[ad_1]
FÓRSA HAS CALLED for pilot projects in public and private sector organizations to explore the feasibility of introducing a four-day week.
The union agreed to call for the change at its virtual delegate conference today, as part of a “constant and managed transition to a shorter workweek for all employees in the private, public and community sectors.”
Talking to TheJournal.ieJoe O’Connor de Fórsa said that the Covid-19 pandemic has allowed workers to “radically” rethink the work model.
Citing a Fórsa survey where 75% of respondents believed that a four-day week would be desirable for employees, and nearly half of employers (46%) said that testing a four-day week at their own workplace it was “doable”.
O’Connor said the four-day week was part of moving toward measuring results and worker outcomes, rather than “the time spent in the office.”
[The Covid-19 pandemic has] It made workers see that they can be productive in a different environment.
He said he believed employees and employers had gone from thinking that a four-day workweek was a “radical” idea before the pandemic, to now thinking that it is “reasonable.”
She said the National Council for Women believes that a four-day week will help create a greater gender balance in the workplace, as men will be able to take on “a greater role of caring at home.”
To be successful in achieving a four-day workweek, O’Connor says this has to come from “a combination of leadership in the private sector, union at the center pushing the agenda and government.”
He said the government is seen as a “vanguard” and a “benchmark” in terms of a four-day work week, both as an employer and as a contractor.
Force biennial conference
Delegates also called for the development and implementation of remote work and other arrangements to improve work time flexibility.
They also backed the union’s call for an increase in the number of holidays; Ireland currently has just nine public holidays, the lowest number in the EU.
The union’s National Executive proposed a motion calling for working time and work patterns to be reviewed and fundamentally reformed in response to the effects of the Covid-19 crisis, new and developing technologies, the climate crisis and the demographic changes, including increased life expectancy.
No news is bad news
Support the magazine
your contributions help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
Support us now
“Reducing working time can be an important mechanism for maintaining employment as new technologies replace or change traditional jobs, and for sharing the benefits of improved productivity derived from automation and other technological developments,” said.
Fórsa is part of 4DWI (Four Day Week Ireland), a coalition of companies, unions, academics and activists established last year to call for a reduction in working time.
The Fórsa union has 80,000 members.
[ad_2]