KWPro.net

I saw this article on slimming down.  The most important part, in my opinion, is the last section where it says, "Keep an 8 hour work day."  I want to take this strategy further.  I think there should be a global mandate enforcing 8 hour work days.  Obviously, this idea is going to be impossible to maintain as some people require taking a second or third job to keep up.  I guess without a notion of socialism that keeping this idea absolute is impossible.  I do think that certain jobs should definitely be kept within an 8 hour work day, most notably jobs where people are inert (i.e. office jobs).

If you do this, you'd have to eliminate overtime pay.  But I think this would solve cases like the old Electronic Arts whisteblowing case, where EA was sued because it overworked their employees.  Also, this would force many companies to re-think how deadlines are done.  Hopefully, this would enforce a better sense of planning and hopefully get rid of most unreasonable deadlines in jobs where time estimates are not easy to come by (e.g. software, creative roles, etc.).

There was another article over at Japantoday.com stating how McDonalds managers in Japan were dying from overwork.  That goes to show that it's not just office jobs where people suffer from overtime work.  Unfortunately, there's no penalties set against these companies without dire consequences for the individual employee.  Also, there's no way to monitor companies to enforce this ruling.

Some ideas for enforcing this might be forcing the facilities to shut down after a certain period.  For instance, killing electricity, water and gas to buildings designated in certain "business" zones.  When you think about this policy, it has some additional benefits such as saving energy, water and gas potentially.

I've said in the past that the 40 hour work week with 9-5 are archaic artifacts that have no place in a postmodern/information based society.  However, if companies refuse to enforce a true 9-5 work environment, then I think it's up to governments to mandate 8 hour work week policies or find (creative) ways of penalizing those companies.  Otherwise, companies should NOT have the notion of core work hours and allow more telecommuting, complete flex hours and be on virtual time.  Anything else does not make sense these days.