To: Catherine Howe, Chief Executive, Dorset Council
We want a four-day working week for Dorset Council workers
Please sign our petition as we call on Dorset Council to transition to a typical four-day working week default for staff, with no loss of pay.
The trade union movement won the weekend. It won the eight-hour day. It won paid holidays. It can win us the four-day week. The right to increased leisure time and decreased working hours was not handed to workers; we achieved it through organised workplace struggle.
Over 200 UK companies – including South Cambridgeshire District Council - employing more than 5,000 people from a range of sectors have already adopted a four-day working week - demonstrating that productivity can be maintained or even increased while providing workers with more time to rest, pursue personal interests and spend time with their families. Performance has been broadly maintained across the authority’s services.
The trade union movement won the weekend. It won the eight-hour day. It won paid holidays. It can win us the four-day week. The right to increased leisure time and decreased working hours was not handed to workers; we achieved it through organised workplace struggle.
Over 200 UK companies – including South Cambridgeshire District Council - employing more than 5,000 people from a range of sectors have already adopted a four-day working week - demonstrating that productivity can be maintained or even increased while providing workers with more time to rest, pursue personal interests and spend time with their families. Performance has been broadly maintained across the authority’s services.
The 9-5, five-day working week is a legacy of a past industrial age and no longer suits the realities of modern life. We are long overdue an update.
Why is this important?
Today, British workers put in the longest full-time working hours compared to almost every country in the EU and at the same time we have one of the least productive economies.
Research conducted by the 4 Day Week Global Campaign has found that:
- 63% of organisations find it easier to attract and retain staff with a four-day week
- 78% of employees with a four-day week are happier and less stressed
- 92% of companies in the UK opted to continue with the four day week
- Levels of anxiety and fatigue decreased
- Mental and physical health both improved
- The number of staff leaving participating companies decreased significantly, dropping by 57% over the trial period
Current part-time workers could also stand to benefit from a pro-rata reduction in their working hours with no loss of pay, provided job descriptions and workload expectations are realistic for the number of hours worked. The arguments in favour of a four-day working week gain increasing ground as ever more new technology is introduced into the workplace, generating substantial productivity gains, and those benefits should be shared among the workforce.
Dorset Council would bolster and help cement their reputation as a cutting-edge employer and institution among staff, students, Dorset and the wider community. Further, they’d be helping lead the way nationally and in the sector on being a four-day working week employer as a key component of changing our working life.
We call on Dorset Council to commit to implementing a four-day working week trial in the institution, with the view to making it permanent.
UNISON Dorset Branch