h/t James Delingpole – Britain’s Labour Opposition Party, which has a real chance of winning the next UK election, is seriously considering a think tank proposal to radically cut working hours and wages to reduce everyone’s carbon footprint.
Plan for 10-hour working week with 75% paycut under Labour
Martine Berg Olsen Monday 10 Jun 2019 7:54 am
The Labour Party is discussing plans to bring in a 10-hour working week and slash pay by 75 per cent to tackle climate change. The radical report titled The Ecological Limits of Work by the Autonomy Group states unless current carbon emissions are cut there would be an ‘unprecedented decrease in the economic activity’.It says the sustainable work week would likely be ‘well below 10 hours per week’.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who has previously backed a four-day working week, said: ‘This is a vital contribution to the growing debate around free time and reducing the working week.’ Leo Murray, adviser to Shadow Treasury minister Clive Lewis, said: ‘I like this take a lot.’
Lewis has previously backed another controversial report from the group on reducing the working week.
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/10/plan-10-hour-working-week-75-paycut-labour-9878450/
…
The full report, “The Ecological Limits of Work”, is available here.
Under the topic “other considerations”, the report authors express concern that their proposed cut might not be deep enough, because people working shorter hours might be more productive during the time they do work, which would cancel some of the ecological “benefit” of a shorter working week.
This is not a fringe proposal. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who praised the proposal, is a senior figure in the Labour Party, and has a real chance of being put in charge of Britain’s banking system and economy after the next election.
The report kind of skips over issues which might concern some workers, like how British workers already suffering fuel poverty are supposed to warm their homes and feed their families with 75% less money, and how they are supposed to pay their mortgages and bills (maybe all mortgages will be forgiven?), but I doubt the politicians considering this radical policy proposal have ever personally experienced real hunger, poverty or cold.
We’ll begin the program with all government representatives and employees to test out how it works for us, those in favor … where’d they all go?
Look, it’s really simple(*). This won’t hurt the people at all. Deflation is bad because we all know that consumption is what makes us all richer, so we need more demand. BUT we know that wage growth causes inflation, so if we cut everyone’s wages by 75% we’ll get deflation which is good because it will lower the prices of everything so everyone can still consume exactly like they did before, but now they won’t need to emit nearly so much of that dreaded carbon and the planet will be saved. It’s just basic economics.
*Yes, this is /sarc.
Or put them on a benefit to make up for the loss in income. After all, the government has lots of cash, and can always print more if its needed…….
Will these reductions in hours also apply to the NHS?
Did’ja ever wonder just what it was that made South Carolina finally open fire on Fort Sumter?
“This is not a fringe proposal. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who praised the proposal”
Typical parroting of British tabloid nonsense. The Autonomy Group does seem to be a fringe group. It isn’t mentioned by Wikipedia; Google turns up little.
John MacDonnell did praise a report using the words quoted, but it wasn’t this one. It was a much different discussion proposing a four day working week, and not at all based on climate change. Here is a 1 Feb article with the quote and context. The fuller quote from MacDonnell was
“This is a vital contribution to the growing debate around free time and reducing the working week,” shadow chancellor John McDonnell said of the report, signalling the Labour leadership’s endorsement. “With millions saying they would like to work shorter hours, and millions of others without a job or wanting more hours, it’s essential that we consider how we address the problems in the labour market as well as preparing for the future challenges of automation. “
Nothing there about climate change.
Nice cherry pick Nick, climate change is part of the agenda and I copied straight from your report link:
“Further benefits of a four-day week include a reduced burden on healthcare services (poor mental health at work is estimated to cost employers £33-42bn, or 2 per cent of GDP, a year); greater environmental sustainability through a reduction in the number of commutes and an increase in low-carbon activities (such as walking or cycling instead of driving, and cooking with fresh ingredients rather than heating energy-intensive frozen food products); and increased gender equality by encouraging men to bear more of the burden of unpaid work and care.
Notice Nick, the wording above, …”environmental sustainability”………”increase in low carbon activities”….”energy intensive”……
Man, you must have been hoping no-one was going to take the time to read your links.
There is nothing in MacDonnell’s comments about climate change. And in a long discussion by many authors, someone is going to mention climate change, but it isn’t what that report is about.
But the point is, it is fake news. MacDonnell was not talking about the 10 hour article, by a different author. There is no evidence that has been endorsed by Labour.
Semantics Nick semantics…
Perhaps it was misconstrued from a possible 10 hour day 4 day workweek
Nick
Wrong.
The Autonomy Group and their report “The Ecological Limits of Work” are solidly located at the extreme end of the connected circle of the Labour Party. People directly associated with the report are part of the party’s apparatus. It is in line with their self positioning as the party of “Green Revolution”.
