Four day week

Governments don't use taxation to build up some big counting house. They use it to redistribute wealth. For example, if the government raises money for a big infrastructure project, the money will then be spent on all sorts of things, including the materials used, the wages paid and the profit for contractors. All of that is taxed, but the government can decide who pays what proportion of tax - the workers, suppliers or the contractors.

Even with benefits, which most people see as government expenditure, the money is spent on something and taxes are paid on whatever is bought.

growstuff quite agree, but as I understand it - and that is what my answer was based on, Maizie was suggesting printing money without the backing of bonds.

Printing money with the backing of bonds assumes that there are buyers out there prepared to buy them at the interest rate offered. If a country is recklessly printing money and trying to sell far more bonds than the market can bear and is considered financially safe then the interest rates they offer have to rise, often significantly, and even then buyers will be few. For example currently would anyone want to risk buying Venezuelan government bonds - at any interest rate?

MOnica Just being a nitpicker here, but taxation depends on national expenditure, not the other way round. The UK government can spend what it wants as long as it can raise the money in bonds, etc. The money can then be recouped in taxation; the proviso being that any investment (spending) results in greater productivity. The form of taxation, whether direct or indirect taxation, is up to the government. One of the biggest problems at the moment is that some of extra money released into the economy is being leaked out of the country via offshore taxation or buying imports.

Wasn’t it Winston Churchill who first proposed the idea of a 4 day working week? Progress is slow it seems ....

I worked a four and half day week thirty years ago. As far as I'm aware it's always been quite common for manufacturing companies to do this but that is misleading as we still worked the same hours as a five day week, just four longer days. It seems to be that the Labour plan is more about hours than days.

"The next Labour government will reduce the average full-time working week to 32 hours within the next decade," he said.

As an outsider looking in, this looks like a reasonable aim. I have posted before about one of the founders of my last school who was a leader in the movement

""persuading 300 or 400 of the leading merchant princes of Manchester to allow the clerks and warehousemen to have a half holiday without any reduction in pay."

which other towns and cities soon followed. We don't now believe we should only have Sundays off or that people should work from six in the morning 'till 10 at night. The world did not collapse with this reduction of working hours or with a further reductions.

No one , but no one, is suggesting that this would happen immediately.

It was Keynes who famously predicted that by 2030 we would (or perhaps should?) all be working 15-hour working weeks. He argued that the nature of industrial development was such that ever more efficient and productive technologies would reduce necessary labour time while providing abundance for all. The main thrust of Keynes’s argument makes sense: with each gain in productivity we could have worked less, enjoyed more leisure and let our machines take on more of the hard graft. Tragically, what actually happened is that once the age of full employment, high productivity and high wages was ended by the neoliberal consensus of the early 1980s, the dream of an even shorter working week became exactly that. (Guardian Thu 12 Sep 2019)

If we want everyone to benefit from the progress in technology, it's certainly something which needs exploring.

National expenditure does depend on tax receipts, from all sources and public borrowing. Printing money with no back up of government bonds or foreign loans to finance it simply causes inflation and no increase in public or private benefit www.economicshelp.org/blog/634/economics/the-problem-with-printing-money/

The tax on private schools is going to pay for free school meals ?

More children would be entering the state system, costing the taxpayer more and that cost would be more than that gained from the income from the business tax.

National expenditure doesn't depend on tax receipts. This is a very convenient myth, used to justify cutting back public services, and austerity. The state with its own sovereign currency is an issuer of money; it doesn't depend on receipts for its income. It would be perfectly possible for the state to invest more in its state education system and create a level playing field for all children, not just those whose parents can pay.

If it means building more schools and employing more people that's a good thing; it means more money circulating in the economy through procurement and wages. Most of it will come back to the state by way of taxation...

Given that most private schools are not run to make a profit, what is to stop them re-organising themselves and turning themselves into companies limited by guarantee or even a Community Interest Company?

I wonder, if private schools lost their charitable status and had to pay business tax (which would probably turn out to be extremely low in total as they tend not to make a profit), it would not be cost-effective for the taxpayer. More children would be entering the state system, costing the taxpayer more and that cost would be more than that gained from the income from the business tax.

