if having a MAXIMUM of 30 work hours would "solve" unemployment ?

[cumfy]

After all employers would have to find the labour hours from somewhere or find efficiencies ?

Cumfy I'm fed up of explaining this to people in RL. Individual solicitors who work for a firm do not get paid everything their client is charged.

Yes we charge client's by the hour but WE DON'T GET PAID THAT MONEY!!!!! It goes in the firms pocket and we get paid an annual wage. So while I could charge the client for every hour I worked on that file out of hours, I would not get paid for it directly. All the time I charge the client for goes to the firm and my wage stays the same no matter how many hours I work.

Yes, I think this would solve a lot of our problems. But it seems we like to have problems.

How would market forces increase pay?

In the same general way that the price-elasticity of demand affects the going-rate for a finite good/service.

A1980

That sounds illegal to me; I'd see solicitor pronto. :o

Sorry that was cheap, but couldn't resist.

Seriously, what happens if you stick to your hours-ish ?

If they sack you in those circs, doesn't that mean there are too many lawyers ?

But it seems we like to have problems.

Yes .... what would we do ? :o

So A1980, is the problem that your firm simply pockets extra hours charged or that they underestimate the work involved and set 40h of work which in reality takes 60h ?

cumfy

Nothing happens if you stick to your hours. Most of the time I can and do stick to my hours as long as I work efficiently when I am there.

But at times when I have a trial coming up or an emergency application needs to be made or something needs to be ready for court, it isn't a case of my firm getting annoyed at me for not working late... I can't turn up to court unprepared or not having finsihed the work that needed doing for it. So it's my own professional conduct that means I have to work until it's done rather than my firm making us work late.

"So A1980, is the problem that your firm simply pockets extra hours charged or that they underestimate the work involved and set 40h of work which in reality takes 60h ?"

Cumfy you just don't understand. That is not how it works at all and I'm sorry but I can't be arsed to explain it again. I've already explained it several posts earlier.

"But why are people forced to work 65 h ?"

Because their job warrants it, because that's what it takes to get a promotion in some areas, because they want to, because some employers are bastards and demand more than is capable in 37.5 hours a week... and many more that I can't think of at the moment.

I work part time, having previously been full time in my roll. I do 3 days, I work strictly to my hours (I have to because of childcare arrangements) yet I have to do more work in 3 days than I would expect to working 5. I'm NOT a slacker and work bloody hard, but even I struggle to fit everything in.

DH on the other hand works a 50 hour week, plus random hours on call (which he is obviously paid for). How the frig would you rationalise our working arrangements which suit us financially, are very beneficial to our family and we've worked for years to accomplish.

If some wanker decided that DH could only work 30 hours a week then we wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage, we wouldn't be able to afford to run the one car we have, and I would have to go to work full time, except that would only equal 30 hours a week. Childcare would be a mess and Europe and the US would fucking laugh at us for having such a ridiculous rule.

I don't know why i'm bothering tbh... I should have just said "because it's a fucking stupid idea"

Samedi

Maybe if parents weren't working such long hours themselves they wouldn't need a nanny for so long ?

role, not roll.. whoops!

what a naive post

activate, thanks for summing up in one sentence what I still didn't manage to say in my rambling post :)

I want to know the OP's definition of "essential" jobs

Cumfy- The parents work 'normal' hours (Whatever that means!) The 60 hours covers- me getting to work to have a hand-over, their travel time to work (going into central London), their hours at work, their travel time home, handover, and babysitting. So I do 7.45am-7pm plus babysitting of 1-2 evenings, maybe an overnight, its a new job so who knows!

Jareth

But perhaps your childcare would come down ?

Also everyone's in the same boat so the housing market would deflate.

Because their job warrants it, because that's what it takes to get a promotion in some areas, because they want to

Don't really disagree, but if lower unemployment is desired then there would be trade-offs.

I'll happily work 30 hours a week for the same salary as I get now. Any less and I would not be able to manage financially. And what then - downsize my house to reduce my outgoings? Yes, but for the fact if everyone else was working 30 hr weeks they probably couldnt afford the mortgage either!

I think it would be unworkable.

Sounds a bit like communism to me.

And what if people want to work more hours for more money?

The issue of unemployment is very complex etc but I also think there are a lot of lazy people out there who are about to get a well-deserved shock when the welfare cuts come in.

Cumfy, out of interest, what is your job?

Dh regularly works 60+ hours, he's a contractor so in theory could claim for all his hours but in reality it doesn't work like that.

As A1980 said, it's a matter of professional conduct; if something needs doing, you need to do it. Not everything is predictable and able to be scheduled into a working week.

When he was in the building industry how do you think customers would have felt if on a Friday afternoon, he'd downed tools and said "right that's my hours for the week, i'm off"?

Oh and if he only worked 30 hours we'd be screwed

Yab very naive.

It's the difference between professionals and "mere" workers. You don't clock off doing surgery because it's end of your maximum hours - you see that operation through to the end. You dont' go home all night if you're in the middle of working on the sale of Northern Rock- you work all night without extra pay. There are plenty of us in jobs like that and in general you tend to be paid more for them but also have more of a sort of professional commitment to it and as someone said above works the same for builders and all sorts of people.

Also the British love their work. We have a sort of work ethic which isn't like that of a lot of the continentals and plenty of us much prefer to work than scrub floors or clean up after children for the nth time. Give us work any day in preference.

LOL GoodDaysBadDays!

I'd love to see how my client's would react if I threw them out of a meeting we were in the middle of and said, that's it, my hours are done for this week!

Hmmm, I came into this thinking

There's only so much work to be done, and only so many people to do it.
So how about a rule which divvies that work up rationally.

Jareth and A1980, others are saying there's typically 50hr (say) of work. Well that makes the level of unemployment look even more irrational. There's fuck-loads of work.

So there must be some way of shaping the market, if employees are so needed. (All goes back to the the price elasticity of demand in a free market)

Perhaps it will involve incentivising people with truck loads of cash to snitch on there "bastard employers" if they do break employment laws. :o

Or making it the same cost to hire someone for 2x30 as 60 hrs.

But I just don't get why reducing the supply of work won't force wages up in a properly regulated market.

All that's being said is the market's not properly regulated .... and perhaps never will be.

Another one interested in what sort of job cumfy does, if she works at all.

Work-to-rule springs to mind.