The Tribune

By ALICIA WALLACE

Recommendations made at the Labour Legislation Reform symposium, held July 29-31, 2024, included a four-day work week. Minister of Labour and Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle said, “Physical presence does not always equate to productivity, so we’ll see where that discussion goes amongst the employers, the employee representatives, and the government agencies.” Glover-Rolle added that the current administration is “open to all legislation recommendations” that were made at the symposium. this could have easily been met with cautious excitement, but the public conversation has been dominated by decidedly negative and particularly pro-capitalism commentary.

I have been observing the social media discourse about the four-day work week and found that, as is often the case, many people engaged in discussion without doing even the most basic research on the concept, its origin, or current practices. We have, of course, come to expect this. People loudly, excitedly participate in conversations with the sole purpose of bringing their strongly worded but weakly formed opinions without first seeking information from a reliable source. While it is easy to discount the opinions of the online crowd, we do generally expect to hear more informed perspectives from professionals.

It is too bad that Wesley Ferguson, president of the Bahamas taxi cab Union (BtcU) had what came across as anti-worker sentiments. He said, “We already work in a counter-productive environment where people goof off with the five days that they have. When you add up all the hours that they goof off, it’s about two days out of five, so they account for about three working days.” 

While this is aimed at workers who are perceived to be doing too little, it can actually be a part of the argument for a shorter work week. if workers are “goofing” off within the five work days, why not shift to a four-day work week, specifically because there would be no loss in productivity?

Ferguson continued, “What it does is add costs to a person who has a business because his business has to be open during the hours he determines are necessary for him to survive.”

This is sure to be a concern that many business owners raise, uncertain about their ability to schedule staff to cover the open hours of their businesses. The solutions will vary from industry to industry and from business to business, but the four-day work week is entirely possible, including in a service-driven economy like that of the Bahamas.

Even Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) CEO Leo Rolle seemed to oppose the four-day work week, saying it would not work for the “heavily service-based economy” in the Bahamas. There is much to be said about this perspective, and we could certainly start with the need to change our reliance on tourism and financial services. That has proven to be a talking point that no government administration is prepared to take any further. There is also the conversation that we need to have about the refusal of so many to imagine anything outside of what we already know and, to a great extent, have become so accustomed to that we convince ourselves it is good, or even great.

On social media, people raised concerns about salaries and wages, assuming that they would be cut. Some suggested that it was obvious—employees would only be paid 80 percent of what they receive for a five-day work week in a four-day work week. Others seemed to think that the four-day work week is simply a reallocation of hours, so employees would work four ten-hour days. This is, in fact, not what organizers for the four-day work week on a global scale propose. the four-day work week is four eight-hour days wherein employees maintain 100 percent productivity and receive 100 percent pay.

There are many conversations that we need to have on labour at the global, regional, and national levels. We have come to accept current conditions as “normal” when they really have been normalised. We should not so easily accept that we all spend eight hours per day at work, another two hours getting to and from work, and factoring in eight hours for sleep, are left with a maximum of six hours within which we must take care of household needs including grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning, attend to family members including helping children with homework and checking on elderly people, further our education, participate in faith activities, and get exercise.

People who work 9-to-5 jobs generally get home at or after six o’clock in the evening, depending on traffic. If they have children, they may get home at or after seven o’clock if they have to pick them up from somewhere else.

Only when they get home are they able to assist children with or check their homework, prepare dinner, take care of other household tasks, and prepare for the next day. That may be an addition two or three hours of work and, by this time, it is already dark outside. Remaining hours can only be spent at home, and in a state of exhaustion. This is what life for many, and this is the way it has been for a long time. This does not mean it

Is the only way, and it certainly does not mean it is optimal. The four-day work week may not be popular, but that can change. It begins with understanding exactly what is is and how it can be implemented.

There was a time that the 40-hour work week seemed impossible to achieve. It became reality because workers wanted it, they refused to be dismissed, and they did not stop demanding it. There was also the influence of the private sector which, interestingly, was driven by data. Having that data and analysing it required that a person in a position to create change was curious about the real situation, willing to interrogate it, and honest about what the data meant and how it should influence next steps.

Following the industrial Revolution, 80-hour to 100-hour work weeks were the norm. In 1866, the nationality Labor Union went to congress for the passing of a law on the eight-hour work day and public support for it markedly increased. When a proclamation was made to give government employees eight-hour work days, workers in the private sector started agitating for the same. The Chicago labor movement pressed for a law for the eight-hour work day in 1867. 

The Illinois Legislature passed a law, but it allowed for contracts between employers and employees for longer hours. In response, workers in Chicago went on strike. In 1868, the very first eight-hour work day law was passed by US Congress for Federal Government workers, but wages were cut by 20 percent. A national eight-Hour Law Proclamation was issues by President Ulysses S Grant in 1869 which prohibited the reduction of wages in relation to the reduced work day. By 1870, workers in the public sector started agitating for the eight-hour work week, and without the 20 percent wage cut.

More than a decade later, in 1886, there was a nationwide strike with the National Labor Union demanding a law be passed for the eight-hour work day. In Illinois, a law was passed, but it was ignored by many employers, leading to a strike and the Haymarket Riot following the bomb that killed no less than 12 people. This, in fact, is the origin of Labor Day, celebrated on May 1 in the US.

In the years that followed, unions and coalitions started to win the eight-hour work day, including the United Mine Workers in 1898 and the International Typographical Union in 1905. The organising of workers and their unions got the attention of politicians, so much so that the eight-hour work day was a part of Roosevelt’s presidential election campaign in 1912.

In 1926, Henry Ford, upon finding that the productivity of a 48-hour work week was too small and short-lived to make much different, introduced the 40-hour work week, and other manufacturing companies followed suit. In 1937, the 40-hour work week was proposed as part of the new deal. In 1940, the work week was reduced to 40 hours by the Fair Labor standards act. Australia followed suit in 1948 with Canada and the UK lagging more than a decade behind.

Again, the 40-hour work week has not always existed. It took struggle. More specifically, it took the struggle of workers and unions. They not only acknowledged the reality of their conditions, but they understood that a different reality and an entirely new set of conditions were possible. They were not prepared to suffer in silence, nor were they content to wait for anyone else to engage in the struggle for them. They worked together, stood together, and made their demands together. Their commitment to organising for change led to the 40-hour work week — an improvement in their working conditions and a step toward labor justice. The four-day work week would certainly change the working conditions and wellbeing of workers in the Bahamas and, secondarily (because we need to put people over profit) productivity.