4 Day Week

So your hours are the same, just arranged differently. Your employer has no extra costs because of the change. They may have to re-arange other people's hours as well to fit in, but the cost is the same.

What seems to come over from these proposals is that employees doing a four-day week will do fewer hours in the week for the same money - which is great for them but not for the firm that has to employ five people for every four that they employ now and pay out five paychecks and five lots of behind-the-scenes costs at as much again for every four that they pay now How can they do that while keeping their prices the same without either dropping standards or operating at a loss and eventually ceasing to operate at all?

Don't reply that they can save vast amounts by using AI, or that the bosses can give up their luxury yachts and fur-lined toilet seats. The first option only helps some firms, in the second instance only a few bosses live in that sort of luxury. Most work and live beside their employees and to assume that they are all "bloated plutocrats" is as prejudiced as assuming that someone from a council estate keeps coal in the bath and thinks Aida is a female form of aids contracted by lesbians.

The first paragraph was to EliseC465. While I was typing a long post, Chewbacca added a short one. Moral - be brief!

I think the same arguments were used for going from a 6 day week to a 5 day week, and prior to that many worked 6 and a half day week. But in general it works ok on 5 days,I'm sure we'd cope with 4.
Also if we want older folk to work until they are 70 this would be more doable than 5.

Both my children work longer hours on a four day week
It saves childminding costs in school holidays & after school care
As this care is only needed 3 days a week not 5

How can they do that while keeping their prices the same without either dropping standards or operating at a loss and eventually ceasing to operate at all?

In short Elegran they can’t .

It amazes me that many people still think that all company bosses/owners are fat cats living in the lap of luxury paying their workers minimum wage. It also amazes me that many people think that when an employee is paid, say £10 per hour for 40 hours then this costs the employer £400 per week .

This hair brained idea might work in the civil service and other parts of the public sector. It may work in large high profit enterprises where there are plenty “bodies” to share the work load out but how can this possibly work in a small business always easy operating on a shoestring, that might employ say 5-10 people ?

Who wouldn’t want to do 32 hours work for 40 hours pay ? Times that by every worker in the workplace and we have a huge problem .

Gilly That breakdown of employment costs that I found should be shown to every schoolchild about to do the week of "work experience" so that they see both sides of the work they are trying out. It will cost the employer pretty near twice what the employee gets. That fact has a direct bearing on the benefits that the worker will get should he/she need them, and the ultimate source of them is only partly their own taxes ("I have paid my taxes, I am entitled to it!") but also the levies paid by the boss for them to legally work for them. Think on that - their wages are being paid almost twice over (more than £46,000 on a £26,000 wage)

One possible result of increasing the wages bill by 20% is that fewer people will want to be bosses of an enterprise, unless it is so big and powerful that it can absorb the extra or lose it by employing cheap labour in parts of the world where such protection doesn't exist.. This could enlarge global and international businesses to the detriment of smaller national and local ones, and feed the trend toward globalism.

Anniebach
My immediate reaction is that this simply will not work! People will only work the extra day as overtime. What about Teachers? Will the children have different teachers on the fifth day or will they only go to school for four days a week? They won't cover the curriculum if that happens. Frankly I think it's a barmy idea.

I agree with gillybob It would not work in small businesses.

Near me are two corner shops to which I have been because they used to do the Amazon "Pass my Parcel" (now finished operating). I am overwhelmed by the extremely long hours the owners of these little Aladin's Caves work. The gentlemen are there every day all day. They receive the deliveries, stack the shelves, do the paperwork, the cleaning, get the newspapers ready for delivery, .. they must work a 17 hour day, seven days a week! I don't need to say that they are more recently settled in Britain and have to work hard since they started at the bottom. They are gracious and so helpful and by no means young. It moves me to tears to see them working so hard. What a different world they live in compared with those people represented at the TUC!

There seems to have been a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of Frances O'Grady's speech at the TUC.

She was not demanding that every worker should work a four day week and have a pay rise, what she was saying was that we should make sure that the benefits of new technology should be felt by everybody.

A headline could read: "Union demands a four day week"

or a headline could read "Union wonders how we can all benefit from new technology"

The case that Anniebach sites, asking how a builder can put a roof on a barn in the winter, is an example. A human being can't put a roof on a barn in the winter, but before too long, a robot will be designed that can put a roof on a barn in the winter and at every other season of the year. So what happens to the human being? How can we find a way that they can benefit from this?

What the media reports is not always what has been said, Ilovecheese. They pick on the most sensational interpretation and bang on about that. Joe and Josephine Bloggs then think of the problems that their representation will cause.

"What the media reports is not always what has been said,"
Yes, exactly.

Quite so.

And if anyone thinks that robots will not be roofing buildings etc in the not too distant future just follow the link below to see the latest technology, especially where they deliberately pushed the robot over at the end

youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY

Can imagine a robot wizzing up ladders and carrying slates!

Yes, judging by that video in the very near future to.

That is the type of robotics are what the TUC is talking about. AI robotic development as seen the above video could be used in large an small businesses.

Then what happens to the human workforce?

Using Nissan as a good example of people and robots working in harmony.

Nissan employs 6,700 people in its Sunderland plant in the North East with a further 900 employed in their technical centres in the South of England.
They support a further 27,000 jobs within their tiered supply chain again mainly in the North East.

Nissan run one of the most efficient car factories in the world with robots doing most of the jobs deemed too dangerous for humans. What would happen if they removed all of the robots within the plant?

gillybob, it is far more likely that the humans will gradually be removed from the plants as the robots are able to do more and more tasks.

As stated, that problem was the core of the TUC debate. In that, they were looking at how to keep workers employed and off government subsidies and benefits for which taxation on all of us will have to pay for.

Roofs don't have to be slates. If we were to move more towards pre-fabricated buildings (and arguably we could have more houses built if we did) robots would probably be invaluable then.

I really don’t think so grandad I wonder sometimes if some people ( not you) read too many Sci-Fi novels . The point is that robots and humans work in harmony with the robots doing the jobs the humans cannot ( or should not ) . We work with AI and robots cannot program themselves they cannot breed . I have no worries .

More worried about bl**dy Brexit and all our manufacturing being lost to Europe . Now that’s a very real possibility !

I am sure farmers will be happy to take their barns down and replace them with pre-fabricated buildings.

All houses in the country be replaced with pre-fabricated buildings too.

Anniebach, the above is a ridiculous post. trisher was referring to new build as well you know.