This Thursday, the current United Auto Workers (UAW) contract, which was adopted in 2019 and covers about 146,000 hourly workers at Ford, GM and Stellantis, is set to expire. Negotiations have already begun between the Big Three automakers and the union in hopes of averting a strike by September 14th. Opening demands from the union include proposals which even UAW President Shawn Fain called “audacious,” such as a 46% (compounded) pay raise over four years (to account for inflation while approximating the growth in Big Three CEO compensation in recent years) as well a four day work week at full time pay.
One can imagine the laughter emanating from those cushy C-suites as management counter-offered 9% wage increases and a rollover of the same benefits agreed to in the 2019 contract. While the four day work week and CEO-sized double-digit raises may be non-starters for workers sweating it out on the factory floor, the shorter week is an idea rapidly gaining support in a greater work culture disrupted by the pandemic and increasingly questioned by a younger generation which (not without reason) perceives the erstwhile virtues of hard work and employer loyalty to be a scam.
Because it can mean different things to different people, let’s consider at what a four day work week would look like.
The UAW proposal would mean that workers receive the same 40-hour salary while working 32 hours, or four 8-hour days per week. A Morning Consult poll from last May, however, defined it as...
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