10 hour working day

[Moonshine]

Am I being naive, but ive had a local tradie provide a quote of hourly rates based on 10 hour working days.

Is that normal? 

[Ronan 1]

Very normal, usually 8am to 6pm or 7am to 5pm. 

[TonyT]

It’s normal for you if you want it to be.

 

Guys I know work 8 hours with 15 minute break in the morning and 30 mins for lunch start at 8 and finish 4

[SteamyTea]

An hour in the morning is worth 2 in the afternoon.

Productivity drops off after about 6 hours.

Edited March 14, 2021 by SteamyTea

[Gav_P]

Most I know start at 8 knock off by 3 or 4 pm. ... by the end of the day their quality of work is definitely dropping off... can’t imagine what it would be like after 10 hours every day! 

[Oz07]

Anyone who works more than 8 hours in my experience seems to be eastern European. 

 

Any bloke worth their salt does 8 hours. I start at half 7 and start packing up at half 3. Sometimes I'm gone by 15.35 other times 16.00

 

The trade has been decimated by people working away from home happy to plod on 7am till 7pm with no life. 

[Ronan 1]

8 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

Anyone who works more than 8 hours in my experience seems to be eastern European. 

 

Any bloke worth their salt does 8 hours. I start at half 7 and start packing up at half 3. Sometimes I'm gone by 15.35 other times 16.00

 

The trade has been decimated by people working away from home happy to plod on 7am till 7pm with no life. 

Well I'm Irish and digging holes or shouting at men digging holes for 25 years and I have never worked less than a 10 hour shift ..  And I've never seen or tolerated any drop off in productivity. Currently have 300 men out on sites and come 5 o clock everyman is still hard at it or at least better be good at pretending to be ....

[Oz07]

Sorry I meant European then. 

Basically anyone working away from home is happy to put in a long shift. 

[Ronan 1]

2 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

Sorry I meant European then. 

Basically anyone working away from home is happy to put in a long shift. 

I'd agree with that, any of the lads I have living away wouldn't stay for anything less than 12 hours a shift..

 

Except on a Friday ...

[Ronan 1]

I also think long hours are the norm for Groundworks / Civils as opposed to other Housing trades

[Moonshine]

23 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

Anyone who works more than 8 hours in my experience seems to be eastern European. 

 

Local guy, lives 5-10min from the site not eastern european.

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, Ronan 1 said:

Well I'm Irish and digging holes or shouting at men digging holes for 25 years and I have never worked less than a 10 hour shift ..  And I've never seen or tolerated any drop off in productivity. Currently have 300 men out on sites and come 5 o clock everyman is still hard at it or at least better be good at pretending to be ....

So you don't think much to the European Working Time Directive then.

[Moonshine]

6 minutes ago, Ronan 1 said:

I also think long hours are the norm for Groundworks / Civils as opposed to other Housing trades

 

It is a groundworker, so it could be the norm for you guys. 

I was surprised when he said it. If you don't mind as you are an experienced groundworker if i were to send you the hourly rates would you mind seeing if they are typical?

[Moonshine]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

So you don't think much to the European Working Time Directive then.

 

You know it's not mandatory and employees can opt out (I have)

[Ronan 1]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

So you don't think much to the European Working Time Directive then.

Since it came in it's be common place to sign waivers .... I've worked all across Europe for big and small and unfortunately never had the luxury and as most men on hourly rates if you implemented it you would be left with the scraps on site

[Ronan 1]

5 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

 

It is a groundworker, so it could be the norm for you guys. 

I was surprised when he said it. If you don't mind as you are an experienced groundworker if i were to send you the hourly rates would you mind seeing if they are 

Pm en route

[SteamyTea]

A four-day work week could improve our health and cut carbon emissions

Insight is your guide to the science and technology that is transforming our world, giving you everything you need to know about the issues that matter most

 

HEALTH 10 April 2019

By Michael Le Page

A four-day week would give us much more leisure time

Thomas Northcut/Getty

A GROWING movement wants to radically change how we live. The people behind it say it will make us healthier, happier and more productive. It will put a massive dent in carbon dioxide emissions and ease the pressure on nature. And it will make countries richer and more equal. But are we really ready for a four-day week?

In the UK, at least, the idea is gaining ground. Some trade unions have come out in support, the Labour party and the Scottish National party are discussing the idea and a few small firms are already trying it. The Wellcome Trust, a science charity with 800 staff, is also considering it.