Your defence of this report of Talebanic eco-extremism or eco-fascism, as fake news, is utterly false. This is the Labour Party. The first sentence of the report tells you everything you need to know about Corbyn’s Labour Party:
As early as the 1880s, Paul Lafargue, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, put forth the demand for a three-hour work day, enthusiastically highlighting the emancipatory potentials of technological progress (Lafargue 1883).
“People directly associated with the report”
There is one person directly associated with the report. That is Philipp Frey, the sole author. He is a PhD student in Karlsruhe, Germany. The “report” sounds like part of his thesis.
“The first sentence of the report tells you everything you need to know”
It is written by a PhD student giving the background to his topic.
” as fake news, is utterly false”
What is utterly false is the association of this report with MacDonnell. The alleged praise from him was actually for something quite different. There is no evidence that the report ever came to his notice. Yet this discussion goes on as if that didn’t matter in the slightest.
They’ll try this out by cutting Parliament’s pay and hours first, right?
Might be best to start with a lot of the unelected and NGO lobbyists who infect the halls of Westminster.
James Bull
He just wants publicity and to be adored by an admiring throng of ninnies.
Don’t get worked up about it, it won’t happen. Nobody, not even a lefty is that stupid.
And if by chance they did get elected and did make such cuts into law, within a week the rioting mobs would have overthrown the government and lynched the idiots.
So in conclusion it would be fair to say that this man is an awful eejit and should not be allowed out in public without adult supervision. While he’s probably very handy around the house, you know trimming the green lawn (damn you carbon dioxide) God bless his wee head with the burden of saving the planet. Now, we as the adults, need to remember that the thought processes of the Labour Party, and that ilk, don’t funtion rationally so we need to do the right thing and give then some crayons and string so they can amuse themsekves in the corner of whatever dark room they happen to reside in!!! So there John McDonnel – you don’t count!
I’m unwilling to work. I’ll take a 100% cut in hours. (Of course I expect the same payment on the first of the month.)
#VirtueSignaling
It is crazy and unbelievable !
Unfortunately I remember some 15 years ago reading that what deep ecology believe will arrive in a matter of 10 to 20 years time, so I guess wait 2035 to see that common thinking unless there is a paradigm shift, but as deep ecology of 15 to 20 years ago is becoming more mainstreet thinking I am afraid this shift will not come until people are in deep shit, very deep!
I bet this 75% wage cut is really popular with the people/electorate ????
sarc/
Someone who has never really worked came up with this it’s the only way anyone would even think it.
I work in the water supply industry working in a 24/7 control room if they cut our working hours by 75% they’d have to employ 75% more people to get round the clock cover.
I mean come on just think about how stupid you’re going to seem before saying or printing stuff like this.
Also as “climate change” is a non problem there’s nothing to “fix” anyway and it seems you can’t fix stupid.
Unfortunately many younger people who haven’t enjoyed the delights of union lead government seem to think Jeremy and his gang are the best thing since sliced bread.
Rant over
James Bull
Oh! Heck! It all makes sense now! The government took all their guns to prepare for the culling.
Plenty of shotguns around.
The UK had to employ a 3 day working week in the 60’s to save on energy reserves because the coal industry held the UK to ransom by “industrial action” to improve pay and working conditions. But this is just madness, it will never happen because if it did the public would storm 10 Downing St even though it is now a well protected fortress. When I left the UK in 1995 there were 13 million able bodied working age people that were unemployed and drawing some sort of taxpayer funded benefit this policy would greatly increase that number.
Cockamamie idea!
Why not make it 97% just to be sure.
They are completely crazy.
Hypothesis 1:
Their ideological stock is so deeply depleted that they fly on vapors:
Hypothesis 2:
Their electorate has more psychological issues than initially taught.
Hypothesis 3:
Both.
Politicians see kudos in leading whether it be a silly hat parade or a lemming rush. They just have to be leading.
What an idiotic idea! Third world people have salaries under $ 100 and are big polluters. It’s just the opposite, rich people are more able to take care of their waste, buy electric cars and use technology to live better and reducing their carbon footprint. Poverty pollutes!
History repeats. When Labour under Harold Wilson devalued the pound and introduced the 3 day working week my father was just reaching retirement on a final salary pension scheme. He was not a happy bunny. Then we had the winter of discontent, rubbish piled up in the streets, if your house caught fire you called out the army, electricity if you were lucky etc. Happy days…
We did have the BBC radio “service”, and my father roamed the local industrial site for wood pallets to help through the cold winters with a back-boiler.
Like communism this is a revolt of new elites. (now ligitimated by the green church)
Elites fear the loss of resources which they want to save for themselves.
So a class of poor has to be created.
Windmills and solar panels just serve that purpose, creating energy scarcity.
Now these plans move a step further, cutting off salaries.
But they clearly expose the underlying objectives.
Vaclav Klaus was very right, it’s not about the climate, not about nature but about our freedom.
Go for it so we can all watch and laugh…from a distance.
There’s no way the taxeaters are going to accept having to do 10 hours of productive work a week and the concomitant mass redundancies.