The return of the looney left

[wellquickwoody]

It just beggars belief...

BBC News - Cut working week to 21 hours, urges think tank

 

[Dr Q]

Two people for every job, old Lenin would be w@nking in his tomb!!

Think Tanks, possible the biggest waste of Time and Money ever, full of sociology, law and business studies graduates who just scraped their degrees!

 

[1234andcounting]

So, let me just get this straight, wellquickwoody, you are quite happy to spend 40 hours per week stacking shelves in a supermarket or whatever else it is that your obviously enormous intellect equips you for. I, for one, would welcome a shorter working week to do other things for myself and for the community.

 

[bhaexpress]

Sorry, I know I would be bored but the main thing is who is supposed to foot the bill ? Are we supposed to accept half pay ?

 

[skipper734]

This is was what was promised to us at the dawn of the computer age......... and the paperless office.
Unfortunately nobody has worked out how to pay the same amount of money for working 33% less hours.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I used to work for a publishing company which involved compulsory joining of a print union (SOGAT 82 in my case). Every year the union would come back to management asking for a stonking great pay rise (nice!) and a reduction in working hours (nice also!). This was pre-Murdoch so the unions had the bosses over a barrel. Til the year the union asked for a reduction from a 32 hour week to a 31.5 hour week. OK, said the bosses, but you DO realise that if your hours fall below 32 hours you'll be classified as part-time workers and lose many of your existing benefits. The week stayed at 32 hours from then on in

 

[wellquickwoody]

So, let me just get this straight, wellquickwoody, you are quite happy to spend 40 hours per week stacking shelves in a supermarket or whatever else it is that your obviously enormous intellect equips you for. I, for one, would welcome a shorter working week to do other things for myself and for the community.

We all need to pay our bills. Less work equals less pay, a very simple equation to understand me thinks. Yeah I can live without foreign holidays, a car, television etc. but I don't want to. When the loonies realise that to work less equals having less (money) they will soon change their minds.

Maybe we should all do full time charitable work and then live of the state perhaps?
Or Neverneverland sounds nice!

 

[skipper734]

I used to work for a publishing company which involved compulsory joining of a print union (SOGAT 82 in my case). Every year the union would come back to management asking for a stonking great pay rise (nice!) and a reduction in working hours (nice also!). This was pre-Murdoch so the unions had the bosses over a barrel. Til the year the union asked for a reduction from a 32 hour week to a 31.5 hour week. OK, said the bosses, but you DO realise that if your hours fall below 32 hours you'll be classified as part-time workers and lose many of your existing benefits. The week stayed at 32 hours from then on in

Does The Father of the Chapel still exist? Not the sharpest tool in the box but certainly the most feared. :US:

 

[happypig]

It would suit me to go from 36 hours/week to 21 and I could afford the 40% pay cut (except I wouldn't lose 40% because 40% of that 40% is tax so I'd actually be about 24% worse off). In the job I do, it would be entirely possible to rearrange it so that we have 12 people instad of 7.

 

[drew]

It would suit me to go from 36 hours/week to 21 and I could afford the 40% pay cut (except I wouldn't lose 40% because 40% of that 40% is tax so I'd actually be about 24% worse off). In the job I do, it would be entirely possible to rearrange it so that we have 12 people instad of 7.

Which I believe is the principle. Not everyone could afford it because many just survive on barely the minimum wage but if you can cut hours and increase the number employed then you reduce the benefits bill and then the tax burden.

One of the other problems is possibly unpaid overtime where it is accepted that you work another hour or hour and half each day. If the later then you are working the equivalent of 6 days and getting paid for 5!

Unfortunately it will never happen because we are a consumer society and we work to earn to buy.

 

[brakespear]

Surely if everybody takes a cut in hours and thus wages, then the total amount of available spending money goes down and prices would have to be dropped to match or nobody would be able to sell anything? Or is this one of those QI moments when the klaxon sounds and the screen starts flashing?

 

[Gully]

Surely if everybody takes a cut in hours and thus wages, then the total amount of available spending money goes down and prices would have to be dropped to match or nobody would be able to sell anything? Or is this one of those QI moments when the klaxon sounds and the screen starts flashing?

I think you are about right, if citing the above example of going from 7 to 12 workers but paying each an appropriate salary then the amount of money available to spend would be roughly the same, possibly even more as more of it would be tax free...12 people claiming the tax free allowance rather than 7, but less taxable above that...the only downside would be that more people would be spending their reduced amount of money on essentials rather than luxury goods.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I'd love a 21 hour week but can't afford to do so. Also, the so called think tank seem to have to have not accounted for the drop in tax revenue.

 

[drew]

I'd love a 21 hour week but can't afford to do so. Also, the so called think tank seem to have to have not accounted for the drop in tax revenue.

Explain, surely more people would be paying tax and less claiming benefit!

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

Does this mean that everyone currently working a 40 hour week will take a 50% pay cut?

Or does it mean that companies will see their wages bill double?

Both sound like great ideas :US:

 

[Wilko]

If you think the idea is 'looney' then you are a bit blind in my opinion. We work more hours than most nations. More working hours means more stress, less time with the children, more work absences, more depression and less time to do the things in life that are more important than work.

Also, we work more hours for more money, but then this money is often spent on materialistic things that we do not actually need, buying more DVD's, more games, bigger TV packages, pints of lager at £4 a pint - does it make us any happier? Well, for about 10 seconds it does and then we want something else.

When you look at some other nations that work less but have less material posessions is their quality of life better or worse? for me, their QUALITY of life is actually better even if their financial situation is worse.

Before anyone calls me a work shy leftie then I can tell you for the last 3 weeks I have been in work at 7am and finishing at 7pm, it has got me thinking - what is the point?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Explain, surely more people would be paying tax and less claiming benefit!

The people that currently pay 40% ( and soon 50% ) would no longer pay a higher rate of tax. More people would drop out of the higher tax bands than would suddenly become employed.

 

[Bluejuice]

I've NEVER understood the whole FIVE day working week with just TWO days off. Who came up with that idea? It's f***ing bullshit. I need FAR more time off than that. I hate working, it's shit. Why would I want to spend the vast majority of my time NOT enjoying myself?

Yeah we all need to work to earn to keep the world turning etc. but it just seems everyone accepts that a 35/40 hour week is the standard when that's a phenomenally large amount of time spent working.

Teachers are the ones laughing. Finish early every day, don't even work the whole time they're AT work AND they get more holiday than ANYONE else in full time employment.

I have got NO interest in slogging away all week long just to get to the two short days of the weekend, all the time waiting for those precious four measly weeks of paid holiday we are so generously afforded each year.

It's an absolute JOKE.

f*** that for a laugh

 

[wellquickwoody]

things in life that are more important than work.

So you will become entirely self sufficient on the food, clothing, shelter and energy front?

 

[Nigella's Cream Pie]

It would suit me to go from 36 hours/week to 21 and I could afford the 40% pay cut (except I wouldn't lose 40% because 40% of that 40% is tax so I'd actually be about 24% worse off). In the job I do, it would be entirely possible to rearrange it so that we have 12 people instad of 7.

So what's stopping you from cutting down - did I miss something?