by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 17, 2009   Last Updated: May 25, 2009

Is this the new trend? In February of 2009, Toyota confronted the bad economy with a radical solution: shorter work weeks. But they called it a measure to protect employment, since their plants would have to shut altogether if they continued paying every employee for a full 40 hours. It's just one of the ways employers are challenging traditional ideas about work schedules, but it's getting some serious attention. Businessmen and politicians are now wondering if it still makes sense to keep everyone working the same 40-hour schedules.

The month before Toyota's announcement, one economist had suggested a 36-hour work week, noting that the United States lags behind Europe in the hours of vacation time provided. And there was even a time when Americans worked six-day weeks, until the labor movement demanded a two-day weekend in the 1930s. But there's an important lesson to be learned from the Great Depression. Employers were willing to accept short work weeks because it helped put more people to work. In today's global recession, employers may now be considering even short work weeks - and for exactly the same reasons.

Even the 40-hour work week is an artifact of our labor law, since most employers have memorized the rule about additional pay for overtime: "time and a half for every hour over 40." (At one point, Republican Senator Gregg suggested a change in the opposite direction: eliminating overtime pay unless employees put in 50 hours!) But the overtime law doesn't cover everyone, and for many Americans, the 40-hour week is already just a comforting myth. For a salaried (or "exempt") employee, there's no extra pay for those extra hours of working late anyways. The reward for finishing a crucial project is simply keeping the job. There's a famous Dilbert cartoon in which a co-worker leaves the company, then gets re-hired for more money to perform the same work as a contractor. But contractor status is attractive for employers too, since they don't have to pay for an employee's health benefits.

Other companies are experimenting with "flex time," where even a 40-hour work week doesn't consist of 8 consecutive hours per day. Employees can perform their work at night or on weekends - sometimes by telecommuting - and the biggest consideration is whether their work is getting done. Some workers simply prefer their free time over extra hours at work. With more and more people experiencing non-traditional hour we may be nearing the moment when both employers and workers finally agree on something: the ending of the 40-hour week.

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