The UK needs a four-day week
Says Professor John Ashton of the UK Faculty of Public Health
Quote:
"When you look at the way we lead our lives, the stress that people are under, the pressure on time and sickness absence, [work-related] mental health is clearly a major issue. We should be moving towards a four-day week because the problem we have in the world of work is you've got a proportion of the population who are working too hard and a proportion that haven't got jobs", Ashton said.
"We've got a maldistribution of work. The lunch-hour has gone; people just have a sandwich at their desk and carry on working," added the leader of the UK's 3,300 public-health experts working in the NHS, local government and academia.
Quote:
"We need a four-day week so that people can enjoy their lives, have more time with their families, and maybe reduce high blood pressure because people might start exercising on that extra day.
"If you've got two people in a couple working, they need to be able to work in such a way that they can spend time together with their children. It's a nightmare," said Ashton, who worked in the NHS for 42 years until he retired last year.
"My concern is that too many people are working too long hours and too hard, and too many people aren't working at all. A large number of people are working crazy hours and a significant amount of people can't get work," Ashton said.
"It [a four-day week] is viable. We need an ambition in the next 10 to 20 years to move to that on a European level. We've had the European working-time directive. Why couldn't we have the ambition to move to a four-day week? The fifth day could be a community activity day, a giving back day. This is how you operationalise the big society," he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...ess-top-doctor
Yes please.