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The Stonemasons’ Society in Sydney won the eight-hour day in August 1855, and 170 years later the ACTU is pushing for comparable workplace change, a four-day week.
The union movement is selling the idea to the economic reform roundtable next week as a bid to improve work-life balance, but many Australian workplaces still run on Victorian-era mindsets, with people working the same hours their great-great-grandparents put in more than 100 years ago.
The impact of working parents, technology including the advent of the personal computer and AI, globalisation, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting rise of working from home are accelerating workplace change like never before, yet few innovations have taken the form of a reduction in standard working hours.
Working from home is a winner for many employees.Credit: iStock
The ACTU pointed to a 2023 Swinburne University study that found 70 per cent of firms trialling the four-day week reported higher productivity, and another study, Nature Human Behaviour, surveying data across 141 organisations in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland, had similar results. Research in the UK reported two-thirds of 3000 workers had lower levels of burnout, 39 per cent less stress and 40 per cent less sleep difficulties. Their companies reported a 65 per cent drop in sick days, a 57 per cent drop in resignations and a 1.4 per cent increase in revenues.
The ACTU argued that pay and conditions, including penalty rates, overtime and minimum staffing levels would need to be protected to ensure that reducing the number of days did not result in a loss of pay. The ACTU also proposed sector-specific alternatives for businesses where it was inappropriate to reduce hours, including more rostered days off, increasing annual leave and redesigning rosters to improve predictability.
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Those academic reports cited by the ACTU surveyed firms user-friendly to a four-day week. But the trend towards reduced work time is not new, as major companies such as Unilever and IKEA have trialled, and in some cases adopted, a decrease in working hours.
That said, business is understandably wary of such changes, not least since the ACTU failed to explain the probable and growing impact of working from home – especially coming after Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced plans to legislate a right to work from home – or the need to corral small businesses unable to financially risk embracing such change. The ACTU proposal followed the Reserve Bank of Australia revision of future productivity expectations down from 1 per cent to 0.7 per cent year-on-year that presaged slower economic growth and smaller living standards improvements.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers dismissed suggestions Australia was experiencing an economic crisis, but said the nation faced a productivity challenge and the Albanese government’s “big agenda” would address the issue.
However, the Albanese government has straitjacketed its economic reform roundtable by excluding GST and tax reform from discussion. Many Australians support a four-day week. The proposal is an interesting attempt to broaden the roundtable agenda, but if it is to be taken seriously the ACTU would need to spell out safeguards for smaller companies.
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