It’s time to make the four-day week a reality

It might sound like a dream, but it’s a vision with deep roots in the history of the trade union movement. An idea with potential for the future. For generations, trade unions have fought for a better balance between work and life. It’s time for the next step: a four-day working week with no loss of pay for all.

In the 19th century, workers regularly endured brutal 60-plus hour weeks. Through struggle and solidarity, unions won the eight-hour working day. In the 20th century, we won the weekend, a bold experiment to remove a whole day from the working week.

These gains weren’t gifts from above; they were fought for by ordinary people banding together for fairness. Today, technology and stagnant productivity give us another chance to consider a different shape to the world of work. 

Productivity across the UK has remained broadly stagnant since 2008, lagging behind many of our peers in France and Germany. This “productivity puzzle” is even more acute in the North East, with a widening gap between our region and the wider country opening up since 2014. Studies have shown that a four-day week presents a potential answer to this puzzle, offering a productivity increase of 15% or more in some sectors. While research from the civil service union PCS has shown that the government could save over £20 million in the department for food and agriculture alone. 

Many people across the UK already feel the strain of insecure work. Zero-hours contracts and “always on” remote working blur the lines between job and life. Unpaid overtime is a silent epidemic, costing workers billions in lost leisure and wellbeing. The four-day week isn’t just about having an extra day off, it’s about claiming control of our time and ensuring work supports life, doesn’t consume it. 

Trials around the country have proven that a four-day week is not only possible, but works, and increases productivity. Many employers in our region are experimenting with shorter weeks and finding that shorter hours are better hours.

For our communities, where work patterns and wages have long been shaped by industrial change and where people still feel the squeeze of insecure jobs and stagnant pay, this conversation is especially urgent. A four-day week could renew our local economy: more time to spend, more time to engage in civic life, and more balance in lives too long defined by relentless hours. 

Of course, good intentions aren’t enough. Delivering this vision will require political will, union strength, and employer commitment. But history shows that bold ideas once dismissed as impractical, like weekends and paid holidays, eventually become the norm when people organise and advocate for change. 

Let’s not wait another century to ask for what working people deserve. The five-day week was once much disparaged, utopian vision for some. Perhaps the four-day week with decent pay seems to some of you the same. But this needn’t be a luxury; it can be a realistic ambition for us all. 

This blog originally appeared in the Chronicle on the 15 December 2024