The four-day work week – has its moment arrived? Podcast
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Daniel Merino, The Conversation and Gemma Ware, The Conversation
Over the last few years, companies and governments in a number of countries have begun to experiment with the idea of a four-day work week – and some of the results are in. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we talk to experts about these recent trials, explore how they fit into the long history of ever-shrinking work hours, and wonder what this all might mean for the future of work.
Then, we look at the history and politics of how informal settlements in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, got their names.
It’s an alluring idea. Working four days a week instead of five, without a cut in pay. And it’s a concept that’s been gaining traction in recent years, with a number of companies around the world experimenting by moving employees onto a four-day week.
In June, when a report was published about a public sector trial in Iceland, headlines heralded the success of the four-day week. But it wasn’t quite that simple, according to Anthony Veal, adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney Business School in Australia. “What it was not was a trial of a four-day week,” he tell us, explaining that there was actually a more limited reduction in working hours. Still, despite the misleading headlines, Veal says the trial was “highly successful in its own terms”, especially when put into context of the history of how the five-day week became standard in the 20th century.
Read more:
The success of Iceland’s ‘four-day week’ trial has been greatly overstated
Elsewhere, in March, the Spanish government gave the green light to a trial of a four-day week proposed by a small left-wing political party called Más País. José-Ignacio Antón, associate professor at the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Salamanca in Spain, explains what’s known so far about the proposed trial and why he’ll be watching the results closely. “I would have a look first at what happens with productivity,” he tells us, but adds that it may also have an impact on work-life balance and sick leave, and that such wider societal benefits should be taken into account too.
For Jana Javornik, associate professor of work and employment relations at the University of Leeds in the UK, some big questions need answering before a wholesale reduction of hours works for everyone. “I think the whole conversation around a four-day week has been ignoring gender,” says Javornik, who spent the past few years on secondment as Slovenia’s general director of higher education, a role which recently ended. Javornik tells us about a survey she did in Sweden with working mothers, which led her to believe that conversations about workload, organising work and a non-stop work culture must accompany any reduction in working hours.
In our second story, we head to Nairobi, in Kenya, where anger met a recent decision to rename a road in Nairobi after Francis Atwoli, a trade union leader. Many saw the renaming as overtly political. The road sign was vandalised and had to be replaced. But it’s not just the street names in Nairobi that come with their own politics. The names of the city’s informal settlements are themselves born out of a history of colonisation and struggle, as historian Melissa Wanjiru-Mwita from the Technical University of Kenya explains.
Read more:
The fascinating history of how residents named their informal settlements in Nairobi
And Catesby Holmes, international editor at The Conversation in New York, recommends two recent stories about immigration in the US.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter @TC_Audio, on Instagram at theconversationdotcom or via email on [email protected]. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here.
News clips in this episode are from KHOU11, Perpetual Guardian, CGTN Europe, CNN, RTVE Noticias and Kenya Citizen TV.
You can listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed, or find out how else to listen here.
Daniel Merino, Assistant Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation and Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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5 Tips for Remodeling in Today’s Market
5 tips for remodeling in Today’s Market. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown, labor shortages and access to certain products affects numerous industries, including remodeling. Even so, after extra time at home and delays caused by the pandemic, there is high demand for home renovation projects. (Family Features)
If you’re planning a home remodel or construction project, consider these tips from professional remodelers to avoid frustration and ensure your vision comes to life.
Do Research and Plan Ahead
Mapping out your project early and thoroughly can help you avoid delays. This is especially important when it comes to materials, said John Brown of Bliffert Lumber and Hardware.
“The quicker a homeowner can make selections, the sooner we can get it on order and get it in,” Bliffert said.
Some contractors are adjusting the way they approach planning to offset delays. For example, selecting materials and finishes at the outset, instead of as you progress through the project like you normally would, may mean the materials are available when you need them.
“The design process has really changed,” said Robi Kirsic of TimeLine Renovation and Design. “We’re still designing based on homeowners’ wishes and dreams, but we’re also modifying by providing options based on what’s available.”
Know Where You’re Willing to Compromise
Whether you’re able or willing to compromise often comes down to why you’re doing the renovation in the first place.
“Some homeowners are specific about what they want,” Kirsic said. “They’ve been waiting for a long time to do this project and they’re not doing it to compromise. Others have a time constraint for one reason or another; they don’t have the luxury of waiting.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by others, who caution that you may be able to get an item you have your heart set on, but you may need to be willing to wait.
“If you have your heart set on a certain bathtub, it might be a 6- or 8-month wait, but another one might be available sooner,” said Jason Hensler of Marvin Windows and Doors.
Avoid Making Changes
Once your plans are set and your materials have been ordered, avoid unnecessary delays by changing your project scope or material selection. In this environment, project timelines are extremely tight and even minor changes can create significant disruptions, especially if there’s a delay in obtaining different materials or your new ideas require a different crew that wasn’t already scheduled for your job.
