The UK is the scene of the biggest test of the proposed reduction in working hours to four days a week with no wage cuts anywhere in the world. Since June, nearly 3,300 workers from more than thirty sectors of the economy have experimented with this business model that promises a healthier life for workers and a more sustainable world – without losing business profitability.
The experience was developed by the global campaign 4 days a week, which seeks to encourage adoption of the proposal through partnerships with businesses and governments around the world. Similar experiences in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. In Brazil, bank employees included the claim in this year’s payroll campaign.
In the UK, the pilot program runs until December, and more than 70 companies and organizations are participating. Employers who have joined receive support, in the form of workshops and webinars with experts and direct mentoring with organizations that have already successfully implemented the 4-day week.
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Joe Ryle, Campaign Manager for the Week 4 days a week in the UK, he says the project began to be announced in January, and immediately, the organization “flooded” more than 500 interested companies. “We wouldn’t be able to handle that amount,” he recalls. “So, in the end, we reduced it to 70 companies, and we were ready to start in June.”
“We try to select companies from different sectors of the economy. We have companies in hospitality, retail, marketing, communications, construction. So many different sectors to show that this is possible across the economy. It’s not something that can be done overnight. Someday, It takes a transition to get there, but it’s for everyone, a better world for everyone,” he defends.
Companies adopt a 32-hour work week, which equates to four 8-hour days. “We don’t think anyone should work any harder than that, the economy doesn’t need us to work harder than that. In fact, working harder leads us to burnout, overwork, inefficiency and unproductivity,” he said. Rayle says.
“The five-day workweek, a 40-hour model based on agricultural economics from the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a really old way of working that has never been updated. The Covid pandemic has motivated us to rethink this model. It’s been 110 years since we moved from a week ago. Six to five days a week. It’s time to improve our lives, to have more free time,” argues Ryle.
Preserving health and the environment
One of the main implications of the proposal, which has already been discovered in previous tests by 4 Day Week Global, is the improvement in workers’ health – and thus in their performance at work. More relaxed and motivated, employees earn more and get sick less.
“The worker is more comfortable, perhaps more satisfied with his work routine. He is not stressed, not burdened. This obviously has an effect on his health, because too much workload is detrimental to the worker’s health and in many cases. This also contributes to reducing the number of people who have to be treated because of long and excessive working hours,” explains economist Marilan Teixeira, a researcher at the Center for Union Studies and Labor Economics at the University of Campinas (Cesit/Unicamp).
Ryle agrees, saying, “We have 100 companies that have adopted the 4-day-a-week system, and they all report that productivity has increased, and worker welfare has increased, at no additional cost to companies.” “In many cases, companies are making more profit than before because teams are more motivated, they work better, they are more efficient, they are more relaxed, they are more innovative. It’s a win-win situation.”
In addition to the welfare of workers, reducing working hours also has an impact on the environment. According to Ryke, evidence from studies conducted by the network organized by 4 Day Week Global indicates that a four-day week helps reduce carbon emissions, because workers take fewer days to commute to the workplace and also because offices use less day, which saves electricity.
“The four-day week is about living a better life in a more sustainable and healthier way,” he says. “This will give us the possibility to transition to a low carbon society.” “Giving us more free time will enable us to live a more sustainable life. Having the time to cook a healthy meal and stop buying ready-to-eat food.”
More functions, less variation
The proposal responds to a structural problem worldwide, and a very serious problem in Brazil: high unemployment, underutilization of labor, and informality. Economist and researcher Marilan Teixeira explains: “It is clear that a large part of the world’s working class still works more than 48 hours a week, while another proportion is underemployed, with often insufficient working hours, which does not guarantee So to survive.” At the Center for Union Studies and Labor Economics of the University of Campinas (Sezet / Unicamp).
In Brazil, there are 10.6 million unemployed according to the data of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) for the month of June. Additionally, the untapped population (who want more hours of work – and more income) numbered 25.4 million and 4.3 million said they were frustrated (because they had given up looking for work). Even among the employed, 40.1% work in the informal sector.
:: INE: With 40.1 percent of informal activity and lower incomes, the unemployment rate is falling.
For her, the problem is structural and just increasing economic growth will not be enough to solve it. “The ability to create employment for all these people depends primarily on a rethinking of the issue of the distribution of the working day. For it is extremely unlikely, given innovations and technological progress, that it will be possible, only through economic growth, to recover the capacity to create opportunities. Work for everyone. You need to redistribute social time, and this is only possible by reducing working hours as a way to allow more people to work,” he says.
The solution is to make the social distribution of productivity gains made in recent decades more equitable, due to technological advances reducing the need for labour. Marilyn explains that so far, these gains have been absorbed almost entirely by employers, without being distributed to workers or society as a whole. Reducing working hours and getting more people into the workforce are ways to redistribute this wealth and ensure more social justice, along with lower prices and higher wages.
The pilot is a 4-day-week partnership with the Autonomy Research Center and researchers at Boston Collegge and the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. These academics accompany the process by assessing the welfare of workers and the productivity of all firms, as part of a Global research on this topic. The results will be published after the end of the test, in December this year.
Editing: Thalita Perez
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