Missed It-- By That Much...
The Four Day Work Week Is Already Actually Happening!
It might not surprise many of the people that read my ramblings that I might find Shawn Fain more show than action. So, while I was looking for free papers written by Michal Kalecki (1899-1970) a polish Economist that independently developed a virtually similar economic model to that John M. Keynes in the 1930’s— I happened to run across an article in the Jacobin about Kalecki which then had a link to this article “Shawn Fain: Workers Deserve More Time for Themselves”. It is rather interesting piece of scholar ship by Fain because it neglects to note that Lamborghini agreed in December of 2023 with its unions to form a 4 day work week. And that Toyota of Sweden in 2003 instituted a 6 hour work day for its plant in Gothenburg and Sweden had earlier attempts too. And in the United States the Kellogg company had at its Battle Creek , MI plant a 6 hour day from the 1930 until it ended in 1985— 55 years of reduces hours. Even Goodyear Tire introduced a 6 hour work day in 1932 and maintained it almost to WWII. The UAW’s own Walter Reuther President from 1946-1970 spent most of the 1930’s advocating for a 30 hour work week in the Automotive industry!
In my own union, I go back into our archives and I read about the fight for the thirty-hour workweek, an idea that was alive and well with our union back in the 1930s and ’40s. But today, deep in the twenty-first century, we find these ideas unimaginable.
It’s interesting that in the above quote that Fain fails to mention that Reuther who had been a strong supporter of the 30 hour work week—would turn it into a joke when Nixon mentioned the possibility of a 30 hour work week in 1956 during his re-election Campaign for VP with President Eisenhower? And the pressure from the Corporations and Government to maintain the standard 40 hour week and increased overtime as the ideal social construct of work was growing. Not only was more work considered beneficial to the men who should shun leisure time it was also seen as being a patriotic action against communism and socialism with their distasteful belief that leisure was a right. It’s also curious that Fain neglects to talk about how just four months earlier the unions in Italy that represent the Lamborghini workers created a hybrid 4 day work week. Nor, did Fain mention the fact that Toyota’s Gothenburg plant has enjoyed a 30 hour work since 2003. Not only are these ideas not unimaginable but sociologist and economist Juliet Schor [who also testified at this senate hearing] from Boston College has been promoting the reduction of working hours for 30+ years now. So, I think Fain is down playing the fact that he himself suggested a 32 hour work week during the 2023 strike only to abandoned it rather quickly when it was convenient to do so. Certainly it did frighten the BIG 3 in the Automotive World— after all they wouldn’t want to relinquish control over their minions now would they?
While it was reported that Lamborghini is doing a 4-work week that is a bit of an overstatement. Instead what is happening is more like a rotating schedule where depending on your shift cycle will determine the mix of 4 day work weeks and 5 day work weeks you have to fill out to complete the work schedule. That being said this hybrid work schedule offers 21 more days off for some and maximum of 31 days off for others depending on their work schedule. Still this hybrid working schedule offers a month off to the 3 shifters of 5 days per week and 21 days off to the 2 shifters of the 5 days per week schedule. That is a substantial decrease in time at the work place. But one must take into account the average working year for an Italian worker is about 1669 hour according to the OCED. This equates to a 32 hour work week already. Thus a further reduction in hours of about 134.4 (if you get 21 days off) or 198.4 (for 31 days off) is a substantial reduction in your total working hours per year.
This is what one might call a huge win for the working classing? Yes. However, what happened in the United States with the UAW? Well, if you read the World Socialist Website’s [WSWS] profile of Shawn Fain you will notice a common trend in his rise to prominence—take the route of least resistance privately, while publicly voicing the exact opposite. In 2009 when Fain was part of the UAW-Chrysler Negotiation Committee — he rapidly conformed to the President’s and Chrysler’s wishes to slash jobs and wages. The quote that WSWS found from the Kokomo Tribune that explains why this had to happen is the following; “It was hard to swallow the cuts, but we have to preserve jobs and the future,” and “We’re not happy about it, but you have to do what you have to do. Hopefully we can get back to selling cars, and this will be a bad memory like 1979 and ’80.” And yet somehow in 2011 the concession remained according to the WSWS profile and in 2017 when the UAW bribery scandal was revealed Fain was unscathed by it miraculously.
In January of this year— Fain made the public rounds endorsing Biden as a being a Pro-Union president. It is hard to swallow that one given Biden’s historical neglect of Unions until it is an election year. For example Biden signed the bill into congress in 2023 that ended a potential strike for Rail Road Workers—looking for safer conditions and sick leave.