My son has negotiated a 4 day fortnight - he is very keen on life/work balance.

It works well. He is now considering negotiating a 4 day week.

We are only talking about 7% of the total school population, and of those a small amount who could not afford a rise in fees.

It is at it stands a subsidy to the most wealthy, and in my opinion should be used to increase funding for the good of 93% of the population and not the privileged.

The wealthy have a choice - to send their child to a fee paying school or not, everyone else does not have that choice, but their taxes should be used towards a high standard of education and not to subsidising the very wealthy.

We are talking about fairness.

We’re always being told we have a shortage of doctors/nurses/police/teachers etc. How will a 4-day week solve that?

The problem with that is that the fees would go up out of the reach of some who could only just afford them, more parents would need to send their children to already over-subscribed state schools.
The parents of privately educated pupils pay tax therefore help subsidise the state education.

Private/public schools offer scholarships and bursaries to some children so would probably not be able to afford to do that if charitable status was removed and business tax had to be paid.

Private schools are a profit making business. Their income derived from fees paid for the education of children paid for largely by the child’s parent/guardian.

A charity is classed as an organisation whose sole purpose is to provide to those in need. To relieve poverty, or advance such subjects as the arts, science, culture etc for the good of all

A private school is not a charity, it is a business. Tax should therefore be due as any other business.

And private schools will have to pay VAT.

Lemongrove Your post yesterday 16.02. They aren't talking about banning private schools but they are talking about removing their charitable status.

I worked a four day week back in the 80s/90s. Worked well for all. Then a certain mad boss came in and decided we were all shirkers and binned it. Nothing good came of it. Productivity etc.

As far as I know, even different wards have different work patterns.

I used to work three 12.5 hour days a week, and it worked well.

It also gave a long break between shifts, (nearly a week, depending on how the shifts were arranged) so we sometimes did some overtime during our off days.

My daughter is a nurse and works a five day week. Different authorities, different rules I expect.

I was in hospital recently and asked a staff nurse what shifts she worked. She told the permanent staff worked 3 days a week.

Thanks Grandad

Where I worked we were not allowed any refreshments at 'work stations' for good reason so short breaks (for a prescribed time) were allowed away from there for a drink plus lunch breaks of 30 minutes, in fact 30 mins was taken off whether we took the time off for lunch or not. Any extra time worked (which was frequent) was recorded and time off in lieu given.
It seemed to be a good system.
Most of us belonged to a union.

Callistemon, in regard to your above post, in many industries breaks are very much a thing of the past. In our office it is the case of taking a couple of short "coffee breaks" at your workstation or by the water cooler or going into the restroom when an employee wishes to have a sandwich, being that no food is allowed at the workstations.

The "lunch hour" is very much a thing of the past and the above is very much the practise, certainly in office work.

Prescribed breaks still have to be taken by legislation throughout the transport industry , but with many occupations these days people work by a prescribed task(s) in which they work extra hours when the workload is busy and then take time off with pay when the workload slackens off. That can be very much an informal arrangement to the benefit of both employer and employee.

Mobile workers (such as our assignment teams) incur bonus payments that can outweigh hours worked payments. In that and by example, a budget will be set for carrying out a safety audit at a company that would allow for four days to complete the task. If it can be completed in three and they then move on to the next assignment a day early, those employees then receive very good bonus payments. Therefore hours worked each day is less important than the total bonus payment those employees can gain.

Therefore Callistemon, I hope you can decipher from my above "ramblings" that total hours working and breaks etc are far less formal than in years past and in may ways that is for the better for those in good secure employment and their employers.

However, that leaves the widespread practice of zero-hours and Gig Economy employment, but that's not perhaps for this thread.

Grandad did the 40 hour week include any paid breaks and does the prsent 36 hour week include paid breaks?
I'm asking in particular about employment contracts, not those working zero hours contracts.

It's a while since I retired so I am out of touch.

Its all clear to me now. Its not a four day week but an average 32 hour week. So brickies won't be having to work with a head torch and new houses won't have wobbly brickwork!