Four day week

After re-marrying (in 2004) at 57 after being widowed for fifteen years, I asked to work four days, rather than five, in order to spend more time with my new husband. We had agreed that we would continue to live apart for the three years I still needed to work in order to reach pension age, and not lose a valuable employer pension. This meant that we could spend long weekends together every week. This meant that I worked fewer hours and was paid less as a consequence, but was still expected to complete the same level of work. I worked for an American Brokerage company, and my job was clerical support. This worked well for me. It enabled me to work out how living with a smaller income would be managed (that would be inevitable when I retired), and actually ended up with more holiday days in the working year. Not ideal for everyone, but it worked for me. The work was fairly repetitive, and I was the only one carrying out these tasks in my unit.

growstuff Labour are talking about a 32 hour week.

M0nica it is a four day week. No one is proposing that a limit be placed on the number of hours that you work on each day.

As I have stated in an earlier post in this thread, a number of the staff in our company now work four days of nine hours rather than five days of seven and a quarter. For us, it also makes a rolling week possible.

So, staff get the same pay for the same total hours but working fewer days. That has proved to be very popular and many employers are engaging in such working without any prompting from the government.

A lot of companies operate on shortened weeks. The daily hours are extended but overall the total amount hours worked is the same. Some companies actually close others just organise that workers have a different day "off" but most seem to prefer Monday or Friday for a long weekend. The ones I know of are mainly office based roles. Don't know how eg industry, A & E, pilots would be accommodated. Wouldn't there be childcare issues if schools closed?

Some of you still haven’t realised that what is being proposed in a 4 day week is NOT to condense eg 5x 8 hour shifts into 4x10 hours but to reduce working hours by 20% while maintaining the same pay. So the NHS, schools, councils will have an increased wage bill of 20% plus increased NI and pension contributions for the fictional additional staff who will be conjured out of thin air.

tidyskatemum I have tried to get this across several times but without any effect. I hope more people read your post and take it on board.

tidyskatemum, very many workers already have standard thirty six hour per week employment contracts rather than the forty hour contracts so prevalent only a few years ago.

The Labour proposals are to bring those standard hours down to thirty two over the next ten years. Therefore just as forty hours as normal working has been reduced to thirty six, so thirty six to thirty two should be easily achievable over the next ten years.

The key to the above is flexibility of working in Britains seven-day economy, especially in such industries as Transport and Health care. However, I do believe that the British Road Transport Industry has demonstrated in recent years how such challenges should be handled, but even in that does anyone really believe that heavy goods vehicle drivers should still be demanded to drive ten hours in any day, with total hours being legal of up to fifteen hours in that day.

That is what Labour is trying to address.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

And private schools will have to pay VAT.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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...