Paganism and protest.
These two things twirl around the recent bank holiday like ribbons on a maypole. On the one hand, the 1st of May is associated with Beltane, an ancient Celtic festival which rejoiced at the arrival of summer. It was celebrated with bonfires, and is linked to fun, fertility and renewal. The early May bank holiday is also associated with the flame of political conflict. On 4 May 1886, a bomb detonated near Haymarket Square in Chicago, after police came to break up a rally held to support striking workers. Many citizens and police officers were killed or injured. The protests and strikes occurred from 1 - 4 May to advocate for an 8 hour work day.
In 1889, the International Socialist Conference decided that, in commemoration of the Haymarket riot, the 1st of May would be a holiday known as “International Workers’ Day”. It was moved to the nearest Monday in 1978 by the Labour party. Both concepts, radical socialism and a spring pagan festival, seem to have little in common. However, one thing they do share is a yearning for something new, for some transformation, whether that be ripples of light bursting forth after a harsh winter, or the burning sense of freedom one feels when they sense change is possible.
I love walking around the city centre on a bank holiday weekend. The pubs are full of people and laughter, the music blaring. Families stroll around nearby parks. There’s less rush, in general… an easing of tension. Weekends often feel like a spring coil. You press down on them, push for relaxation in a short space of time but then the burst back into work is just as, if not more, explosive. I found myself wondering, after some time, what it would be like if every single weekend was like this; laden with the comfort that there was one more day of freedom ahead. It seems I am not the only one who has had this notion.
Nowadays, there are many advocates of the 4-day work week, a system in which, ideally, the working week would be reduced to thirty-two hours without any reduction in pay. A handful of countries including Iceland, Japan and Ireland have trialled the idea. In response to the COVID pandemic, the Belgian government allowed workers to request a 4-day work week without losing any part of their salary in February this year. There are many good reasons for doing so: firstly, increased hours does not necessarily mean increased productivity. In 2018, employees in Britain worked an average of forty-two hours a week in 2018, nearly two hours more than the EU average. In Denmark, workers put in over 4 hours less work than UK employees, but productivity in Denmark was found to be 23.5% higher. The most obvious explanation for this is the fact that rest is important.
People need time to refuel, to relax, and to disengage from work. It is also important to remember the staggering number of people who suffer as a result of being overworked. In 2019, Open Access Government revealed that work-related stress and mental illness account for over half of work absences – and cost British businesses an estimated £26 billion per annum. A 4-day work week would help to cut this number down by giving people proper time to recuperate. It would also be beneficial for the environment, as it could reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by up to 127 million tonnes due to the reduction in travel. Some may scoff at the notion, but when Henry Ford began the forty-hour work week in 1926, many ridiculed him as most employees were working ten to sixteen hours a day. However, it turned out to be a masterstroke, as it increased productivity and the general welfare of Ford’s employees. Now, perhaps, it is time to take his ingenuity a step further.
May is probably my favourite time of the year. There is a sense of optimism as summer looms ahead - the feeling that there is some change coming. It’s easy to see why our pagan ancestors chose this time to revel, to be merry, to unshackle themselves from the stolid reticence of winter. This feeling for me, at the moment, is heightened by what appears to be a great unshackling of work norms. COVID-19 has disrupted traditional notions of the modern-day workplace as remote working and flexible working, things that, without the pandemic, may have taken multiple years to become common practice, are now being ushered in. In a poll of senior leaders at five-hundred UK businesses, 21% of respondents adopted a 4-day work week for staff in 2021, up from 18% in 2019, as COVID’s disruption made them reconsider their routines.
There are numerous economic, environmental and health benefits that come with a 4-day work week but fundamentally, it comes down to an essential question: are we working to live or living to work? Do we as a society truly value people and their personal time, or are we all drudges doomed to continual industry until the robots make most of us redundant? A 4-day working week is the future. We need political parties that champion it vociferously, and workers that push for it to happen. A nurse called Bronnie Ware recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and one of the top ones was “I wish I hadn't worked so hard.”
Perhaps when we all look back, we may find some of the best moments, the most valuable, were outside of work, when we socialised with those close to us, or allowed ourselves to contemplate, to be still. Our free time is precious, and we need more of it.
Life, like summer, doesn’t last forever.
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