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feanor1600 comments on The Robots, AI, and Unemployment Anti-FAQ - Less Wrong
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Shorter work weeks didn't just happen. It took a huge amount of effort from unions, which were a lot more powerful then than they are now.
Most jobs don't let you freely trade off how long you work for how much money you get. There are fixed per-employee costs, so businesses would rather have one person working 40 hours per week rather than two people working 20 hours per week. Especially when 40 is the norm and wanting to work less is "lazy".
"Shorter work weeks didn't just happen. It took a huge amount of effort from unions, which were a lot more powerful then than they are now." I've never understood why people find this story compelling, precisely because of your final clause. If unions were the main force determining hours, why have hours continued to go down now that unions have been drastically weakened?
In the time since the peak power of labor unions, the number of benefits accruing to full-time but not part-time workers has increased, making it more economical to employ part-time workers for a lot of jobs.
(Peak labor union membership in the U.S. was in 1955. This was also the year the AFL and CIO merged, thus removing effective competition in the market for union organizations.)