So, you can see why publicly Fain is more than happy to accept the praise that a 4 day work week would provide both himself and the Union. However, as CNN puts it “And once the union and automakers started making progress toward the deal that would eventually end the strike, there was little discussion of a four-day week ever again”. Proving that essentially Fain’s commitment to the idea of a 4 day work week or even a Hybrid Work week like Lamborghini and its unions accepted was not really on the table. It was a sleight of hand negotiating tactic by Fain to subvert the discussion in the public’s mind of what can only be called a Utopian Fantasy in the future. The fact is that Capitalism is based on an infinite desire of wants, and a finite number of resources to fill these desires is critical to the system. So, the future where we live in a post-scarcity existence like the one depicted in Star Trek’s later series is always going to be a fantasy land. And Fain understands this too well. He knows he cannot deliver really on this fantastic 4 day work week without upsetting the entire concept of capitalism’s wealth generation based on surplus value of the commodities. Essentially, I’m speaking about making more things at a lower cost.
The magic of the Fordist system was that it maximized production at all costs; even at the expense of the worker themselves. If Taylorism was all about finding the balance of speed and accuracy in the workplace for piece work— Ford’s system was all about forcing the worker to work at the speed of Ford’s profit margin. That’s how Ford turned a Model T from $1500 in 1914 to $250 in 1925— maximizing all the inputs, simplifying where possible, turning waste by-products into things like Kingsford Charcoal, and finally by dominating the market. All of these things required one thing however: a compliant and controlled workforce that worked at the speed required to produce the most cars per day for the greatest profit.
So, while our cars might not be $250 dollars, and we might not live in the post-scarcity society of Roddenberry’s Star Trek; the fact that your Ford isn’t $250,000 is because of the volume of sales. What I mean by this is that Ford produces enough cars and trucks to satisfy its share holders, and top-level executives cash flow requirements—meaning their reimbursement packages and their stock options. A 4 day work week would require a fairly massive increase in Union Labor to maintain these types of pay packages; roughly a 25% -30% percent increase in employees. And that is unacceptable to the “Manger-Class” of society let alone the “Corporate Overlord Class”!
So, you see I really don’t believe that Fain is at all concerned with the development of a workable 4 day plan for the Automotive Industry like we see in Lamborghini. Instead I think this a beautifully orchestrated PR campaign by Fain. A campaign that Fain hopes to roll out at every strike he can for the next few years to scare companies into capitulating at the negotiation table to much easier demands while always being just over one more hill. To quote Chairman Mao it’s a “paper tiger”— designed to look scary to everyone on the outside, but on the inside of the negotiation room it is understood to be what it is a public relation tool at most. Fain requires this sleight of hand to be only known to his fellow negotiators in that he can keep his union on the picket line nearly indefinitely with the promise of this 4 day work week.
The fact that Fain is a bit of a fraud on this aspect is also probably why he is so loved by magazines like the Jacobin and its cadre of faux-socialist writers and theorists. I find it extremely odd that no one in the Jacobin magazine asked why Fain if he is such an ardent believer in the 4 day work week why he let it drop so quickly to the Negotiating Room Floor?
In fact the only article I can find in Jacobin about the 4 day work week is from Jacobin’s staff writer of labor issues Alex N. Press— which is oddly devoid of any example of reduced working hours and the four day working week historically and present. And there are more than you might actually think. In Fact in 2022 a full year before Press’ article “SHAWN FAIN IS RIGHT: THE WORKWEEK SHOULD BE SHORTER” extolling the strong position of Fain’s “Four day Work Week” Newsweek Published this article: “Every US Company With A Four Day Work Week— Full List”. Sometimes, I seriously wonder if the journalists at Jacobin even do the simplest research at times? (It took me exactly 45 seconds to find the article using Yahoo’s search engine.) But that’s part of my big complaint against Jacobin isn’t it"? That basically the editorial staff always push the work of people who abhor direct action and instead extol those that wish to push for large scale federal policies with zero chance of success.
Shawn Fain is the perfect Golden Avatar for the Jacobin’s ideal Union Leader—a person that is devoid of any real direct action credentials but adroit in the use of PR.
like the 4 daywork idea. more leisure less widgets works for me. but along with more leisure we need more social interaction. Let's get to know one another. love one another.