1y ago

Whoever invented the eight hour five day work week is Satan.

118 comments

The idea came from a British guy called Robert Owen in the 19th century. It was a huge step forward in workers rights seeing as it was fairly normal for factories to work from sunrise to sunset to try and maximise their output.
Typical working hours were 10-18 hrs a day 6 to 7 days a week
I'm not saying I love working 8hrs a day and modern society can definitely do better but this was a positive step forward in history and should be celebrated... celebrated isn't quite the right word but I hope you get what I mean
- Yeah, anyone calling the creator of the 40-hour work week "Satan" is obviously ignorant of the history of labour.
  As you said, we can definitely do better, but at the time it was (quite literally) revolutionary.
  
  Yup, we need to get 6 hour 4 days a week now, so people in 2100 can call us satanic for wasting so many hours working.
- Appreciated for what it was at the time. I get you.
- Reminded me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo
  It is more made to debunk the idea that capitalism has given humanity more leisure time. But relevant here too because makes the case that historically people worked even less than the 'typical' week we have today.
  It makes me wonder if the reason we mostly feel like working 40+ hours is too much is because people really don't seem to have worked that much until the industrial age.
  
  I really liked that video. I'm always cautious of stuff like this, which can easily become a fallacious appeal to history, but I think this video effectively avoids that territory. Like, it's useful to consider how things used to be different and how things became this way, without presenting the former as a solution for the latter.
- 150 years ago some guy made advances in workers rights, and the best way we can honor him and that accomplishment is by never making another advance in workers rights! /s
  I know that isn't your point, and I agree we shouldn't demonize him without bothering to know the context, but I couldn't help thinking this as a response.
  
  Yeah, the tone of this thread is, "everyone needs to be more grateful."
  The cruelty of the 19th century does not cancel out the cruelty of the 21st century.

Whoever invented the eight hour five day work week is Satan.
Unions. Unions won the five day eight hour workweek after heavy, sometimes bloody conflicts with employers. Before that it was common for workweek to be 10 or 12 hours a day.
- Too many people are ignorant of the role Unions played in American history. I assume they were brought up in places where the GOP controls the schools.
  
  I was actively taught in high school that "unions were nice, but not necessary any more, they get in the way of all our very cool free trade!"
  Obviously, my thinking on that has changed a whole lot, but both my partner and I got fed that kind of rhetoric straight out of text books.
- Before that it was common for workweek to be 10 or 12 hours.
  10-12 hours per day*, dangerous typo
  
  Fixed
- Technically, if your shift is long enough and timed properly, you can have daytime going in and coming out.
- God bless unions. Now can they negotiate a four day work week?
  
  The bad news is their power has been systematically eroded for a long time. The good news is they've made a bit of a comeback in the last couple of years. Hopefully this trend continues.
- And no weekend. Basically almost your entire life would be working

Op, you don't seem aware that getting the work week down to this took a very concerted effort
- While I agree, the amount of productivity that's increased since the 5 day work week was established has made it reasonable to once again change the norm. That, or pay workers equivalent to the increase in productivity that has happened. It's all going somewhere.
  
  Source for productivity gains?
- We can keep applying yet more effort. This is better than 6 day work week, but we can do even better
  
  Sure, but it seems ignorant of said progress when op referred to it as created by Satan.

Keep in mind that once upon a time it was 6 days and 14 hours per day.
- Keep in mind that before that, people worked much less in winter and still less than today in summer
  
  Admittedly, they were completely at the mercy of disease, herd migration, had no plumbing, buried astounding numbers of their children, were not the apex predator, didn't have mattresses and when injuries happened they often healed poorly and painfully.
  
  That's much debated, actually.

Labor unions are the Satan to which you are referring. Labor unions brought you many infernal things: the weekend, lunch breaks, paid vacation, social security, minimum wage, FMLA, 8-hour work days, OSHA, sick leave, child labor laws, etc.
Satan indeed!
- They originally wanted a 4/4 work week.
  
  "They"? Which shop? When? Was that part of contract negotiation/positioning or an actual demand?
- Under my last labor union we had mandatory 10 hours days so yeah unions are so great
  
  Yeah you're right, I guess all the gains they've made don't matter because of your shitty experience. Thanks for your wisdom.
  You're 23 and live with your dad. What shop are you a member of that was enforcing 10-hour work days?

The guy who made the 8hr/day 5day/week schedule was a saint
- That's was unions
  
  Call me a devil's advocate, but Satan was pretty based in this case. Also have you seen the advocates for God? They kinda suck

What a shitty take. Go learn what the normal conditions were BEFORE the 8/day 5/week standard.
- Just because things were worse in the past doesn't mean they can't be better in the future.
  