 

 

“A 1% decrease in working hours could lead to a 0.8% drop in carbon emissions”

The suggestion is that society moves away from typical working patterns of 40 hours over five days, a convention that has its roots in the 19th-century labour movement. Instead, campaigners want us to work no more than 32 hours over four days – but still get paid for all five.

“We are making the case for a reduction in working time without a reduction in pay,” says Aidan Harper of the New Economics Foundation, a UK think tank that backs the 4 Day Week Campaign.

A January report by the campaign lays out a huge body of evidence showing that working long hours is bad for physical and mental health. But many of those studies looked at people working 50 to 60 hours a week rather than comparing five working days to four. And there is plenty of evidence that being unemployed or having little work is bad as well.

So how much work is too much? Huong Dinh at the Australian National University and her colleagues used survey data from 8000 individuals to try to figure out how many hours people can work before their mental health starts to decline (see “Graph”). On average, the threshold is 39 hours – almost the same as a 40-hour week, although much less than the legal limit of 48 hours in many countries.

 

 

But the situation is very different for women with unpaid care commitments: their mental health begins to decline after just 31 hours of paid work. So the current system puts women at a big disadvantage.

Which leads to another reason for introducing a four-day week: to make society more equal. The idea is that it will help women compete on a more equal footing and increase employment as work is shared among more people.

There is still a massive gulf between the sexes. The gender pay gap is around 20 per cent in the UK, and women still do most of the childcare, housework and caring for relatives.

The argument is that more women could work full-time and more men could take on care responsibilities if everyone did a four-day week, with the entire economy profiting. There is some evidence that women do benefit when working hours are reduced: they report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to be forced to take part-time jobs.

“A culture in which different uses of time are expected from women and men has been the single most important barrier to equal opportunity,” says Anna Coote, also of the New Economics Foundation. This hasn’t just been bad for women, she says. “Men have been cut off from their children and family life.”

A four-day week would make a tremendous difference, but our working culture needs to change, too, says Coote. “There’s no magic bullet here. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Less work, more jobs

Would a shorter week create more well-paid jobs, reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots? Here economists point to what they call the lump of labour fallacy: there isn’t a fixed amount of work to be done, so cutting working hours doesn’t create an equivalent number of jobs.

Other researchers say this is true only in the narrow mathematical sense that working one day less won’t create exactly a fifth more jobs. There is plenty of evidence that if done in the right way, cutting hours can boost employment. In 1933, for instance, president Franklin D. Roosevelt asked employers in the US to reduce the working week from the 40 to 50 hours typical at that time to 35 hours, while increasing wages. The voluntary scheme created 1.3 million jobs.

There is a more surprising reason for moving to a four-day week: it could limit further global warming. Numerous studies have shown a strong link between greenhouse emissions and working hours.

For instance, Jörgen Larsson and Jonas Nässén at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden found that a 1 per cent decrease in working hours leads to a 0.8 per cent drop in emissions. This has led to claims that introducing a four-day week could cut emissions by 16 per cent.

Unfortunately, the main reason is that people who earn less consume less. So while cutting out one day’s commute would help, emissions wouldn’t fall drastically if people keep the same salary. “You cannot have them both at the same time,” says Larsson.

For some, a move away from rampant consumerism and a focus on happiness rather than economic growth is exactly what is needed. But according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, while a third of the nation’s 30 million workers want to work fewer hours, only 3.3 million would accept lower pay.

On the flip side, why should companies and countries pay people the same for doing less work? Some believe they don’t have to. According to a trial at a financial services company called Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, not only can people do their job in four days instead of five, they can also do it better.

The firm’s founder, Andrew Barnes, acknowledges that, say, healthcare services would have to employ more doctors or nurses if they switched to a four-day week, but he says staff would treat patients more efficiently and with better results.

“Would you rather be operated on by the doctor who is fresh or the one who has been working for 10 hours?” he says. “The four-day week is a discussion about productive outcomes as much as one about work-life balance.”

“More than 60% of people in the UK back a four-day week”

On a larger scale, campaigners say countries where people work fewer hours tend to have stronger economies. Within Europe, working hours are lowest in countries with thriving economies such as Germany, the Netherlands and Norway, and highest in struggling Greece. Productivity in the UK is 25 per cent lower than in Germany, but 10 per cent higher than in Japan, which has a culture of working extreme hours.

