Full time work to be re-defined as 30 hours a week

If we paid every adult an unconditional basic income of £15,000 a year, funded by a tax on all spending, then people would be free to do the stuff they really wanted to do "just for the love of it"

Snog

No easier to get a job in the uk than infrance though and the whole idea is about sharing the available work so that more individuals can have jobs and there are fewer people who need to claim benefits.

Although, as has been pointed out above, systemic unemployment in France is higher. So it doesn't work. You can't 'share' work around, and here's why - people aren't the same.

By claiming that they are the same and that you can 'share' work around, you're treating people as things. You're treating them as replaceable parts in a machine. "Citizen 2199693 requires employment, comrade. We must scale back the employment of citizen 4829281 and provide its function to the new citizen."

That's why socialism is so vile. It treats people as objects.

No easier to get a job in the uk than infrance though and the whole idea is about sharing the available work so that more individuals can have jobs and there are fewer people who need to claim benefits.

"France is generally held to offer a far better work life balance than the uk."

BUt only if you can get a job in the first place.

Snog

Youth unemployment is around 22% in both the uk and France do no big difference here in spite of France's 35 hour week

Youth unemployment in France is almost never lower than 20%. In the 1990s it was 30% Compare that to the UK where it's only just reached 20%, after years of being much lower. So if the UK in the teeth of the worst recession in history has just hit the point where France is by default, we're doing pretty well.

France has a systemic unemployment problem. The reason is that its labour laws make it very hard to lay off staff. Once you've got a job, you're fine, but getting a job is hard. In fact if you're a North African migrant, it's practically impossible.

Youth unemployment is around 22% in both the uk and France do no big difference here in spite of France's 35 hour week

In my opinion a high degree of Relative poverty is a huge issue and makes the country a worse place to live and I don't buy that unregulated capitalism "makes us all richer"

Clearly unemployment rates across europe are to do with many and complex factors. France is generally held to offer a far better work life balance than the uk. It's not all about having 5 tvs in your house.

"The gap between rich and poor has been wider many times in our history AND crime has been higher."

Should have added... but not at the same time.

Sorry

Snog "Do you like the fact that young people are struggling to find work? "

Look at what has happened to countries that have gone down similar routes. France has long advocated a 35 hour working week, yet they have higher unemployment than the UK. Please explain this away before suggesting we copy them, let alone go further. Similarly, the EU has tougher rules regarding employment legislation yet has youth unemployment in excess of 50% in some territories - by this measure, youth unemployment in the UK is nowhere near as bad.

"Do you like the fact that the growing gap between rich and poor creates civil unrest and more crime?"

This is a big assumption. The gap between rich and poor has been wider many times in our history AND crime has been higher. The two figures don't correlate. On the whole, I couldn't care less about relative poverty as long as we all get richer together - usually, when the economy expands, we all get richer. Malnutrition, and other diseases associated with real poverty, has been all but eradicated in the UK. We all eat better, are clothed better and, like it or not, capitalism is the magic money tree which has delivered this. Our economy is screwed up at the moment as we don't have growth but this is the fault of bad banking decisions and stupid politicos and is no reason to kill the golden goose. When the government pull their finger out and sort out the economy again, we will all start to get richer once more.

"What would you have us do?"

It helps no one that we have an artificial floor in the cost of labour in this country. I've said it before but the fruit of some peoples labour just isn?t worth the minimum wage. Where we have kids who cannot get a job, it would be in their interests to take a lower paying job in the short term so that they can put some (indeed any) experience down on their CV's. It is experience which leads to better job opportunities, not qualifications. We also need to stop making it so easy to survive indefinitely on the dole. Where people can be long term unemployed and yet still be picky about what job they do says lots about the state of the system. Finally, we need to reduce taxation on businesses. We need to make Britain the obvious territory in the EU to open up factories and businesses. This will lead to jobs and opportunities for all of our people. We could even have flexible corporation tax rates for business depending on where they operate in the country. If they pick a high unemployment area to operate in, they pay less tax.

All of this is achieved with less governmental interference rather than more, and I believe that is the answer.

Working time directive made a great deal of difference to the working hours of junior doctors

Also meant that unpaid overtime was stopped for my job

nfk i agree

I'm interested in the idea of National Happiness and the idea that it can be measured, It seems right now that some people work almost all the hours there are and others can't find jobs.

I'm not aware of what they did in France: stopped anyone working more than 30 hrs pw?

