The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    wws's picture

    Job Sharing

    By wws on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:29am |
    Last week my wry wit TPM Cafe editor, Boyd Reed, gave me a Friday deadline for converting a long-winded comment I made on Aunt Sam's blog into three separate blogs on the concept of sharing  -- which is, in my opinion, not only a practical, but also a pleasurable way for us to move forward with increasingly limited resources.  (When I countered with a Monday deadline -- as any self-respecting journalist or author would do -- Quinn cut me a break and said two on Friday and one on Monday. Well, you can reform some of the procrastinators some of the time, etc..)

    So here, on Sunday morning, is the first of three. I have to work most of the day, so please don't be offended that I'm leaving the topic for y'all to augment, footnote, discuss, refute or ignore. I'll check in  as I can. But I hope you enjoy yourselves in the meantime:

    1) Job Sharing. As someone who works an average of 72 hours per week, I'd be delighted to job share, which I think is a really positive idea.
    Someone without a job gets one, and thereby immediately increases his, or her stability; and the person who had the full time job to begin with immediately gets more time for whatever. Job sharing strikes me as a genuine win/win/win; the employer also benefits from this arrangement, as employees are surely more focused and productive when they are stimulated by outside interests and more physically rested.
    The hitch to job sharing in America is, of course, health insurance and reduced income per person.
    Most employers in America do not offer health insurance at all to personnel they categorize as being part-time. How, then, under the current system,can two unrelated people share one insurance policy? If we could fix that, by passing universal health care legislation, then job sharing would take off in no time... if other resources -- housing, transportation, etc. could be shared to lower individual cost.





    Comments

    Another important idea, WW - like your housing one. Societies have choices about how to distribute unemployment. Ours dumps people into full unemployment (or early retirement), instead of job-sharing, 4-day workweeks, more holidays & longer vacations. I think we've made a very poor choice - and the evidence for its value is quite weak. Unless someone thinks that the 80 hour week & child labor are worth revisiting.

    I believe KPMG in London just offered its employees a 4-day week, at a 20% paycut, and got ~80% uptake. For some reason, we prefer to have everyone in our workplaces running scared, everyone afraid they may get let go. And then we wonder why the decline in "consumer confidence" is so widespread.

    I say, let's take a day off.... Yes, we lose 20% of our gross, but when you factor in lower taxes and transport costs and such, it can be less than that... And then put pressure on government to find ways to help extend health insurance.


    by quinn esq (not verified) on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 4:37pm

    Seems to me, ww, based upon your blogs right now up on the rec list that you are already doing 3 jobs! So job sharing might reduce you to 1.5 jobs, which seems to me already way too many. Thus I suggest job sharing with at least 2 other persons.

    I know a hospital where staff work one week on and have the next week off. Lots of interesting ways to job share.


    by TheraP (not verified) on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 10:05pm

    Well now,

    Half a job without health insurance would seem to me preferable to no job without health insurance.

    Have you ever tried not eating without health insurance?? Have you ever tried not eating with health insurance??

    What is it about the math here you're having so much a problem you feel compelled to write about it??


    by spriche (not verified) on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 11:03pm