New push for four day working week gather momentum

A major Australian union has renewed the push for a shorter national working week.

A major Australian union has renewed calls for the country to move to a four-day working week.

The Victorian branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, in their submission to a federal parliament Senate committee, this week called for the one day reduction in the working week, or for a 32 hour week rather than 38.

The ANMF told the Select Committee on Work and Care, which is due to hand down an interim report next month, that the reduction “would enable all employees a better opportunity to balance work with personal responsibilities.”

A major Australian Union has renewed calls for the nation to adopt four-day working week. Photo: istock

In their submission, the ANMF also called for the circumstances in which carers can apply for personal leave to be broadened from beyond illness, injury and emergency to events such as placing a parent in a nursing home or attending your child’s school.

It comes as author Alex Soojung-Kim Pang told Sky News Australia recently that “a few dozen” Australian companies were due to begin trialling the four day working week in October for six months.

Mr Soojung-Kim Pang said the signs from earlier trial beginning in the United Kingdom were promising.

“More than half of them, I think about 55 per cent, say that productivity is at the same level it was when they were working five days or higher,” he said.

“Only five per cent say that it might have dropped a little bit and across the board, people say that they are happier, they’re less stressed, they feel like they have a better work-life balance.”

In Iceland, as many as 85 per cent of workers now work four days a week, while more trial are underway in Canada, the US, Spain and New Zealand.