More to life than work
To close Young Workers' Month, Simmeron, vice chair of the national young members’ committee, blogs about the advantages of a 4-day week for young members.
When looking at the advantages of a shorter working week with no loss of pay, one of the key benefits identified is for those with caring, or childcare responsibilities. While it’s undeniable that a significant positive change would be brought for these people, allowing them greater flexibility to manage those responsibilities alongside their work, it’s not necessarily a situation that young workers find themselves in.
I’m a strong believer in there being more to life than work. It is a symptom of late-stage capitalism that we must spend decades and decades of our lives selling our labour in order to afford to survive, and that often, even that isn’t enough. It’s a shared sentiment amongst colleagues and friends that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sustain a fulfilled life in the little time available to us not spent at work.
A four-day week would allow young workers the time to do the dishes, the laundry, the life admin, AND finish that book, see that friend, go on that trip. It would reduce the nagging feeling many of us experience of constantly playing catch-up at the weekends, doing all the things we couldn’t get around to during the week because of work, not having the space to fully decompress, and before we know it it’s Monday again.
A four-day week gives us the precious time to do the things we want to do, not just things we have to do. And the ability to do those things now, not when we’re pushing 70. Life is for living, not just surviving – not only is the implementation of a four-day week a practical step towards embodying that ethos, but it also encourages young workers to raise our expectations. Expectations of our jobs, and the purpose they serve, expectations of our current quality of life, and expectations of what our next 40 years should look like.