Sprawl, Family Rhythms, and the Four-Day Work Week Symposium: Redefining Work: Implications of the Four-Day Work Week - Redefining Work: Possibilities and Perils

We evaluate the four-day work week against the background of other institutional and social practices and constraints. But we fix these other variables when considering the value of this work reform. For example, workers enjoy the commute time and expense savings associated with a four-day week. These savings would mean little if the commutes in question were negligible. Therefore, the value of the four-day work week depends in part on the social history that gave us increasingly substantial commutes. This Article seeks to highlight some of the institutional practices that influence the adoption of a four-day work week, particularly those associated with sprawl. It compares the reform to school districts that operate a four-day school week as a cost-saving measure. School systems choose a four-day week because they are rural and long distances create particularly serious time and transportation costs. This comparison helps to reveal the role sprawl and its impact on commutes plays in the four-day work week reform. In addition, the four-day work week depends on being different from other workplaces for its benefits. The odd hours for commutes are needed to relieve pressure on the roads. The irregular hours for the opening of government offices are effective because they coincide with non-work hours for private sector employees. While new distances may necessitate a four-day work week, irregular, unsynchronized hours come with a cost. Synchronized non-work hours allow communities to share common civic time and allow families to develop social rhythms of non-work time together. The four-day work week reform, which derives its benefit from irregularity, undermines common community and family rhythms

Feminist Reflections on the Scope of Labour Law: Domestic Work, Social Reproduction and Jurisdiction

Drawing on feminist labour law and political economy literature, I argue that it is crucial to interrogate the personal and territorial scope of labour. After discussing the “commodification” of care, global care chains, and body work, I claim that the territorial scope of labour law must be expanded beyond that nation state to include transnational processes. I use the idea of social reproduction both to illustrate and to examine some of the recurring regulatory dilemmas that plague labour markets. I argue that unpaid care and domestic work performed in the household, typically by women, troubles the personal scope of labour law. I use the example of this specific type of personal service relation to illustrate my claim that the jurisdiction of labour law is historical and contingent, rather than conceptual and universal. I conclude by identifying some of the implications of redrawing the territorial and personal scope of labour law in light of feminist understandings of social reproduction

Sprawl, Family Rhythms, and the Four-Day Work Week Symposium: Redefining Work: Implications of the Four-Day Work Week - Redefining Work: Possibilities and Perils

We evaluate the four-day work week against the background of other institutional and social practices and constraints. But we fix these other variables when considering the value of this work reform. For example, workers enjoy the commute time and expense savings associated with a four-day week. These savings would mean little if the commutes in question were negligible. Therefore, the value of the four-day work week depends in part on the social history that gave us increasingly substantial commutes. This Article seeks to highlight some of the institutional practices that influence the adoption of a four-day work week, particularly those associated with sprawl. It compares the reform to school districts that operate a four-day school week as a cost-saving measure. School systems choose a four-day week because they are rural and long distances create particularly serious time and transportation costs. This comparison helps to reveal the role sprawl and its impact on commutes plays in the four-day work week reform. In addition, the four-day work week depends on being different from other workplaces for its benefits. The odd hours for commutes are needed to relieve pressure on the roads. The irregular hours for the opening of government offices are effective because they coincide with non-work hours for private sector employees. While new distances may necessitate a four-day work week, irregular, unsynchronized hours come with a cost. Synchronized non-work hours allow communities to share common civic time and allow families to develop social rhythms of non-work time together. The four-day work week reform, which derives its benefit from irregularity, undermines common community and family rhythms