“Leisure is an indispensable ingredient in a growing consumer market because working people need to have enough free time to find uses for consumer products, including automobiles. It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege”.
This was Henry Ford’s response in an interview with World’s Work Magazine in 1926.
At the time of the Industrial Revolution, employees worked around 10 to 16 hours a day. The rationale was that the factories needed to be tended to all the time. However, in 1926, Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, made a groundbreaking change. His became the first significant company to change the work policy to 40 hours a week with five working days, with no pay reduction. And the reason will surprise you.
The industrialist did not do it for his employee’s comfort or health. His concerns were capital oriented. He recognised that if companies were to make a profit, customers needed to buy things, relax and enjoy themselves. For this, they needed more time off work.
Recently, the Public Holidays Amendment Bill championed by the Kiambu Senator Karongo wa Thang’wa was gazetted for introduction into the Senate. The Bill aims to extend long weekends by declaring that if a public holiday falls on a Tuesday, then the preceeding day, Monday, not being a public holiday, shall also be a public holiday.
And the same would apply if the public holiday falls on a Thursday, and the succeeding day, Friday, not being a public holiday shall also be a public holiday. His rationale, partly like Henry Ford’s, is to invigorate the tourism industry and to improve workers well-being.
On a different front, the MP for Kikuyu Kimani Ichung’wa proposed the scrapping of Utamaduni Day as a public holiday, while the Cabinet Secretary for Interior declared November 13 as national tree planting holiday as part of a plan to plant 15 billion trees by the year 2032.
Begs the question. Why all the sudden obsession with public holidays?
In December 2022, a UK-based think tank, Autonomy Research, did a study on the impact of a four-day working week with no reduction in pay. The findings showed that 71 per cent of workers had reduced levels of burnout; 62 per cent had an improved work life balance; staff resignations dropped by 57 per cent; 20 percent reduction in energy use; and company revenue increases of 35 per cent.
This four-day work week has creeped from the fringes to the mainstream and emerged as one of the most exciting workplace policies to be adopted by many companies in Canada, US, Australia and Brazil. An example is the State of Utah that saved U$1.8 million in energy costs. Undoubtedly, the jury is in.
Of note is the distinction between a shorter work week and public holidays. The latter are days designated as nonworking days by governments for employees in recognition of significant events, traditions, or national celebrations.
Many have dismissed the senator’s proposal as hearsay. This is because we are stuck in a dominant burn-out culture that believes that working longer equals working better leading to success.
Another study by Prof John Pencavel from Stanford University debunked this thinking.
It found that productivity per hour declines sharply when one works more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity drops so much that putting in any more hours is pointless. And those working up to 70 hours a week are only getting the same amount of work done as those who put in 55 hours.
This is because we have many redundant hours in a workday where workers are underutilised, yet unable to leave due to the persistent culture of presenteeism where employers value hours logged in rather than productivity.
The proposal by the Kiambu senator is the wrong solution for the right problem. His proposal would reduce the evidenced benefits of a shorter work week. In economic-speak this is known as diminishing returns. This means that after some optimal level of capacity utilisation, the addition of any larger amounts of a factor of production will inevitably yield decreased per unit incremental returns.
Hence, rather than make the preceding and succeeding days additional public holidays, Thang’wa should borrow a leaf from America and Australia. When a holiday falls on a Tuesday, it is moved to the Monday preceding; or when it falls on a Thursday, it is moved to the Friday succeeding. This results in a three-day weekend and avoids splitting the week.
The benefits of a shorter working week are contributed to by a largely overlooked factor called capital. We celebrate a public holiday called Labor Day that is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of Kenyan workers. While true, the missing component in this tribute is capital.
Show me a worker who labours without contribution from capital, and I’ll show you stone age people living off berries and dead carcasses. There is no doubt that any advancement in our standard of living is built on a foundation of both labour and capital that permits the creation of tools to augment labor efforts.
Circling back to Ichungwa’s proposal, rather than scrap off Utamaduni Day, it would be more prudent to replace it with a Capital Day. As described earlier, holidays remind us of that which normally escapes public notice. This is exactly why we need a Capital Day. Although it surrounds us like the air we breathe, it is too often widely ignored, until we are charged for it in a medical facility. And like air, our society would not have the longevity of life without capital.
The fact that most of you are scratching your heads on the Capital Day proposal is more reason why we need it. True, workers provide the labor needed to drive the economy. But who avails the wages, space, equipment and tools, where labouring occurs? Unlike manna, they are not from heaven.
The capitalist provides them by deferring consumption, saving resources, then deploying them to enhance capacity and efficiency of the labourer. The capitalist has a low time preference. This is the ratio between the value we place on consumption of present versus future goods. People with high time preference prefer to consume now as opposed to later, yet foregoing immediate consumption results in higher quantity and quality of future goods.
Workers are paid long before any revenue generated from their labour returns to the capitalist. Paying someone for their service so far in advance of revenue generated from their labour, necessitates that capital be available. Without it, workers would have to wait weeks before receiving their pay. The capitalist risks it all.
Yet rather than be seen as a partnership, they have often been demonised as fat cats enjoying the sweat of the labourer. It is a partnership where one is celebrated during Labour Day while the other is at best ignored, or at worst reviled.
Finally, my unsolicited advice is to the Kiambu senator. You cannot push someone into a swimming pool then ask why they are wet. Likewise, you cannot push for a four-day long weekend then ask why there are socioeconomic diminishing returns.
Busyness is not a means to accomplishment, but an obstacle to it - Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
