This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
JOHN McDONNELL trumpeted calls for a four-day working week today, insisting its “time has come.”
The Labour shadow chancellor was speaking at an event ran by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and Tribune magazine calling for a reduction in working hours.
He expressed fear that the rise of irregular working hours is “damaging to our social fabric. We used to work to live — and now we live to work. People are just working too long, and it’s not working.”
Mr McDonnell announced that Labour has commissioned historian Robert Skidelsky to create a report into shorter working hours, with his recommendations forming the basis of Labour’s new policy.
NEF chief economist Miatta Fahnbulleh said: “The challenges of automation and calls for a Green New Deal have brought new urgency to the short working week debate.
“There is a new imperative to reduce working hours in a way that is inclusive and practical, but also ambitious.”
Tribune editor Ronan Burtenshaw told the Star: “It’s a pleasure to be able to speak about a shorter working week on the centenary of the 40-hour strike in Glasgow.
“It’s time to pick up the baton of a shorter working week once again.”
