32-Hour Workweek Without Loss of Pay or Benefits

“Capitalist philanthropy becomes constantly more timid; it tends more and more to leave to the workers themselves the struggle for their protection. The modern struggle for the eight-hour day bears a very different aspect from the one which was carried on in England fifty years ago for the ten-hour day. The property-holding politicians who are advocating the modern measure are moved, not by philanthropy; but by the necessity of yielding to their working-class constituents. The struggle for labor legislation is becoming more and more a class-struggle between proletarians and capitalists. On the continent of Europe and in the United States, where the struggle for labor laws commenced much later than in England, it bore this character from the start. The proletariat has nothing more to hope for from the property-holding classes in its endeavor to raise itself. It now depends wholly upon its own efforts.” (Karl Kautsky)

The above quote is a brief history lesson on the rather spontaneous but historic struggles for shortened workdays. In 1810, the Utopian-Socialist Robert Owen raised the demand for the ten-hour day. In 1848 France, just when the Communist Manifesto was published, the twelve-hour day was won. In Chapter 10 of Volume I of Das Kapital, Marx recalled the events that transpired during the previous year (1866):

The Congress of the International Working Men’s Association at Geneva, on the proposition of the London General Council, resolved that “the limitation of the working-day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvement and emancipation must prove abortive... the Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working-day.”

Thus the movement of the working-class on both sides of the Atlantic, that had grown instinctively out of the conditions of production themselves, endorsed the words of the English Factory Inspector, R. J. Saunders: “Further steps towards a reformation of society can never be carried out with any hope of success, unless the hours of labour be limited, and the prescribed limit strictly enforced.”

In modern times, the 8-hour workday and 40-hour workweek are taken for granted. However, consider a notable exception, South Korea, as reported by Arirang News in 2006:

People in Seoul work the longest hours per year in the world, says a study by the Swiss financial group Union des Banques Suisses (UBS). In a recent report, UBS says that Seoul residents spend more than 2,300 hours at work each year. That's the longest among 71 world cities surveyed.

Based on a 42-hour workweek, the average South Korean worker puts in about 60 days a year more than their peers in Paris who spend just 1,480 hours on the job, the world's lowest. Only official contracts and work schedules were considered,

"My official work hours are from 9 in the morning until 7 in the evening. But due to a heavy workload, I go home at around 8 or 9 about three times a week," one Seoul office worker said.

"On average," he added, "I take off at 10 or 11 p.m. about three times a week. I do this for my company's success and for my own sense of accomplishment. Fortunately, I have my family's full support and understanding."

But longer hours do not mean necessarily better salaries. In fact, in South Korea, dedication and sacrifice come before monetary pursuit, though money is often seen as a measure of success.

The survey ranked Seoul residents only 32nd in wages per working hours. Using New York's salary level of 100 as the benchmark, Seoul had a score of a mere 44. Tokyo led Asia in salary at 18th with 78 points. Topping the list, meanwhile, were the northern European cities of Copenhagen and Oslo.

In examining the validity of this new and radical demand, the dynamic oppositionist test [...] must be applied.

Does this reform facilitate the issuance of either intermediate or threshold demands? Recall what I said in my earlier work [...]:

Already this demand surpasses the “maximum demands” of most modern “social-democratic” economists! According to the primarily single-issue Work Less Party in Canada (better marketed as “Work Less, Do More”), this modern version of the historic struggle for the eight-hour workday: reduces society’s environmental footprint, reduces unemployment, promotes an increase in cultural activities and social life in general, and especially promotes an increase in real political activity (both civic participation and heightened political activism as the bases of basic participatory democracy) at the expense of “politics” as, in the words of the Weekly Worker’s Mike Macnair, “a consumer good supplied by professional and semi-professional politicians who offer various competing ‘brands’ […]”

Based on all the history above, which undoubtedly inspired the aforementioned single-issue political party to say what it said regarding political activity, this demand meets and exceeds the Hahnel criterion. Before moving on to the Kautsky criterion, consider the position of the rather unusual “social-democratic” United States Labor Party (unusual amongst “social-democratic” parties in terms of raising this demand, thereby being less accommodationist than usual), in spite of the orientation towards factory labour:

Each year we become more and more productive at work. In a fair and just economy, increased productivity should allow us to work fewer hours, not more. Yet compared to the late 1960s, we are now working an average of more than one extra month annually. We work longer hours and have less vacation time than almost all workers in the industrialized world. While many of us cannot find work, factory overtime is now at record levels because it is more profitable to pay overtime than it is to hire new workers. Enough is enough. We call for amending the federal labor laws to: Define the normal work week to 32 hours without loss of pay or benefits; Provide a minimum of double-time pay for all hours worked over 32 hours a week and 8 hours a day; Forbid compulsory overtime; Mandate one hour off with pay for every two hours of overtime; Require twenty days paid vacation for all workers in addition to the federal holidays; Provide one year of paid educational leave for every seven years worked. Taken together these proposals will create millions of new jobs and allow us free time we need to care for our families and to participate in our communities. More family time and more community participation should be the fruit of increased labor productivity.

Does this reform enable the basic principles to be “kept consciously in view”? Well, how can a highly class-conscious working class find the time to organize, let alone capture full political power and emancipate itself thereafter, without limitations on both the workday and the workweek?