A four-day week is already changing British lives: my new bill could make it open to all

theguardian.com:

It was almost a century ago that workers in this country switched from working a six-day week to a five-day week. The nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday pattern remains the dominant model of work across most of the western world – despite the fact it was designed for an industrial and agricultural economy that would be barely recognisable to today’s workforce. The five-day week just doesn’t reflect the needs of the modern world.

The pandemic has led to increased support among workers for a four-day working week with no loss of pay; this week, I’m introducing a new bill in parliament that could make this a reality, by reducing the maximum weekly hours to be cut from 48 to 32. Because although the UK works long hours, it currently has one of the least productive economies.

This isn’t only unfair, but is proving to be detrimental to productivity and the economy. Workers need time to rest and recuperate so they don’t work themselves sick. Additional leisure time would also give people the opportunity to bolster local economies by having more time to spend money – this could be the lifeline that many businesses in the hospitality sector need after two long years of the pandemic.

To make matters worse, the age at which people receive a state pension has been put back – in many cases, by years. Retirement for millions of workers is a distant prospect. Is it really too much to ask that we modernise the working week?

The UK is currently taking part in the biggest ever experiment of a four-day week, with no loss of pay for workers: 70 companies and over 3,300 workers are taking part in a pilot run by 4 Day Week Global, the thinktank Autonomy and the 4 Day Week campaign. A survey of the companies taking part at the halfway point suggests