Posted on 07/20/2013 5:31:08 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
My son recently started a job that has a 37.5 hour work week and asked me why 37.5 instead of 40? I couldn't really come up with a good answer. You could say it saves the employer money assuming they get the same amount of productivity but I don't know if that actually happens. Or it could be the person who founded the business came from a country where a 37.5 hour work week is more common than here in the USA. I did a lot of searching and found some companies transitioning to 37.5 but no real explanation as to why or what the advantage was. So I turn to the people who know it all, the Freepers, for answers.
This isn’t about Obamacare. If it was, his hours would drop below 30. Above 30 is still considered “full-time” by the government. You mention a plant, so this is probably about unions. It’s likely a concession to shorten the work day was negotiated as some part of a union contract and that is probably how this oddity happened.
Although, I have known IT jobs where the 40-hour work week was tweaked to fit around 12-hour shifts or 10-hour shifts and, in some cases, the worker did 36 hours one week and 44 the next but averaged to 80 in a two-week paycheck.
Just be thankful he has a job and is getting paid well enough to keep the household afloat.
20 odd years ago I worked for a large national firm, then went to work for a competitor firm. Both had 37.5 hour work weeks. This not something new, obviously.
Less than 40hrs. the employer doesn’t have pay benefits also that Obamacare thing.
Beginning January 1, 2015, under the “shared responsibility” requirement, all employees working an average of 30 hours per week or more in a month must be eligible for affordable coverage or the employer may be subject to a penalty. This is because the new law considers employees who work 30 hours or more to be full-time employees.
http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/hrqa/pages/hcrandptemployees.aspx
It also had always depended on what the company defines as “full-time” for purposes of benefits and an employer doesn’t have to define full-time as 40 hours per week. When I worked for a company with a 37 ½ work week, we were considered full-time and had full-time benefits. I would think that if the majority of a company’s employees worked a standard 37 ½ work week they’d be considered full-time and eligible for benefits otherwise if subject to compliance with a qualified section 125 plan, they’d probably fail the ant-discriminatory testing and that was the case long before HCR. In fact the company I work for offers full-time benefits for workers working 30 or more hours per week and has for many years.
The challenge for us under HCR is that we have to now consider what the average number of hours an employee works so that if someone is on a 25 hour per week schedule but actually works 30 or more hours on average, we have to consider them full-time for purposes of benefit eligibility and can be penalized for not doing so. That means that for many employers like retailers who employ many part-time workers, the employer is going to make damned sure they don’t work an average of 30 hours, ever and are probably going to cut their hours far below 30 as to not have to offer benefits.
It is that simple.Limit the overtime.
A 37.5 hour work week was standard at my 1990s job,and mandatory 45 minutes unpaid lunch.
Yep, and I learned that back in the 1970s, although I don't think it applied to each day, but the buffer was for the week.
Yeah.
I believe California’s is by the day (should know but am not sure)
It is a bit more restrictive anyway.
Well a great start to prove your point. I just heard that anything less than 40 hours is considered P/T - okay fine, you proved your point. Have a nice day.
I predict restaurants, and other small business, to offer employees three 10 hour shifts, or some combination to get under 30 hours per week.
Other employees will fill in the daily gaps, or work two 10 hour shifts on the week end.
Heck, a temp agency will find you those extra 10 hours as employers scramble to get everyone under 30 hours
For large companies, I forecast more clerical employees will face a 20-25 hour week. Two clericals @ 20 will replace one at 40 plus
Sounds good to me, if they can get the same quality product with workers paid half as much.
It’s not arbitrary: it’s good business sense.
The job market is like any other market. Supply and demand. If they can cut wages in half and still find people willing to do the job, they should. In a free market, some competitor will attract better talent by offering higher wages and a better product. If you don’t like the reduced wages, get a better job.
You really are a closet lefty, aren’t you?
Go get Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations to learn the importance of those “corporate weenies” accumulating wealth. It’s what drives the job market, NOT higher wages.
9 to 5 with 30 minutes off for lunch.
Where my wife works has been 37.5 hours since before she got there (quarter century). The general reason is it avoids overtime if shifts go a little over.
CA overtime is over 8 hrs in a day or 40 hrs in a week. CA employers must have a stated work week. Tuesday-Monday, Monday-Sunday I.e. Over 30 hrs a week is considered full time and eligible for health benefits. A 5 hr work day does not require a meal break. A 5.5. hr work day the employee can waive the meal break. 6 + hr work day the meal break cannot be waived. The 10 min break depends on the number if scheduled hours in the day. Making 1 or 2 10 min correct. The supreme court recently ruled the employee can choose to take their 10 min or no, the employer has to provide the scheduled time. Labor laws can be a night mare at times.
I was the payroll manager/timekeeper for a large municipal hospital system. In our case, the work week hours were defined by union contracts.
Although all employees were on the premises 40 hours per week, some only worked 37½ hours (with ½ hour unpaid lunch). Manintenance men, nurse’s aides, and institutional aides (housekeeping and kitchen staff) were 37½ hour/week employees.
Others had a 35 hour work week, with a one-hour unpaid lunch per day. That included the clerical staff ... and the plumbers and electricians who have a very sweet contract. They have a strict Monday to Friday work week. If they are required to work on a weekend, they receive double pay and if a holiday falls on a weekend, they get triple pay. So instead of a normal $50/hour wage, they have the potential of making $150/hour on a holiday weekend.
And still others, like Registered Nurses, were paid for 40 hours per week ... they were paid for their lunch hour.
All were considered full-time employees. Employees who worked 20 or less hours per week were part-timers.
Absolutely no reason why not. Then all they have to do is find a skilled specialized workforce to replace those that get mad and quit, and will accept the lower pay. Not a good business decision and a quick way to go out of business.
Give it up, your ignorance of good business practice and class warfare posts are embarrassing you.
That sounds kind of nice. One place I worked at, we had flex time. I worked the hours such that I had my 40 hours done by 11 am on Friday. Kind of bad is like on Fri morning, there would be some mandatory meeting like at 3 or 4 pm. The notice would be given right before Noon. So much for starting an early weekend ! I ignored the notices for the meetings and left like at 11 am. The meeting was all about how mgt was doing so much good for us worker bees ! Of course, I got called in several times and asked why I wasn’t at the late Fri afternoon meeting. My response was the meetings were so useless except to keep us there until the very end of the day before the weekend and meetings were a such a waste of time.
About a year or two after I started to work for this a-hole manager, I got transferred to a different group which worked at a base. The management at the base was particular. Casual day was unknown like on Friday and also leaving early on Friday’s was not allowed ! In fact before starting the job, you had to spend a day, of course unpaid where you do paperwork, listen to useless speeches from management. Also the rules were given and the East Coast executive manager came in to emphasize the executive dress code and no leaving early on Friday unlike elsewhere. Of course we didn’t work in his organization so we blew off what he said. My typical Friday was to get in like 6 am, go get my hot breakfast (eggs and bacon) then work until 15 minutes short of 40 hours then make my way out. I swipe my card where it was 40 hours. It was emphasized that it was off the clock unless you were at your desk but our rules were different where they paid your time when you swiped in until you swiped your card. I was in that job for a couple of years then there were cuts and I was given orders to move to the East Coast. In fact part of the move was I was required to sell my house at a loss. I kind of played the company’s game until I was terminated for refusing to cooperate in going to the East Coast.
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