Throughout the last year, I’ve been struck by how unusually universal the pandemic is, reaching into almost every part of the world, and yet how intensely personal it has been as an experience. The loss, isolation, and stress felt by so many of us over the last year has been so individual, without access to community and networks of support we typically rely upon. Like many people, I found myself burning out–working into nights and weekends, sleeping less, with anxiety slowly creeping in. I supported friends who lost jobs and still haven’t found new ones. I watched my friends and coworkers struggle with the sudden responsibility of providing childcare at home while navigating relationships in the pressure cooker of quarantine. I comforted, from a distance, friends who lost family members without being able to say goodbye. This is a crisis we must solve together, but it’s the individual stories and experiences that give meaning to why we must address it.
All of our experiences from the last year have led to a deep questioning of how we spend our time and what we prioritize. For too long, we have centered work in our time, our energy, and our identities, leaving family, community, rest, and everything else in life to be crammed into our evenings and short weekends. As we begin the long trek back to “normal,” it’s becoming clear that the “normal” ways we work keep us from the ways we want to live. We need space for people to rest, to be with each other, and to simply be human beings. We need more time away from work.
This is how I came to join the movement for a four-day workweek, or: reducing our standard working hours for the same pay and benefits. It’s a simple but radical idea to reclaim our lives. We lost a lot of time over the last year. We lost time with our families and friends. In many cases, we lost loved ones. We lost time to participate in our communities and explore our world. Our time is precious and limited. This is how we get some of it back.
Six months ago, we launched a campaign to make a four-day workweek real, combining a petition to coalesce public support and a global employer pilot in 2022. In that time, we have seen successive waves of news stories across the world, including enthusiastic coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and the Atlantic; Kickstarter has committed to joining our global pilot; and 4 day week legislation has been proposed in Congress.
With so much momentum, and in a moment where employers across the world are reconsidering how they operate, we have a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dramatically shift the way we work and the way we live. But real change will only come if we come together to demand that employers and politicians make a four-day workweek real. That’s why this movement needs your signature.
The surge in press coverage about a four-day work week over the last month has been remarkable–hundreds of stories, op-eds, podcasts, and TV reports have run all over the world highlighting the benefits of a four-day workweek. The interest isn’t entirely surprising. For all of its horrors, the global pandemic has cracked open a long overdue conversation about how we work. While remote work has dominated much of the conversation, the four-day workweek is stepping to the fore as a more transformative shift that can benefit a much broader set of workers. And it already has overwhelming public support — 82% of U.S. adults already want a shorter workweek. If you’re one of them, there’s one simple action you can take to turn this media interest and public support into action:
Join the thousands of people signing and sharing this petition. That’s it.
It’s confidential. Your name won’t be shared.
It’s easy. We will reach out to companies that show lots of employee support, or help you get the conversation started.
It’s accountable. The work doesn’t end with your signature. We are launching a 2022 pilot program for companies who want to test out a shorter workweek, with expert guidance, resources, and a broad support network for all participating organizations.
If you’re concerned about the feasibility of a four-day workweek, you should know that shorter workweeks are already working. Research from the International Labour Organization at the United Nations shows that a five-day workweek is often counterproductive, while companies operating on a four-day workweek are finding that they’re as productive or more. Employers have successfully made the shift in the manufacturing, nursing, restaurants, as well as in the nonprofit and tech sectors. A government-backed pilot has launched in Spain, while political parties in Japan, the UK, New Zealand, and Ireland are all starting to push for a transition to a four-day workweek. A groundbreaking four year study in Iceland showed shorter working hours could be accomplished across all sectors without reducing productivity while increasing the well-being of employees.
Just last week, Mark Takano announced legislation in Congress to revise The Fair Labor Standards Act to standardize the 32-hour work week. The momentum is building. With so much progress, we can make a four-day workweek inevitable with enough people raising their voices to demand real movement from politicians and employers.
We know this is possible because we’ve done it before. In the 1920s, labor groups like The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and business leaders like Henry Ford first transitioned their industries from a six-day workweek to five. Their efforts created a snowball effect of companies that followed suit through the 1930s. Policy mandating a 40-hour workweek came after, with The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938.
It’s an incredible example of the collective power it takes to make massive change — and that massive change is absolutely possible, even for some of our most entrenched ideas.
After a century of productivity gains, it’s time we took the next step. While there is no silver bullet for a resilient and healthy society, the benefits of a shorter workweek for equal pay, evidenced from trials across the world, keep stacking up.
It provides a healthier balance between work and life in a society reckoning with a burnout epidemic that is making us sick. It boosts happiness and makes us healthier by providing more space for rest, exercise, and health. The companies who have moved to a four day week see increased productivity, employee engagement, and retention. It allows more child caretakers, who are overwhelmingly women in our society, to remain in the workforce and continue advancing their careers. It responds to the labor threats of an automated future. It would also dramatically reduce our carbon emissions.
Like the pandemic, a four-day workweek would impact almost all of us, but it’s the way it would impact our individual lives that would give it meaning. The hours reclaimed spent with family and friends in places we love. The time to rest or reinvest in our communities. Let’s imagine a life away from a grind and transform it into something more meaningful. Let’s use this moment, when the future of work remains largely undetermined, to redefine our relationship to work so we can be better people and lead better lives. Join the tens of thousands of people signing on to the 4 Day Week campaign and help us recruit politicians and employers to actually move towards the future we all want. This is our brief moment in time. Let’s not waste it.