However, Jon Boys at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the UK isn’t convinced. There are lots of anecdotal claims about increased productivity at companies, he says, but no large, rigorous studies to back this up.

Nor does Boys think you can draw any firm conclusions by comparing countries because there are so many other factors involved. That said, he is still in favour of a four-day week, although he thinks productivity has to improve first.

So where does all this leave us? There is indeed plenty of evidence that shifting to a four-day week could have a range of benefits, but also that not all of those benefits can be maximised at the same time.

For instance, if people do five days’ work in four, there will be no increase in jobs, so unemployment will remain unchanged. Forcing people to work more intensely to keep the same pay could increase stress, but earning less could also be stressful for those on low pay.

“There seems to be no one-size-fits-all approach to working time reduction that would attain all objectives and perform well in all areas,” cautions a report for the European Trade Union Institute.

“A third of the UK’s 30 million workers want to work fewer hours”

Nevertheless, there is broad support for the idea from many sectors. “Working time on its own is not the one answer to climate change, but it can improve all of these other things too: the environment, unemployment, health,” says Jared Fitzgerald of Boston College in Massachusetts, who, with his colleagues, has found a strong link between working hours and carbon emissions in the US. “As an overall sustainability issue, it can be pretty powerful.”

Fitzgerald thinks there is no prospect of the US introducing a four-day week. The need for people to work a certain number of hours to get health insurance makes it a non-starter, he says.

However, a poll this January discovered that more than 60 per cent of people in the UK, Sweden and Finland support the idea. Harper thinks it could happen in just a few years. “Surely the aim should be to create the conditions in which we can live good lives,” he says.

[Nickfromwales]

22 minutes ago, Ronan 1 said:

I'd agree with that, any of the lads I have living away wouldn't stay for anything less than 12 hours a shift..

 

Except on a Friday ...

Yup. I’m away a lot and it’s just far more cost effective to put in a long day, by the time you factor in travel / fuel / accommodation. I’d rather be grafting and earning than sat in the hotel bar getting fatter. 
If I’m near home, I do shorter days typically, but more often than not I’m on price not day / hour rate, so the sooner I get it done the more profitable the week. 

[Ronan 1]

Yeah not much craic these days staring at a hotel room from 5 o clock in the evening........

[Oz07]

How manyb of these work away from home lot do a full shift Friday? Most I worked with come in to clean up. End of. 

[Nickfromwales]

Just now, Ronan 1 said:

Yeah not much craic these days staring at a hotel room from 5 o clock in the evening........

Indeed. Days go much quicker too if you push on, which is important to me as I’m away from a wife and 4 dependant children. Sooner I can chew through the work sheet the better.

Would ve differeht if the pubs were open,for the craic, but I’ve become almost unable to drink past a coupe of beers these days anyhoo....

Times have changed and it’s been a good respite in some respects, with being able to readdress priorities and take stock ( during Covid ). 

[Nickfromwales]

10 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

How manyb of these work away from home lot do a full shift Friday? Most I worked with come in to clean up. End of. 

Not me. Nor any of the sub contractors I use either. 
We’ve often been there until the bitter end of a Friday. 
Inpay very good rates to my guys and wouldn’t expect anything less. 5 days are 5 equal days, you can chill out on Saturday until your hearts content. Too many out there expect a day of easy street after 4 days of graft. Not a problem if I can pay them 50% on Friday for slacking off, but the 1st person to ask for that would be the next person to leave. 
Sacked 11 guys from Barrow one morning for pretty much the same work ethic. Kept the other gang of local Geordies on who pretty much did the work of those 11 wasters inclusive of their normal day anyway. 
There are grafters and tossers. I’m glad to have generally found grafters who’ve been worth their weight, but a few have been a little less overwhelming. They got paid accordingly, or left. 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Nickfromwales

[Ronan 1]

@SteamyTeaif I could get away with a 4 day week and make the same coin I'd love it, more time to spend with the wife and kids could only be good BUT I can never see it in our industry maybe in an office culture possibly.

 

It would drive costs and housing prices sky high also.

[Nickfromwales]

Just now, Ronan 1 said:

@SteamyTeaif I could get away with a 4 day week and make the same coin I'd love it, more time to spend with the wife and kids could only be good BUT I can never see it in our industry maybe in an office culture possibly.

Divorce rates would sky rocket lol  

[Ronan 1]

Aye but I'd say the wife's boyfriend would be glad of the respite ?