The "School Shift"
A partial solution to our labor shortage...
I’ve written with co-authors before that immigration reform is needed to help solve our workforce problems and for humanitarian reasons. Here in Why Rural America Needs Immigrants, in Over 75,000 Job Openings in Iowa Alone. Millions of Refugees Looking for Work. Make the Connection, and in Aging Americans Face Bleak Futures Unless We Let New Immigrants Help.
The latest reports are that Iowa’s unemployment rate is only 2.9% and we have over 65,000 jobs open. Immigrants could help fill those jobs, but so could people who can’t find or afford childcare for their children if an employer were able to be flexible about their hours, e.g., allow them to work while their children are in school during a “school shift.”
COVID hit women hard. According to Forbes, “the Department of Labor estimates that women, who often bear the brunt of the care burden are penalized by $295,000 in missed lifetime earnings due to the fact that they are often forced to leave the workforce or take pay reductions to accommodate caregiving responsibilities.”
Women’s participation in the labor force is now back to pre-pandemic levels, but with the childcare crisis, and the high costs of childcare, many parents, particularly women, stay home to take care of their children when they would prefer to work, and even if the family needs their economic contribution.
A “school shift” that begins shortly after the school day starts, and ends shortly before school gets out would help. Parents could drop off the kids at school, and pick them up when the school day is over. If the students ride a bus, parents can see them off from home, and be there when they arrive at the end of the day. Ideally, one would be able to work six hours a day, for 30 hours per week.
Sitting at a lunch counter in Knoxville, Iowa the other day, I overheard a middle-aged man tell the older woman sitting across from him, “I don’t know about young people these days—they don’t want to work more than eight hours a day.” The man wore a company lanyard of a local manufacturing company that has an out-of-state headquarters.
The eight-hour day is deeply ingrained into the work ethic of most Americans, almost as if it was dictated from on high. The way the man spoke blamed the young workers for only wanting to work eight hours a day, rather than blaming the giant corporation for seeking to exploit them.
Sure, the eight-hour day was better than what came before it.
The eight-hour day (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses of working time.
The eight-hour workday originated in 16th-century Spain, but the modern movement originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life. At that time, the working day could range from 10 to 16 hours, the work week was typically six days, and child labor was common. In 1593, Spain became the first country to introduce the eight-hour work day by law for factory and fortification workers.
For millennia, humans told time by the passing of the seasons, the movement of the stars and moon at night, and the movement of the sun across the sky during daylight hours. In most cultures, before capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, we worked only when we wanted to and as needed. For many hunter-gatherers, food and shelter could be had with 15-20 hour work weeks.
Back then, when we were done working for a few hours, we could hang out, drink beer, and look cool.
COVID upended our working lives and for those of us who were lucky enough to be able to work from home, we were grateful.
The Des Moines Register reports a survey this year by Work From Home Research showed that nearly 40% of full-time U.S. employees continue to work from home or in hybrid arrangements.
Not everyone is so lucky.
The eight-hour day is a major life constraint for hourly workers. You can’t schedule a doctor’s appointment, get a haircut, or get the oil in your truck changed without losing money. You also have to ask your boss, who may be a jerk, for permission. With the “school shift,” it would be possible to schedule some of these parts of everyday life before or after school. Parents would also be able to spend more time with their children.
Employers prefer people with a good work ethic, and many of us pride ourselves on ours.
The work ethic was invented by Puritan ministers in the 17th century. At the turn of the 20th century, sociologist Max Weber argued that it trapped workers in an “iron cage” of meaningless drudgery for the sake of interminable wealth accumulation. In the 21st century, anarchist anthropologist David Graeber has condemned it for consigning workers to "bullshit jobs."
Popular culture has a hard time with “bullshit jobs,” especially when the bosses prosper and the worker doesn’t.
When I was a little kid, I’d hear Tennessee Ernie Ford sing the song “Sixteen Tons” on the radio. Grandpa had worked in a coal mine, and Dad was a construction worker, and I heard much truth in the song.
Sixteen Tons
Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded 16 tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said, "Well, a-bless my soul"
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Can't no high toned woman make me walk the line
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't get you
Then the left one will
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Dolly Parton said it best in her hit song 9 to 5. Notice her introduction to the song in the video. She’s one of the best working-class songwriters ever. She truly understands.
9 to 5
Tumble out of bed
And stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch and try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin'
Out on the streets, the traffic starts jumpin'
For folks like me on the job from 9 to 5
Workin' 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it
9 to 5
For service and devotion
You would think that I
Would deserve a fat promotion
Want to move ahead
But the boss won't seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is
Out to get me, hmmm
They let you dream
Just a watch 'em shatter
You're just a step on the boss man's ladder
But you got dreams he'll never take away
In the same boat with a lot of your friends
Waitin' for the day your ship'll come in
And the tide's gonna turn
And it's all gonna roll you away
Workin' 9 to 5
What a way to make livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind
And you never get the credit
It's enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it
9 to 5
Yeah, they got you were they want you
There's a better life
And you think about it, don't you?
It's a rich man's game
No matter what they call it
And you spend your life
Putting money in his wallet
9 to 5
Oh, what a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it
9 to 5
Yeah, they got you where they want you
There's a better life
And you dream about it, don't you?
It's a rich man's game
No matter what they call it
And you spend your life
Putting money in his wallet
9 to 5
In my opinion, 9 to 5 is one of the best pro-worker songs ever.
I recognize, of course, that the “school shift” won’t be possible in every work environment, but if it does in some, it will be good for all involved. The employer, the employee, and their families.
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"16 Tons" and "9 to 5" in one essay -- well played. The corporate grind has assuredly fueled the parallel creator economy, with its fantasies of ultimate autonomy.
The pandemic taught a lot of people that they could get by on less--and that it was okay to want that. In my own workplace, 4-day workweeks now go to much more senior employees than they did before.
It also reminded us that life is too short to spend it in a "bullshit job" or one that doesn't pay enough to make it worht your time. A lot of employers never got the memo. Things like "School Shifts," and compressed work weeks help bridge that gap.