• 0 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2023
  • lichtmetzger@feddit.detoEurope@feddit.de•Germany explores 4-day workweek amid labor shortageEnglish
    7·
    5 months ago

    What the article doesn’t mention (or I haven’t seen it when I skimmed through it):

    • This is only a pilot project for half a year, after that it’s probably back to the grind, unless the company decides otherwise
    • Only 45 companies are testing it and around half of them are very small (10-49 employees). So this is not the big thing this article is suggesting.
    • Craftsmanship and industry only make up for 6% of the companies doing this test. The biggest labour shortage is currently in these areas, so this is a slap in the face to young workers, because it implies that companies in these areas still don’t care about better working conditions, like they’ve done for the past few decades.

    At least they’re doing one thing right this time: They reduced the amount of hours to 80%. So if you’ve worked 40 hours a week before, you’re now doing only 32 hours. This is a real four-day-workweek, which honestly surprised me. Mostly, companies try to just shove the same amount of work into four days, which is really stressful.

    Source

    From personal experience, most companies are not adopting the four-day-workweek out of principle, especially when older people are running them. I have the privilege of a 32h week with Fridays off, but I’m also working at a very young and very small company. It’s not the norm and we still have a long way to go.

    What also doesn’t help is that major conservative parties, our finance minister and bosses of big companies and banks are openly against it. When you go into mainstream media, there’s a new article almost every day telling young people to start sweating because they’re “ruining our economy”.

    That won’t go away that easily.

  • lichtmetzger@feddit.detoEurope@feddit.de•German train strike could cost €1 billionEnglish
    12·
    5 months ago

    But it’s easier to go to the big media outlets and tell the workers “We have to be prepared to work harder and harder again” and “You also have to sweat”, like the bosses of the biggest German bank, Bosch and our finance minister did.

    (source)

    I believe the liberals are really afraid of a wave of people realizing that working less for the same amount of money is an option. When the train drivers get their 35 hour work week without any pay cuts, there will be more people also taking a liking to that idea. Worst nightmare of the upper class.

  • lichtmetzger@feddit.detoEurope@feddit.de•AfD leader ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’, says German Social Democrats headEnglish
    7·
    6 months ago

    And the major reason why they are voted for, our broken asylum system, remains unfixed.

    I’m not sure that’s really the main reason. We also have an energy crisis and a recession and a lot of people simply don’t have the money to pay for their basic needs. In 2022, 5.5 million people weren’t able to heat their homes properly due to monetary reasons. Our current political party leaves these people alone, energy prices are rising again this year and the FDP clings to their debt brake (“Schuldenbremse”) which makes the situation even worse.

    The AfD promises simple solutions for the current problems and a lot of people want to believe them. I’m sure a lot of voters flock to them because of immigration politics, but I believe it’s not the only reason.

    I don’t know but banning #1 political party in a region might have unexpected negative results

    The biggest problem is: If an attempted ban fails, it will further legitimize a fascist party, which will probably bring them even more votes. It’s a really hard and dangerous step to take.