Should I/We start a 4-day work week advocacy org?

I know the point of this post is more along the lines of working fewer hours in the week, but here's my anecdote. I work 4/10's, so 4x 10-hour days and it's been great. Even though right now I'm remote, when I would normally go in it meant 1 less day per week I'd be commuting. On top of that, I've found the following benefits:

* 10 hour days leave more chance for productive time. That's one less day of "take an hour in the morning to try to wake up and get the gears turning", one less scrum.

* Having a weekday off to do chores for places that are normally closed weekends is fantastic. Doctors appointments, haircuts, etc. Some I could do on sick leave, but it's nice to not have to.

* Working a longer day than most also means timing the commute is easier. I'm less likely to start or end in rush hour.

Overall I could never see myself going back to a normal 8-hour workday.

What would you be advocating for and whose behalf? There's many industries and positions where a 4-day work week doesn't fit. There are other where it's already possible and it's happening. So where does the advocacy fit in and what does it do?

What happens when some % of employees say that they'll happily take a pay cut to work 4 days, and others say that they would only do 4 days if it doesn't result in pay reduction and if that's not possible they'd rather keep working 5 days a week? It feels like it opens the door for employers to give everyone a 20% pay cut and dress it up as empowering people to do more impactful stuff with their free time.

I say that doesn't go far enough. I think it's more compelling to go to a 24-hour work week.

I'm seriously.

Bucky Fuller calculated that we would have the technology and automation to retire after a career of only two years or so, having paid for the expenses of the rest of our lives in that brief period, and that this level of tech would be reached by some tine in the 1970's. The tech arrived right on time, but the awareness of the possibility of a new kind of lifestyle and civilization has not grown with it.

I don't know -- I have a friend that just got a payboost to $130k and admitted that she works just 19 hours a week out of 40. "But don't tell my boss."

So I wonder if any of this is really necessary in a remote world. I -- perhaps stupidly -- always put in my 40 hours....

I think there's too much focus on the 4 in 4-day work week. I think why a 4-day work week is more appealing is because we'd have more time (3 days) doing what we love to do instead; We want to do things that bring us joy or give us rest. How do we get that at a societal level in our work? When I think about my relationship between time, work, and value add to society, my gut instinct tells me that I want the security of a w-2 job with the freedom of a 1099 worker. I want to be able to easily find the projects I want to work on regardless of who my employer is, and I don't want to be chained to any n-day work week.

Some companies doing a 4-day work week still measure themselves against the 5-day/40hr work week, which feels suboptimal and not the point.

I'd bet in a world where a 4-day work week was normal, then I'd bet there'd be a similar ask HN to start a 3-day work week advocacy org.

Please enlighten me but what I don't understand is how total output can be maintained

If...

Output = Productivity * Time

Then to reduce the amount of working time by 20% requires an increase in Productivity to maintain the same output, and therefore earnings and wealth (certainly at socialte level)

How does the 4 day working week movement hope to achieve this simply by working less? (I.e. without the traditional capital investment in machinery to allow workers to operate more efficiently)

Does being more relaxed or having more time off really achieve that?

Also what about competition with other societies? China's 996 culture seems completely nuts and too far the other way, but damn are they prepared to work hard!! There's a danger they will just out-compete (in terms of overall output), which doesn't seem desirable

I've been running https://4dayweek.io for the last year, so I'd definitely be interested

As for the benefits for a 4 day week:

https://4dayweek.io/post-a-job (I really need to move this to a separate page...)

I'll support anyone who advocates for shorter work weeks.

I think 40 hours is way too much time if you want to spend time with your family.

There is https://www.4dayweek.com/

In Das Kapital, Marx goes to some lengths to prove that capitalism tends towards longer working hours. I can't remember if I liked the argument on its own terms, but it's absolutely been borne out by the facts. Working hours have been a really good inverse barometer for labour power.

I think if you were going to start and advocacy org, you'd probably want to work out if it's something, at a basic structural level, that capitalism can budge on. If not, that doesn't mean you can't still push, it just means you can expect a lot more resistance than you would get for a normal common-sense adjustment to legislation.