Choose a Trustworthy Partner
While these are unusual times, having a reliable contractor can make the project run more smoothly and help you feel more comfortable as the project progresses.
“Use someone you trust, someone who is part of a reputable group like the National Association of the Remodeling Industry,” Brown said.
That way, if you encounter unexpected bumps along the way, you can be confident they will be handled professionally and appropriately. Brown encourages his teams to communicate early and often, which helps homeowners understand and trust they’re doing everything possible to keep the job on track.
Be Patient
Above all, understanding these are unusual times can go a long way toward a more successful project.
“Patience will help it go a lot smoother,” Hensler said. “That may mean accepting longer wait times than you anticipated and a later completion date than you hoped.”
The sooner you get your project started, the sooner your contractor can start mapping out a project timeline. Find contractors in your area at RemodelingDoneRight.com.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
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National Association of the Remodeling Industry
The four-day work week – has its moment arrived?
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Forget the American Dream – millions of working Americans still can’t afford food and rent
Retail employees such as cashiers are among the least-paid U.S. workers.
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
Jeffrey Kucik, University of Arizona and Don Leonard, The Ohio State University
The Biden administration is likely celebrating a better-than-expected jobs report, which showed surging employment and wages. However, for millions of working Americans, being employed doesn’t guarantee a living income.
As scholars interested in the well-being of workers, we believe that the economy runs better when people aren’t forced to choose between paying rent, buying food or getting medicine. Yet too many are compelled to do just that.
Determining just how many workers struggle to make ends meet is a complicated task. A worker’s minimum survival budget can vary considerably based on where the person lives and how many people are in the family.
Take Rochester, New York. It has a cost of living that’s closest to the national average across 509 U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the City Cost of Living Index compiled by the research firm AdvisorSmith.
MIT’s living wage calculator shows that a single adult living in Rochester needs at least US$30,000 a year to cover the cost of housing, food, transportation and other basic needs.
But in San Francisco, which AdvisorSmith data indicate is the U.S. city with the highest cost of living, affording just the basics costs $47,587, mainly due to significantly higher taxes and rents.
The city with the lowest cost of living is Beckley, West Virginia. Even there, a childless worker still needs to earn about $28,200 to make essential ends meet. Again, the average American city has a cost of living of around $30,000 a year for a single person.
Of course, costs add up quickly for households with more than one person. Two adults in Rochester need over $48,000 a year, while a single parent with one child needs more than $63,000. In San Francisco, a single parent would need to earn $101,000 a year just to scrape by.
So that’s what it takes to survive in today’s America. About $30,000 a year for a single person without dependents in the average city – a little less in some cities, and much, much more for families and anyone who lives in a major city like San Francisco or New York.
But we estimate that at least 27 million U.S. workers don’t earn enough to hit that very low threshold of $30,000, based on the latest occupation wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency, from May 2020. We believe this is a conservative estimate and that the number of people with jobs who earn less than what’s necessary to afford the necessities of life is likely much higher.
Low-income occupations encompass a wide range of jobs, from bus drivers to cleaners to administrative assistants. However, the majority of those 27 million workers are concentrated in two industries: retail trade and leisure and hospitality. These two industries are among America’s largest employers and pay the lowest average wages.
For example, the median salary for cashiers was $28,850 in early 2020, with 2.5 million of the nation’s 5 million cashiers earning less than that. Or take retail sales. There, 75% of workers – about 1.8 million – were earning less than $27,080 a year.
It’s the same story for leisure and hospitality, the industry that took the hardest hit from the COVID-19 pandemic, hemorrhaging 6 million jobs in April 2020 as much of the U.S. economy shut down. At the time, close to a million waiters and waitresses were earning less than the median income of $23,740.
Of course, millions of those jobs have returned, and wages have been surging this year – though only slightly more than inflation. But that doesn’t change the basic math that roughly 1 in 6 workers is making less than what’s necessary for an adult with no kids to survive.
That’s why it’s hardly surprising that 40% of U.S. households reported in 2018 that they couldn’t afford an emergency $400 expense.
To us, these figures should cause policymakers to redefine who counts among the “working poor.” A 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report estimated that in 2019 about 6.3 million workers earned less than the poverty rate.
But this situation drastically understates the scope of the working poor because the federal poverty line is unrealistically low – only $12,880 for an individual. The official poverty line was created to determine eligibility for Medicaid and other government benefits that support low-income people, not to indicate how much a person needs to actually get by.
Writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “The American Dream” in 1931 to describe a society in which he hoped anyone could attain the “fullest stature of which they are innately capable.” That depended on having a good job that paid a living wage.
Unfortunately, for many millions of hard-working Americans, the “better and richer and fuller” life Adams wrote about remains just a dream.
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Jeffrey Kucik, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Arizona and Don Leonard, Assistant Professor of Practice in City and Regional Planning, The Ohio State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The four-day work week – has its moment arrived?
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