norm and parents also have a four-day work week. During the COVID lockdown, my district had live classes M, Tu, Th, F, with Wednesday as an "asynchronous" day each week. This means we posted some work for the students to complete independently (usually something for review) and offered an hour or two of online "office hours" to answer questions or help students get caught up. It was WONDERFUL! I used my extra time to catch up on grades and plan lessons with colleagues. At the end of the work day, I was ready for the next day and able to get outside for some recreation. The extra sunshine improved my mood tremendously, and this was the year I got the most sleep of my entire teaching career. I would love to return to something similar.

[tigerfanfrv]

i've been doing a 4 day work week for over 15 years. 4 10 hour shifts is perfect for me. I don't have to take time off for appointments

[rb]

I’ve been doing 4/10 for about five years now. I could never go back to five days a week, but the 10 hour shifts are getting to me. I have two fewer hours of free time which makes those four days tough. I wake up, get ready, go to work, come home, eat and go to bed. There’s no time for anything else. I’d love to just work 4/8.

[Layn]

heh 8 hours labour, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest. where "8 hours recreation" actually ended up meaning 8 hours of commute, household chores, appointments, raising children. I am very much hoping for a shorter work week

[risch]

My wife has a 4 day workweek while I work 5. She enjoys it so much more and has time to volunteer and take care of things like appointments, grocery shopping for the week, and various other errands. This opens up time when the kids get out of school for us all to have time together as a family

[prettypic]

I remember watching Jetsons reruns as a kid, and one of the running gags was that George’s boss was a total slave driver because he made George work *3 to 5 hours a week*. The expectation back then was that as mechanization increased, workers would have more free time to spend with their loved ones. Obviously, like many of the predictions in the Jetsons, this expectation has not been realized

[elgainus]

This will solve: Heart attack/ stroke (particularly on Mondays) less fatigue, burnout, increased productivity, quality of durable goods ( purchase NOTHING manufactured on a Monday or Friday) anxiety and blood pressure meds will fall off the cliff, but most of all, FAMILY TIME—no paycheck or salary can ever equate to watching your family grow up. Hmmm, what else I missed…🤔

[TravisPluss]

I’ve been writing to my representatives about a 4 day workweek like crazy.
Mental work is not the same as physical work, but both need more than two days to recover.
We also do not have a work at home wife anymore to take care of the kids, chores, and errands.
Anyone who is against the four day workweek is literally a sociopathic slavedriver. We need time to care for ourselves!!

[nancyholcombe]

These changes are largely for the upper middle class or the well-educated. Things will not change for the poor who still work 40-60 hours a week just to survive. I am college educated but did not receive my degree because of multiple sclerosis attacking me late in my junior year. I have worked since I was seventeen years old and am now sixty-five but mostly at jobs that did not pay nearly enough money to live. Until I turned sixty-four, I never lived off of government programs. Because employers were scared of my illness, I had to take up to four part-time jobs a week for much of my life, which means no health insurance, until I finally just didn't tell them and got full-time due to my work ethics! It still didn't pay enough and I had to retain a part-time job just to make rent and food. Now, the current thought is that these workers are throw-aways in both the employer's and the government's eyes. You can't even get a full-time job at minimum wage anymore, unless you're in construction! They forget that America is built off of the backs of low-paid workers. This is now affecting everything from our food to our livelihoods. I doubt it will change in the next four years. At my age, I will be working for the rest of my life because of a system that doesn't allow for lesser workers to save money if they have medical or family issues. I'm not ashamed of being poor. It's nothing to be ashamed of. My hope is that the children growing up around me will have a better way to advance so they don't have to work long after their bodies really can't anymore. They are poor too but they are smiling. I hope they still have smiles as adults, otherwise, illegal activities will remain the better employers! Is this what we as a nation want?

[boondoggle]

Not with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy advising the government. They said in their job posting for DOGE that they were looking for people who would work 80 hours a week, and they don’t like workers’ rights or benefits. They want people working themselves silly under the constant fear of being fired if they don’t work longer and longer hours.

[jumbolarge]

Great video! A 32 hour work week would be excellent and would have benefits for workers and their employers alike. Personally, I would like to see a 24 hour work week and acted in our lifetime, four days of six hour shifts per week because sometimes being at work for eight hours feels pointlessly long. I wish everyone who has a job would consider this as a politically viable option more seriously, because who wouldn’t want more time at home or with their family or friends for the same amount of pay?

[tarabooartarmy]

I hope so, because I always feel better and work better after a 3-day holiday weekend than I do after a normal 2-day weekend. I’m always still tired after two days off.

[dynkus]

I currently work 3 x 10 hour shifts a week and I personally feel it gives me the perfect work-life balance.

[app]

The only way you will get a 4 day work week is if it benefits the employer more than the employees. In other words, if employers can save money by paying you less and/or giving you less benefits. (Remember, they don't have to provide healthcare to part timers.)

Your employer, if they could get away with it, would fire you and hire your children to work 12 hour shifts, 7 days per week, for $1/hr, and no benefits. Children are easier to control and far less likely to organize into unions and fight for their rights. And they used to do that, refused to hire adults, till the federal government stopped them with child labor laws and a minimum wage.

Or house you in a company owned slum, pay you substandard wages in scrip, and force you to spend your pay on overpriced goods in their company store, causing you to go into debt to feed your family, effectively making it so that you can not quit your job because you still owe the company money. And they used to do that, before the federal government required them to pay workers in legal tender US currency that could be spent in non-company owned businesses.

The only reason why they don't these things because they can't get away with it any more, due to various laws put in place that stopped them from doing it. And you think they are going to gift you with less work for the same pay? HA!

[Ashley-xulk]

I have a 4x10 work schedule (10 hrs per day, 4 days a week), it's definitely a better work/day off ratio. But when it comes to the hours, 10 hours is a long day. Some days it's okay, others not so much. I would love to keep a 4 day work schedule, but have my hours reduced to 32 hours with same pay. The extra 2 hours I would gain in each day which give me more flexibility in the day. In a 10 hour work day, I have to get to work early in the morning (6:30am) to be able to get out at a semi-decent time (4:30pm). If I had 2 more hours hrs in my day, I could choose to get up same time but leave at 2:30pm or sleep in those 2 hours and leave at my usual time or sleep for an extra hour and still be able to leave an hour earlier than usual. It would be a game changer for me.

[A.Filthy.Casual]

This is a good time to remind everyone that even though modern moves towards worker welfare and safety are encouraging, class warfare is real and ever present.

The wealthy business owning class opposes moves towards better wages and worker welfare not only to protect their bottom line, but to push us more toward needing to commit more hours of our lives and more of our bodily durability towards labor so that the working class is too tired and exhausted to fight for better conditions or to even entertain the idea of rising up against an oppressive system.

And capitulations by the owning-class are more often to placate workers and avoid larger repercussions, rather than out of the goodness of their hearts.

[trevinbeattie]

I’ve been working on a contract basis for the past few years where I can generally set my own hours outside of meetings, and along with a reduction in the total hours I spend working (so long as the projects get done) this has greatly boosted my work/life balance as well as allowed me the freedom to take care of personal business when I need to. But besides having reduced or flexible hours, it’s also important for people to be paid well enough to meet their basic needs with some discretionary income left over even if they’re working just 32 hours per week (or less). I support UBI for this purpose.