when did 9-5 become 8-5?

[snugtop]

I'm curious...when did this happen? In the last 10-20 years? I thought we were supposed to be getting more leisure time as time goes by...the 40 hour workweek is really closer to 45 or 50 for most people I know.

[jt]

Yep, Welcome to the new world, where the US work force needs to compete with the Indian work force that has a cost of living 1/10 that of ours. sorry to be grim, it blows, GW isn't helping either.

 

Anyway, I think it has actually been that way for a while. My dad told me something like, over the last 5 years of his career he worked an extra year in work time. YIKES!

[klenke]

Found this on the web:

 

The FortyHourWeekHistory in American history comes from the labor movement in the early 20th century. Workers in the new factories, sweat shops, and other industry related fields of the late 19th / early 20th centuries worked up to as many as 60 hours a week under poor conditions and with little in the way of wages. As the workers gained strength in unions, they started demanding a reversal of this poor state of affairs. Eventually, the union members in their various fields of labor won out against their employers through a variety of tactics (organizing, striking, etc.) and managed to get the FortyHourWeek. This was put into action Federally in 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act, which created a implicit maximum 40 hour work week by requiring time and a half for any hours in excess of 40 or 8 hours in one day, established a minimum wage, and forbade labor by children under the age of 16. That's the story in a nutshell as far as I understand it; feel free to correct / add more detail.

 

Countervailing forces:

 

The high cost of benefits, especially health insurance premiums, provides an incentive to demand overtime because it is cheaper to pay 1.5 times for the extra hours than to pay a second worker's premiums.

 

Paradoxically, it encourages part time employment or hiring of temporary employees, because many companies do not pay benefits to part time employees, and most temporary agencies do not provide health insurance.

 

Also, it encourages the classification of employees as "exempt," that is exempt from timekeeping and without any overtime pay at all. Almost all companies treat their programmers as exempt.

 

In the last 15 years or so, the laws have changed so that "highly paid" hourly employees do not have to be paid time and a half, but only straight time for hours above 40.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It has long been my opinion that a lot of task-oriented employees needlessly work overtime. That is to say, if they worked more efficiently, they could do that 46 hours in 40 (or even less than 40).

 

I used to know a guy (engineer) who'd work 50-60 hours a week. I told him that when the axe comes down it's not going to matter to those making the decision as per your fate how many hours per week you've given to the man. Sure enough, he got laid off...and he basically wasted all those extra hours at work when he could have used them to enrich himself away from work. And so it goes, and so it goes.

[snugtop]

I'm guessing it was some 80's management experiment that never went away. But perhaps there are some labor historians on cc.com that can shed light on this.

[snugtop]

Looks like I typed too slow. Thank you.

[klenke]

I could be wrong on this point but I was under the impression the 9 to 5 workweek was based on a paid half-hour lunch break + two 15 minute breaks per day (for the blue-collar kind of worker). White collar (exempt) workers used the same schedule to keep everyone in phase. Both types of workers got a lunch and breaks on company time.

 

Now (last 20 years?), 8 to 5 is standard but we now get an unpaid hour for lunch. The two 15-minute breaks are still "free" for the blue collar worker. The white collar worker can take these breaks too but he doesn't work to a schedule so rigid (like line techs getting a break after sitting on their asses for 2 straight hours).

[snugtop]

People still ate lunch back in the 9-5 days.

[Double_E]

wait wait, what?! i don't know what kind of places you all work, but i always thought that the classic "9 - 5 schedule" usually meant either 8:30 to 5:00 or else 9:00 to 5:30. so you're saying there are (or, were) a lot of places which paid for your 1/2 hour lunchbreak? none of the jobs i've had have afforded such luxuries, nor have i heard of such, except for like top management staff.

 

yeh in the bigger picture tho... the 1938 FLSA you mentioned klenke and was a big improvement for America's workforce what with the stadardization of the 40 hr work week. but in many European countries they got it even better: 35 hours is the standard work week, AND they get typically twice as much paid leave time as us, usually 4+ weeks per year. lucky bastards.

[cman]

Amazing all this discussion on a sunday

 

But seriously, all you have to do is look around this site for a couple minutes to see exactly how many people spend their workday. It seems like while computers have increased productivity they have also increased diversions. i know i have wasted plenty of time looking around the internet, posting on cc.com

is it possible that people just worked all day without distraction back in the pre-computer days?

[arlen]

The generations before us all gave 110% to make this country great, and now it's our turn.

[Squid]

Arlen-

The previous generations worked hard to rein in corporate exploitation and to create a world where their children could enjoy time with friends and family, rather than being indentured to the company store.