  You are very right, it's just that saying "whoever invented the thing that's better than what was before is Satan" is kinda unfair to be people who fought for the 8/8/8 system. The focus should be onto whom hinder or even regress progress
  
  But the text specifically says the person who made the last big improvement is bad for having done it.
- "what a shitty take, dont you know that before when i was being trafficked for labor i was physically abused DAILY?"
  this u rn.

Is anyone going to tell them what it was before?
- I don't think so, no.
  But I'll leave this here.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

Greetings from Scotland, I'd gladly take a 40 minute workday 🤣
- I waltz in one minute before my shift every day. Not working for free.
  
  I had to bitch slap my ostensible boss with this when I first started my current job. He tried to tell me that he thought it would really be "best" if I showed up approximately 30 minutes before my scheduled start time. I responded him flat out that if he wanted me there half an hour earlier, he should schedule me to be there half an hour earlier. Alternatively, you could try biting my feathered ass. I know which one is bound to get you better results.
  I clock in when I get here, I get paid for the time I'm here. This ain't no charity.
  I am now VP of the company. Make of that what you will.

What? Here in India it's 12 hrs a day 7 days a week. One paid holiday per year, For the new year
- https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/07/india-debate-on-70-hour-workweek-illegal-or-road-to-greatness.html
  Indians currently work an average of 47.7 hours a week — higher than the U.S. (36.4), the UK (35.9), and Germany (34.4), according to the International Labour Organization.
  Infosys founder Narayana Murthy recently sparked a controversy on social media when he said young people should be working 70 hours a week to boost India’s economy.
  Perhaps it's common for the workweek to be that long in the informal economy, but the official data at least doesn't reflect that.
- Is it really? By God.
  
  In factories at least
  2 shifts of 12 hours each.
  People working 12 hours earn about 24k INR per month
  Working 8hr /day earn about 12k INR per month but the work is unskilled. ( Cleaning and stuff )

I live above the arctic circle, please don't make me work 24/7 during the summer since the sun is always out.
I'd love the part where I wouldn't have to work November through January though.
- I don't do it anymore, but I used to LOVE working overnight. No one around, I could get everything done, and I still had time for errands.
  I wouldn't want to work straight from Nov to Jan though

It used to be dawn till dusk 6 days a week, bro.
- No wonder more people went to church back then

I don't want my work day tied to length of sunlight in either direction. But I do want a four day work week!
- And in 50-70 years someone can make an internet post about how people wanting a 4 day work week were satan

Yeah, I try to be grateful for the progress we have made, given that labor used to be even more exploitative than it is now. Still, we have miles to go.

Rather, "whoever invented weekends was a genius."

I am not a religious person, but I'm sure that 40 working hours per week is not even close to what is attributed to Satan.

I remember working from 6 am to 6 pm. Who actually needs to see the sunlight? 😭

thx Henry Ford!
- Our Ford, hallowed be thy name.
  Make sure to thank him for the unhinged antisemitic conspiracies too.
- Why? The Ford Motor Company literally tried crushing unions. And unions made the 40 hour/5 day work week.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass

A video about the historical work-day one of my favorite YouTubers (Historia Civilis) released a few months ago, I think everyone should watch it: https://youtu.be/hvk_XylEmLo
His videos about Roman-era politics & important battles are also great :)
- Thank you!

Its my turn to use the sun!

I work 3rd shift. The less sun I see, the better.

You do realize that it was invented by people fighting desperately for work to not be 10 hours a day 6 days a week, yes?
Nah, man. Satan is the man who made 8 hours a day look like a fantastical demand back then.

Backwards. Satan was a bro and tried to tell god to take a chill pill when he was being a fuckwad but God was "like no U, go to hell" and he did and now we bow to the corporate overlords as God intended.
- Plot twist: OP intended the comparison as a compliment.
- “Lest we forget the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom."

Don't live so far north / south.
Work something besides 8am - 5 p.m.
We shouldn't have to work so many hours but until labor right improve and companies hire 20% more people to cover the lost 8 hours for everyone that isn't white collar, then we're going to need another baby boom in most societies where population is declining instead.
World understanding that the stock market is basically a magic money generation machine for the rich while only funding a measly retirement for the working class since they don't pay us enough to save for our own retirement without magically quadrupling what we put in via compound interest. Have fun trying to reconcile static based GDP with retirement via stocks until we figure out Fusion and make a Dyson sphere.

118 comments