As bank workers strike, a brief history of how the 8-hour, 5-day workweek began - The Indian Express

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of several banking unions representing workers and officers, has announced a strike from Monday (September 28) to Wednesday. Among their demands, calls for a five-day work week to replace a six-day one are at the front and centre.

Across the world, workers in various sectors have demanded the shift over time. In some countries, a four-day week has also been contemplated. These demands are rooted in an enduring structure that first emerged in the United States in the early 1900s. Here is its story.

The UFBU has stated that Indian banks earlier worked from Monday to Friday with a half-day on Saturday. An agreement in 2015 led to the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month being declared as bank holidays and in lieu of that, the remaining Saturdays would be declared as full working days.

“It was assured that in due course efforts would be taken to declare all Saturdays as holidays,” a press release said. “Already, there is 5 days working per week in Central Government, State Government, RBI, LIC… private companies, stock market, money market, foreign exchange market, etc.”

It further argued that “banking work has been very stressful nowadays due to multiple reasons and to enable proper work life balance, it is the legitimate demand of the UFBU that the remaining Saturdays also be declared as holidays.”

The first of the institutions mentioned in the letter, of the Central government, saw the five-day work week introduced after the Department of Personnel & Training issued an office memorandum in 1985. It said, “The Government of India have considered the question of introduction of 5-day week… in the context of improving efficiency in administration.”

It would come into effect from June that year. To make up for Saturdays, the working hours per day were increased by an hour. Several state governments later followed in its footsteps, including Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Punjab, Delhi, and West Bengal.

This year, the Tripura government also shifted to a five-day week, with working hours from 9.30 am to 6 pm, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s calls for conserving fuel amid the West Asia crisis.

Sikkim, however, returned to a six-day week in 2020 — less than a year after introducing it. Only the second and fourth Saturdays were later announced as holidays for the government and PSU offices. At the time, sources said that the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha government led by Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang was not happy with the performance of its employees.

To understand the debate, it’s worth recalling why people work the way they do right now.

The 8-hour, 5-day week, the standard for the organised sector in most advanced economies, was a product of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. Until then, the primary occupation of agricultural work was seasonal.

With factory workers gradually making up a big share of the workforce, the work system changed to hourly pay and gruelling working conditions. Then came an innovation from American industrialist Henry Ford in 1913, when he introduced a new method of production called the moving assembly line.

Instead of workers together producing a single car, each worker did a specific task, over and over again. This reduced the scope for them to exercise their own discretion, streamlined production and made the manufacturing process much quicker.

Such repetitive and physically demanding work, however, led to high attrition rates. Ford believed that it would be more productive to hire workers who were likely to stick around, and he thus introduced an eight-hour day instead of nine, alongside higher pay. In the long run, not only did Ford call it the best cost-cutting move they made, but well-paid workers with more leisure time were also likely to purchase Ford cars for themselves, creating a new class of customers, too.

Before Ford, the US Civil War (1861-65) contributed to the eight-hour workday. An article in National Geographic said, “The Civil War produced the first mass push for the eight-hour day. As soldiers returned from the war and newly freed African Americans sought jobs, labor advocates worried that these new workers would undercut wages and be exploited by employers who demanded long hours and offered low pay. So workers formed ‘Eight-Hour Leagues’ and began pushing for ‘Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will.’”

The push for Sunday as a holiday came from Sabbatarian Christians in the US, who believed in keeping a day of religious observance for rest and worship. Jewish people, however, had Saturdays as their day of Sabbath, leading many businesses to keep both days off, creating the modern “weekend”. Over time, with a more closely integrated global economy, the model spread far and wide.

Advocates of shorter work weeks argue that it gives workers more time to rest and ultimately raises productivity. David A Spencer, a professor of economics and political economy at the University of Leeds in the UK, detailed the arguments of some prominent supporters of the concept in a 2022 article (“A Four-Day Working Week: its Role in a Politics of Work”).

German philosopher Karl Marx spoke of a communist utopia where working would be a matter of choice, with the needs of every person met in a society with equitable distribution of resources — “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

John Maynard Keynes, the English economist, predicted that the working week would fall to 15 hours by 2030. “He anticipated that the proceeds of higher economic growth would be used to raise incomes and reduce work hours… While differing on some fundamental points, Marx and Keynes agreed that progress in society equated with extending ‘free time’”, Spencer wrote.

Today, the rise of the services sector, as well as technological improvements and remote work, has led to questions about the need for strict in-office work hours across sectors of the modern economy. Reduced commuting time and office mandates can also help more groups take up jobs, such as women and the disabled, and result in environmental benefits.

However, critics point out that such flexibility is not possible for many sectors, including essential workers in medicine, law and order and sanitation. Already, the high demand for jobs sees organised sector workers also put in more than their standard hours, often without overtime pay. And in countries like India, where nearly 80% of the workforce is engaged in informal work, a shorter workday will not change much for the most marginalised workers.

Spencer also noted that in today’s economy, with gig work and part-time jobs becoming common, not all workers may even want shorter hours — which companies may want to compensate for with reduced pay. “Underemployment (with work hours constrained below desired levels) has become an increasing problem… Evidence suggests that some low earners are forced to juggle several different jobs—working long hours in the process—just to make ends meet… This shows how, at an ideational and political level, a four-day working week may not resonate with all workers—indeed, for those on low incomes and who are struggling to get by, it may be seen as a direct threat,” he argued.

Rishika Singh is a deputy copyeditor at the Explained Desk of The Indian Express. She enjoys writing on issues related to international relations, and in particular, likes to track and analyse news from China. Additionally, she writes on developments related to politics and culture. She can be reached out at rishika.singh@expressindia.com.   ... Read More