Thank the labor movement of the past hundred years for your weekend. Honor their sacrifices, don't passively cede your free time to the corporate man.

 

Give me my clenched fist icon!

[marylou]

You go Squid!

[Greg_W]

Arlen-

The previous generations worked hard to rein in corporate exploitation and to create a world where their children could enjoy time with friends and family, rather than being indentured to the company store.

Thank the labor movement of the past hundred years for your weekend. Honor their sacrifices, don't passively cede your free time to the corporate man.

 

Give me my clenched fist icon!

 

Gee, let's pass over the work, vision, and risk ventured by the Rockefellers, Morgans, Hunt Brothers, et al. Who put their own money on the line to build corporations where people could work, be successful, and provide for their families. You can't have one without the other.

[Off_White]

That's what I like about being self employed, the freedom to schedule myself for any 60 hours out of the week I want.

 

Employees on the other hand work m-f 8-4:30, with the standard two 15 minute paid breaks and 30 minutes unpaid lunch, 40 hours a week. It's construction, so benefits generally suck across the non-union field, but they do get paid sick leave and three paid holidays (which should bump to four sometime this year).

[foraker]

Actually, I'm more impressed by the following: standing at nearly 12000', hiking a trail skirting the edges of Yosemite, I paused near a tarn to admire the view down into the Owens Valley. Some of the granite boulders there had these strange striations in them that we're definitely *not* the result of glacial working. I realized that these were the marks of settlers passing from east to west in covered wagons! Their iron-sheathed wheels had scratched the rock as they passed. This was *after* travelling across the Midwest, the Rockies, Nevada, and still looking forward to descending *down* out of the Sierra. :-P In a word, we suck.

[Double_E]

This was *after* travelling across the Midwest, the Rockies, Nevada, and still looking forward to descending *down* out of the Sierra. :-P In a word, we suck.

 

so i lost you somewhere... why exactly do we "suck"? i'm assuming that you mean that modern man & woman are "spoiled" cause they aren't burdened with the hardships of yesteryear/yestercentury. (something i've heard alot, and agree with to some degree)

 

but on the flipside, you gotta admit that in certain ways THEM folks (of 100+ yrs ago) were spoiled, in that they didn't have to deal with many disturbing things about modern life, such as....

 

nuclear waste

nuclear bombs

global warming

overpopulation

WMD

genocide

reality TV shows

dubya

[Dru]

no they just had

 

polio

smallpox

high proportion of death in childbirth

the rhythm method

the hindu raj

coal burning house fires

life expectency of 50-60 yrs

gallipoli

the terror

80 to 90% church attendance

slavery

genocide

etc.

[snugtop]

May I remind you that slavery (sexual slavery, indentured servitude) is still alive and well in this world, even in cities like Seattle...birth control is still hard to come by in much of the world, many countries have a lower life expectancy than 50-60 years, and of course now there's AIDS in addition to all the other killers like malaria than the first world neglects.

[Blake]

This was *after* travelling across the Midwest, the Rockies, Nevada, and still looking forward to descending *down* out of the Sierra. :-P In a word, we suck.

 

so i lost you somewhere... why exactly do we "suck"? i'm assuming that you mean that modern man & woman are "spoiled" cause they aren't burdened with the hardships of yesteryear/yestercentury. (something i've heard alot, and agree with to some degree)

 

but on the flipside, you gotta admit that in certain ways THEM folks (of 100+ yrs ago) were spoiled, in that they didn't have to deal with many disturbing things about modern life, such as....

 

nuclear waste

nuclear bombs

global warming

overpopulation

WMD

genocide

reality TV shows

dubya

 

Genocide aint new

[ken4ord]

Well I can't relate on this one, cause I guess I am one of the lucky ones where, it doesn't really matter when i get in and when I leave as long as I get my work done. Oh yeah three day weekends rule.

[arlen]

Arlen-

The previous generations worked hard to rein in corporate exploitation and to create a world where their children could enjoy time with friends and family, rather than being indentured to the company store.

Thank the labor movement of the past hundred years for your weekend. Honor their sacrifices, don't passively cede your free time to the corporate man.

 

Give me my clenched fist icon!

 

I was being sarcastic. But maybe it's because I spend too much time trying to get along with my retired neighbor who harps on how his generation gave 110% blah blah blah--so props to you for saying what the rest of us farbies couldn't blurt out in this thread.

 

 

[Squid]

Sweet fist, Arlen!

 

Yeah, I spend my share of time getting brow-beaten by my Alzheimer-stricken grandfather. He's a sexist, racist, beligerent drunk and he's my hero. You take the good where you find it.

 

peace-