Jesus himself could come down from Heaven, bring the Ark of the Covenant out of hiding, join forces with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, get the endorsement of the Clintons and the Bushes, and we still wouldn't do squat with the workday or workweek. It'll still be 8 hours 5 days a week 100 years from now. Probably even 500.
8 hours is a convenient fiction we tell ourselves. People with no leverage work more or less depending on if they are salaried or hourly. People with leverage and the willingness to deploy it work what they want to work.
No employer is going to willingly increase their own costs. The employer-employee relationship grew out of the old serf-lord relationship. Most firms still think of their employees as 'resources'.
We've been prophesizing the coming of a brave new world of material plenty and leisure since the Industrial Revolution. It didn't happen then and it's not going to happen now.
In the country I grew up (Turkey) 6 day work week was pretty much the norm, my dad worked 6 days a week. Fast forward 15 years, now I work in the US, and apparently in Turkey 5 day work day is more common (and normal) than 6. Considering that Turkey is the most conservative country in Europe, this is one datapoint that this sort of things can change. I'd expect in the next 500 years, things might change in US too, unless you have some other argument supporting otherwise.
You do realize the 5-day workweek is a relatively new invention even in the US, right? Let alone in my country, Romania, where six days was the rule until 1990 or so.
Also, once again this is the HN bubble rearing it's ugly head again. Suffice to say here most people have never worked in a customer facing job or manual labor job (food service, delivery, retail, sales, construction, landscaping). Most of my "off" days I spent worrying about whether or not my boss would call me to come in anyways because some lazy ass decided not to come in so they were short staffed -- and I needed the money so couldn't say no. My father before me worked 10-13 hours a day, every day, for years without having a day off. I'll take 8/9-5 with regular weekends, thank you, no complaints for me. What people need here is perspective, to realize just how good you have it. If you feel like it, I bet most people here could leave work right now with relatively no issue, and just make up the work later at some other location, say a coffee shop or something -- even that is a privilege.
My larger point is, we already are, miles and away, a much bigger improvement than what most of our parents had. If we want to improve workers lives, let's start with the vast majority of workers, and not the top 5%. Isn't that the rhetoric around here these days? In essense, "we are the 1 percenters", metaphorically in this scenario. Restaurant workers, warehouse employees, factory workers, retail employees, delivery drivers, the vast majority of the US workforce doesn't even come close to the type of privilege and benefits we receive, we should probably start there if we really want to improve workers lives.
While SF/NYC/Austin type firms complain that they can't bring their dog to work, the mother/father/brother/sister over there working as much as they can and just had their benefits cut (and their employer gives them some catchall excuse like "because Obamacare!") because their hours were reduced from 40 to 35, and anytime they even get remotely close to 40 hours, they get sent home, let's start with them.
Sure. The point is that the whole thing is a mirage, an illusion, a lie we tell ourselves. Only the very lucky get a 5 day workweek. Everyone else barely scrapes by with however long they're working. It just wasn't a fiction before the "5 day workweek."
Jesus himself could come down from Heaven, bring the Ark of the Covenant out of hiding, join forces with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, get the endorsement of the Clintons and the Bushes, and we still wouldn't do squat with the workday or workweek. It'll still be 8 hours 5 days a week 100 years from now. Probably even 500.
8 hours is a convenient fiction we tell ourselves. People with no leverage work more or less depending on if they are salaried or hourly. People with leverage and the willingness to deploy it work what they want to work.
No employer is going to willingly increase their own costs. The employer-employee relationship grew out of the old serf-lord relationship. Most firms still think of their employees as 'resources'.
We've been prophesizing the coming of a brave new world of material plenty and leisure since the Industrial Revolution. It didn't happen then and it's not going to happen now.