And what did the working time directive achieve? Everyone gets given a form and told - sign this. Then everyone carries on as before.

Krushchev fanciful idea? Bit dimissive considering they did it in France?
And how come the working time directive was implemented across europe?

Redefined by whom? My contracted hours are 40 hrs pw. Is the government proposing to fine people who work over? Lock up persistent offenders.
Businesses have enough problems finding good skilled staff without limiting them further.
The idea that businesses will give some zero qualification fuckwit a job just because they've been forced to cut the hours of their capable staff is ridiculous.
Sounds more like one of Khrushchev's fanciful ideals rather than a workable option for a free society.

Judgeypants the whole point is about sharing out the jobs that there are so that the unemployed can have jobs - so it won't be "reducing the individual output of everyone by 20%". Some people will reduce their output by 20% and others will increase their working hours.

Its about doing the same work overall as a country but sharing out the rewards of labour more equitably.

You say"To a business, having a large workforce is a cost, not a benefit". but businesses will only pay for the same hours as they previously did - their costs will not change.

For the UK, having people on benefits who want to work is a cost - and not just a financial cost, also a social and health cost.

You say "experience has shown this - is that simpler jobs are automated, outsourced or absorbed by the rest of a company's workforce" - this happens regardless of changes in working hours and is also known as productivity increase. Changing the working week will make no difference.

Why are you so satisfied with the status quo? Do you even think that a 40 hour week is better than the working hours norm of victorian britain?

Do you like the fact that young people are struggling to find work? Do you like the fact that the growing gap between rich and poor creates civil unrest and more crime? What would you have us do?

LittleWhiteMice

^western world govs are in trouble because they favour business over people. only business dousnt work without people to work of customers.

people are what keeps a business going, if we all say no. what will they do?^

Stop trading. And who does that benefit?

western world govs are in trouble because they favour business over people. only business dousnt work without people to work of customers.

people are what keeps a business going, if we all say no. what will they do?

this is a good idea, but noone will go for it.
I earn 7 pounds per hour, how can i afford to pay rent a dn live off that?

"Clearly there will be millions more jobs available for the unemployed."

How? To a business, having a large workforce is a cost, not a benefit. No one in the sane world measures the success of an individual company by how many people it employs. Nor does a company move from making a loss to turning a profit by taking on more employees.

What this proposal hopes to achieve is that for every four people in the workforce, their employer will take on another person. What is far more likely to happen - i.e. experience has shown this - is that simpler jobs are automated, outsourced or absorbed by the rest of a company's workforce. The 'beauty' of this proposal is that everyone gets their wages docked by 20% in the meantime.

Let?s face it, the reason that the western world is in the shit now is because our governments are spending more money than we as a people can afford to repay. The cause of these structural deficits was the belief that we were richer than we really are. Reducing the individual output of everyone in the UK by 20% would be an odd way to fix this problem.

judgeypants Clearly there will be millions more jobs available for the unemployed.
Saving benefits payments of course and they will also pay tax once employed.

Presumably, if everyone works 20% less then everyone will get paid 20% less. This means everyone will pay 20% less tax (actually, it will be even less than that as, at the margins, people will drop down Income Tax bands).

Does your plan include cutting government spending (i.e. cutting benefits) by a similar percentage or will your measures further disincentivise the option of working for a living?

This is a very bad idea.

EssentialFattyAcid

monkey the point is that the purchaser pays for the job done. The company doing the job have to hire more people to do it, that is all. Each of those people earns 20% less money, but more people get to have jobs instead of there being not enough jobs to go around and people left to claim benefits who want to work.

So the company is going to hire more people, is it? Why? Because you say so? Perhaps they can't afford to hire more people. Perhaps they'll do what they currently do in France with the 35-hour week, and be less productive.

Prices are likely to go down not up if the 30 hour week takes off so inflation won't be an issue. Its also the case that ccgg you are falling into the trap of measuring standard of living by how much you earn.

Why will they go down?

I find it extraordinary that, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and all the ghastly sights that we saw as Communism collapsed - the brutality, the corruption, the pollution, the state-mandated violence, the absolute and total disregard for individual liberty - some people, like you, still think that telling people exactly how they should live their lives is a recipe for success.

Communism failed because it took a system and applied it to people and showed no regard for the desires or thoughts of those people. You're doing exactly the same thing with your '30-hour week'.

30 hrs a wk would be great and then get paid over time for anything above that.