My son tells me there are some global internet issues right now. For me, it seens to be mostly negatively impacting my access of Hacker News, so I cannot post the following reply to a comment there that was rebutting something I said. Though thanks to browser memory, I appear to be able to access the link to the comment.
Regardless of who introduced the idea, it was labor unions that fought to get the 40 hour work week standardized.
Although the length of the workday is largely an economic decision arrived at by the interaction of the supply and demand for labor, advocates of shorter hours and foes of shorter hours have often argued the issue on moral grounds. In the early 1800s, advocates argued that shorter work hours improved workers’ health, allowed them time for self-improvement and relieved unemployment.
Hours of Work in U.S. History
Unions were crucial in the passage of just about all the benefits and rules that we take for granted today, starting with the weekend. The 40-hour workweek became the standard in the 1937 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Labor Unions: The Folks Who Gave You the Weekend
One of the things that drove the push for the shorter work week was automation increasing the intensity of the work week. Automated assembly lines required you to work physically harder than artisanal shops and it wasn't sustainable to work 70 hours.
Recent labor trends include more need for knowledge, education and fairly intellectual skills. Menial labor has been increasingly replaced by machines. Even if you are a bottom feeding Lyft driver or something, you need to know how to use computers and the internet to get your job done.
Our current work environment is unprecedented and intellectually demanding work actually can require more breaks and self care than physically demanding labor. Chess grand masters are known to lose weight while hardly moving during a chess tournament because thinking intensely burns so many calories.
The 1984 World Chess Championship was called off after five months and 48 games because defending champion Anatoly Karpov had lost 22 pounds. "He looked like death," grandmaster and commentator Maurice Ashley recalls.
In 2004, winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov walked away from the six-game world championship having lost 17 pounds.
The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
As things become increasingly intellectually demanding, we may need to further shorten the work week just so we don't burn out our workers. We are dealing with working environments that are fundamentally different from historical norms and we really don't do a good job of figuring out how to account for that.
It really doesn't even get discussed. People push for shorter work weeks to share the wealth or whatever and not because expecting people to focus intellectually for eight or more hours straight like a chess grand master is not sustainable.
As someone who is both medically handicapped and does intellectual labor -- because I can't do physical labor, I wish I could -- time-wise, the largest part of getting any work done is taking care of myself so I am capable of the kind of focus I need to be able to give to the task. And I'm a freelancer, so I think a fair amount about things like how to increase my productivity so I can increase my income.
When I had a corporate job, I was on night shift initially and it was 37.5 hours. It was eight hours a day, but 30 minutes of that was a lunch break which didn't count towards hours worked.
When I moved to day shift, I moved to a 40 hour work week. That extra 2.5 hours was killer and it took me weeks or months to adjust to working days and working an additional 2.5 hours a week. It was really hard and I don't think it was just because I have health issues.
Regardless of who introduced the idea, it was labor unions that fought to get the 40 hour work week standardized.
Although the length of the workday is largely an economic decision arrived at by the interaction of the supply and demand for labor, advocates of shorter hours and foes of shorter hours have often argued the issue on moral grounds. In the early 1800s, advocates argued that shorter work hours improved workers’ health, allowed them time for self-improvement and relieved unemployment.
Hours of Work in U.S. History
Unions were crucial in the passage of just about all the benefits and rules that we take for granted today, starting with the weekend. The 40-hour workweek became the standard in the 1937 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Labor Unions: The Folks Who Gave You the Weekend
One of the things that drove the push for the shorter work week was automation increasing the intensity of the work week. Automated assembly lines required you to work physically harder than artisanal shops and it wasn't sustainable to work 70 hours.
Recent labor trends include more need for knowledge, education and fairly intellectual skills. Menial labor has been increasingly replaced by machines. Even if you are a bottom feeding Lyft driver or something, you need to know how to use computers and the internet to get your job done.
Our current work environment is unprecedented and intellectually demanding work actually can require more breaks and self care than physically demanding labor. Chess grand masters are known to lose weight while hardly moving during a chess tournament because thinking intensely burns so many calories.
The 1984 World Chess Championship was called off after five months and 48 games because defending champion Anatoly Karpov had lost 22 pounds. "He looked like death," grandmaster and commentator Maurice Ashley recalls.
In 2004, winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov walked away from the six-game world championship having lost 17 pounds.
The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
As things become increasingly intellectually demanding, we may need to further shorten the work week just so we don't burn out our workers. We are dealing with working environments that are fundamentally different from historical norms and we really don't do a good job of figuring out how to account for that.
It really doesn't even get discussed. People push for shorter work weeks to share the wealth or whatever and not because expecting people to focus intellectually for eight or more hours straight like a chess grand master is not sustainable.
As someone who is both medically handicapped and does intellectual labor -- because I can't do physical labor, I wish I could -- time-wise, the largest part of getting any work done is taking care of myself so I am capable of the kind of focus I need to be able to give to the task. And I'm a freelancer, so I think a fair amount about things like how to increase my productivity so I can increase my income.
When I had a corporate job, I was on night shift initially and it was 37.5 hours. It was eight hours a day, but 30 minutes of that was a lunch break which didn't count towards hours worked.
When I moved to day shift, I moved to a 40 hour work week. That extra 2.5 hours was killer and it took me weeks or months to adjust to working days and working an additional 2.5 hours a week. It was really hard and I don't think it was just because I have health issues.