St George's Day

Green Party wants a three day weekend every weekend.
I haven't noticed all the posts complaining about that, just four days bank holidays on Saints days. So much for telling some of us we hate the UK. I notice they are the ones who don't want four more bank holidays.
Who are the miserable ones now?

three day weekend every weekend? For everyone? Perhaps not for bus drivers, hospital staff, ambulance drivers, shop workers, garden centres um, er half the population .

No, hadn't heard of it but not a lot of people take much notice of them anyway.

whitewave that's lovely, I must admit my rose was not from my garden, just wondering if I pruned them too much.

Thank you George and woof to you too.
and N&G thank you for the lovely photo

www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2017/04/03/green-party-to-investigate-three-day-weekends/

My dad was a busdriver. He never expected to get the same days off as everyone else. Bus drivers like all NHS staff, etc., work rotas. So that's a silly comment, Jalima. Working fewer hours means more employment and job satisfaction for most people. I'm sure you will complain about that, too.

I haven't complained about anything

Just queried the fantasy of a three day weekend.

Our celebration was just ordinary Sunday Roast with the usual, plus baked beans, and desserts the littles like. Lovely. I would be delighted if it was a public holiday again. Why not?

wrong thread? This is not the Bank Holiday thread
am I on the wrong thread?

My mum always made spotted dick as one of the puds, but mine is not as nice as hers so we have cakes and a torte. Is spotted Dick traditional to others?

I do not know what I think of a three day weekend..but I am open enough to think about it and not reject it out of hand because myparticular political party did not suggest it!

That is the trouble with being too partisan/nationalistic etc. Instead of giving credit where credit is due, or acknowledging things went wrong we, generally, have a tendency to reject or accept ideas according to our broad political allegiance/ nation.

Does the four-day week mean
1) the same number of hours distributed over four days instead of five, same work for the same pay?
Or 2) the same hours each day as now but only four days out of five, so less work for less pay?
Or 3) would the pay be the same as before, same pay but for four-fifths of the work?

If 1), it has attractions.
If 2), there would have to be either more people employed to get the same amount done (costing employers in many indirect ways), or there would have to be overtime (again, costing employers more) - which everyone would want to do so as to kepp their income the same.
If 3), employers would have to pay the same but get less done, so they would have to provide overtime (and pay more) or employ more people (and pay more)

In scenarios two and three, all prices would inevitably go up to cover the extra cost.

A three day weekend?A typical loony Green idea.

A very interesting article in Business Insider, Apr. 9, 2017. uk.businessinsider.com/3-day-weekend-economic-logistics-2017-4
Most telling sentence " . . . the Green Party's idea might work if installed as a law. But only if you accept that your boss will likely want you on the job for four 10-hour days."

If you are a firm believer that all bosses are busy screwing their workers 24/7 to fund their decadent lifestyles, then you will be lobbying for this to be made law, but if you are running a small business that is only just viable and you treat your workers fairly, then you will face filing for bankruptcy unless the hours per week stay the same, however many days they are spread over.

That's why the Green Party are investigating the idea. It's strange that people can just call it a bad idea because the "loony Green party" has thought of it, without any supporting evidence.
The Tory party has come up with lots of "loony" ideas, too.

A four day week was thought of way back in the sixties, when mechanisation of jobs was going to become more prevalent. We were supposed to have more leisure time.
Instead what happened was that those who owned the factories sacked their workers so they could make more money, and the wage differentials became enormous.
Very worker friendly.

*Penstemmon^
I do not know what I think of a three day weekend..but I am open enough to think about it and not reject it out of hand because myparticular political party did not suggest it!

I think these kind of ideas were mooted years ago in the days when we thought we would all be working about 3-4 days a week and retiring on fat pensions at 55, so it is not something new that is being thought of.

According to the Yorkshire Post:

Saint George's Day WAS once a public holiday - although you have to go back to 1415 for when it was declared a national feast day and holiday in England.

Nothing new under the sun

We'll just have to look forward to May Day

You have to love those who think the idea of a four day weekend 'loony'.

I get the feeling they know little about anything before they were around. I can imagine their ancestors believing that working very long hours 'by the clock' in the industrial revolution was good for the scroungers and of course the children of these feckless people should work.

And, no doubt they would have been telling their husbands that working often 11 hours and sometime a 13 hour day as some seamstresses did should not be alleviated by a half day holiday on a Saturday afternoon. This was first won for the Manchester's warehousemen and clerks but they then went of to fight for the seamstresses and 'servants'.

The groups who fought for better working conditions have always, as far as I am aware, been left of centre in nature and now there is talk of a four-day week. Good for the greens. We will probably have to share work as it becomes more automated and AI does things more accurately and faster than we can. This seems like a step in the right direction.

We had a St. George's day parade in our local town. It seems that many still do. I think the biggest difficultly is claiming back the flag from what the far right have done to it.

So Theoddbird You care so much about your country that you would never vote Labour - the Labour Party that was responsible for:

The establishment of the NHS
The introduction of old age and widows pensions
The clearance of slums and building of council homes
The establishment of the Open University
The introduction of anti-discriminatory laws relating to Race, Gender, Disability, etc.
The minimum wage, etc., etc., etc.

That is, for almost every social policy that has sought to improve the lives of the average person in the UK and thus the strength and wellbeing of the country as a whole - most of which policies the Conservative Party opposed.

Probably overseers with whips still needed, Gracesgran, to ensure they work hard enough to justify their masters' billions. Isn't that what happens in Amazon warehouses - electronic whips, of course.

Thank you grannypiper for starting a happy thread under Chat, especially as I think you live in Scotland

I know it is St.Georges day because it is my birthday,cheers to me.

In the 1980s, i think, all the emphasis in secondary schools was on 'education for leisure' to ensure we would be able to make the most of all that free time when technology meant everyone working shorter hours.
What went wrong?

In my last job we all worked four days a week. The days were slightly longer, but the extra day off was most welcome and because of the nature of the business, we covered more work and made better profits. Although we we were a small company, our CEO had profit sharing in place, so we were all keen and happy workers. I wish all employers could be like that great lady!

^In the 1980s, i think, all the emphasis in secondary schools was on 'education for leisure' to ensure we would be able to make the most of all that free time when technology meant everyone working shorter hours.
What went wrong?^

People wanted to hoard their gold and not share it more evenly allule.