We Want Longer Weekends — but Not Longer Workdays
Romanian lawmakers have called for a three-day weekend — but with the existing 40-hour workweek now crammed into four shifts. The situation shows how reorganizing the workweek can hurt workers’ interests if they don’t have a say in the process.
Colorful umbrellas shade a street in Timișoara, Romania.
A three-day weekend sounds like a blessing — a chunk of the week to do what we really want. With the rise in remote work and new technology allowing shifting work patterns, it’s no wonder that calls for a four-day workweek have gained traction around the world.
Yet there’s wide variation in the intention — and outcome — of such projects. While left-wing parties in countries from Britain to Chile have called for an overall reduction in working time, Belgium has introduced a voluntary four-day workweek but with no change in total hours. Experiments in Iceland as well as pilot research at New Zealander financial services firm Perpetual Guardian proved that shortening the workweek is beneficial for workers, while also highlighting its merits in increased productivity.
But the idea that this is a business-friendly measure comes up against the limits of the proposal. Last month, Romanian MPs from center-right and right-wing parties introduced a bill to change the workweek to four days and the standard workday to ten hours. The sponsors of the proposed legislation said:
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