Commentary
No free lunch. So are proverbs. Someone must pay.
The question is who and when?
This is a truism based on our experience as a society over thousands of years.
Likewise, there’s no four-day week where income doesn’t go down if someone pays or doesn’t pay.
Wages must necessarily be linked to productivity in order to be sustainable. High wages cause inflation unless they are tied to productivity.
During the Howard era, real wages rose 19% without inflationary pressure as governments and employers pushed for productivity reforms.
A recent report by a Senate committee chaired by the Greens recommended a trial of a four-day workweek at full wages for workers, but the Only tears for the workers themselves.
If more wages for less work were actually feasible, it would have been implemented centuries ago.
Australia is witnessing uneducated wage hikes in the name of ‘wage justice’ by trade union officials, which is causing the collapse of the manufacturing base and a dead end in the pursuit of automation.
As a result, these high wages were enjoyed by the workers until the employer decided to close the shop.
In retrospect, these workers would have preferred to keep their jobs at low wages rather than short-term, unsustainable wage increases.
So what does that tell us about the efficiency and work practices of companies that claim there is no difference in productivity levels when comparing a five-day or four-day work week? There are certainly many things to answer in the situation.
One company reportedly said it was able to cut a one-hour meeting down to 30 hours, and such efficiencies and benefits are cited by advocates for a shorter workweek.
I wish I hadn’t escaped management’s thought process that we could have cut meeting hours without cutting our workweek by 20%.
The investigation upon which the Commission relies requires a very thorough and robust analysis. The analysis was conducted by an organization that promotes a four-day work week, whose base of business activity stemmed from his COVID-affected economy.
Research also tells us what anyone could have told us without the need for research.
Most of us see work as a necessary job, if not an outright evil to put bread on the table and pay for the daily expenses of our household.
should consider the consequences
The Greens say Australians are in a ‘jobs and care crisis’ as they deal with surging costs of living and rising interest rates.
In the real world, Australians focus on balancing their household budgets.
If companies serving fellow Australians need to register an additional 20% of their workforce, the cost will be passed on.
For even the most curious, supermarkets faced with this scenario would either have to raise prices on the shelves or direct more customers to self-service checkouts, leaving even more clerks out of work. you will notice.
The lesson of history seems to be that we simply make the same mistakes over and over again without learning the lessons of history.
Claiming that the same productivity can be leveraged in four days instead of five is a sad reflection of our productivity.
The implementation of mandatory roster holidays has had the effect of forcing increased costs in sectors that have adopted them.
As a result, building and construction costs have risen and been passed on to both homeowners and tenants. And we discuss the housing crisis in our country and wonder why it has become so expensive to build a house…
There are consequences streams that need to be honestly set and taken into account when driving change to ensure it is truly beneficial in the long run.
At a time when economies and businesses are recovering from the impact of COVID restrictions, a four-day week may be beneficial to allow the recovery to continue unabated without another blow.
Moms and dads spending more time with their children, joining community groups, and getting more exercise are all important considerations in determining work-life balance. Work-life balance is a secondary issue in countries with stagnant economies.
Australia, which has maintained a boom for so long, needs to be very cautious before making short-term feel-good populist moves without considering the consequences that future generations will need to wear. I have.
Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Epoch Times.