'Workers are very good at finding efficiencies if they're motivated to get time off rather than additional pay,' says expert citing benefits for manufacturing sector
Recently, New Zealand-based manufacturing firm Longveld said it was formalizing a four-day workweek for its blue-collar workforce.
The new work arrangement, which had employees working four 10-hour shifts a week, saw 85% of employees happy with the set-up after several months of a trial run.
"We could see how that could be easy in an office environment, but we had no idea how to make it happen for us," said managing director Pam Roa. "But we thought if we didn't adapt, it would be like a freight train coming down the line and we'd be forced to change."
In looking at the lists of employers worldwide participating in shortened work week programs, the number of manufacturing employers is slim. With its typical Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five schedule, the office workplace more easily translates to a four-day approach.
And the unions know it’s an uphill battle: Take the United Auto Workers last year, which tried to bargain for a four-day, 32-hour work week in the U.S., without a cut in pay.
UAW President Shawn Fain told CNN that it’s “a very realistic goal” and was a negotiating goal back in the middle of the last century.
“I don’t know what happened over the next 60 or 70 years, but that conversation fell by the wayside,” he said. “So, I felt it was imperative that we get the dialogue going back to workers...
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