What would change if the work week became three days?

Labor relations retrospective

The five-day work week is the result of the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. Then there was a transition from the agrarian economy to industrial production, and many factories and manufactories appeared, the work of which had to be regulated. At first, their workers worked during daylight hours, 12 hours a day. However, with the advent of electricity, the volume of working hours increased; this resulted in protests and led to the formation of the first labor associations - for example, the National Labor Association in the United States, which advocated a reduction in the working day.

Saxon Engineering Factory 1868 © wikipedia

In an agrarian society, only Sunday was a traditional day off - on this day it was customary to go to church. The industrial world also at first adhered to the established six-day system, but then Western society began to gradually move away from it under the pressure of public protests and the authors of the first scientific research who confirmed: a ten-hour working day without a lunch break leads to exhaustion, which has a bad effect on labor results. As early as 1926, Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford began closing his factories on Saturday and Sunday. By this point, the number of working hours per week in the United States had already fallen from 80 to 50. Ford concluded that it was easier to divide this work into 5 rather than 6 days, freeing up more time for leisure - and growing consumer demand.

Henry Ford © wikipedia

In Russia, the picture was different. At the end of the 19th century, the working hours here were still not regulated in any way and amounted to 14-16 hours a day. Only in 1897, under the pressure of the labor movement, especially the weavers of the Morozov manufactory in Ivanovo, the working day was for the first time legally limited to 11 and a half hours from Monday to Friday and up to 10 hours on Saturday for men, as well as up to 10 hours every day for women and children. However, the law did not regulate overtime in any way, so that in practice working hours remained unlimited.

Changes occurred only after the October Revolution of 1917. Then a decree was issued by the Council of People's Commissars, which determined the work schedule of enterprises. It stated that working hours should not exceed 8 hours per day and 48 per week, including the time needed to care for the machines and the workroom. Nevertheless, the working week in the USSR after that moment remained six-day for another 49 years.

From 1929 to 1960, the Soviet working day went through several major changes. In 1929, it was reduced to 7 hours (and the working week - to 42 hours), but at the same time they began to switch to a new personnel calendar - in connection with the introduction continuous system production. Because of this, the calendar week was cut to 5 days: four working days, 7 hours each, and the 5th is a day off. In the country, even pocket calendars began to appear, on one side of which the Gregorian week was printed, and on the other, the time card. At the same time, since 1931, the schedule has become special for people's commissariats and other institutions: here the calendar week was six days, and within its framework, the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th days of each month, as well as 1 March were non-working.

Five-day calendar © wikipedia

The Gregorian calendar is back Soviet Union only in 1940. The week again became seven days: 6 working days, one (Sunday) is a day off. At the same time, working hours have again increased to 48 hours. Great Patriotic War added to this time mandatory overtime work from 1 to 3 hours a day, and vacations were canceled. Since 1945, wartime measures ceased to operate, but only by 1960 did the work week regain its former volumes: 7 hours a day, 42 hours. Only in 1966, at the XXIII Congress of the CPSU, it was decided to switch to a five-day week with an eight-hour working day and two days off: Saturday and Sunday. AT educational institutions the six-day period was preserved.

1968 Rudkovich A. Do not waste working minutes! © wikipedia

“The idea of ​​introducing a 40-hour workweek in the world took shape around 1956 and was implemented in most European countries in the early 60s,” says Nikolai Bai, Professor of the Department civil law Law Institute of RUDN University. - This idea was originally proposed by international organization labor, after which the leading and developing economies began to apply it in practice. AT different countries, however, the amount of working time still remains different: for example, in France, the week is 36 hours. main reason- that the degree of economic development differs from country to country. In a developed economy, it does not make sense to drive people, and there a shortened work week is possible so that people can devote more time to themselves, their health and family. By the way, in the recent past in Russia, Mikhail Prokhorov proposed introducing a 60-hour work week in Russia. In response, the government asked the question: "Do you want another revolution to take place in our country?"

The request to amend the labor market committee of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) on the 60-hour working week came not from employers, but from work collectives, businessman Mikhail Prokhorov, who heads the committee, said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

In most cases, human labor is measured by working time. Labor legislation most often uses such units of measurement as the working day (shift) and the working week.

A further reduction in working hours was provided for by the Law of the RSFSR of April 19, 1991 "On increasing social guarantees for workers." In accordance with this law, the length of working time of employees cannot exceed 40 hours per week.

The duration of daily work is 8 hours, 8 hours 12 minutes or 8 hours 15 minutes, and in jobs with harmful working conditions - 7 hours, 7 hours 12 minutes or 7 hours 15 minutes.

In April 2010, Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov proposed changing labor laws and introducing a 60-hour work week instead of a 40-hour one. In November 2010, the Bureau of the Board of the RSPP approved amendments to the Labor Code, which met with fierce resistance from the trade unions. However, later the document was to be sent for consideration by the Russian tripartite commission with the participation of employers, trade unions and the government.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

There is no better entertainment for mankind than to play with these 365 (or whatever) days of revolution of its planet around the Sun. Then the Mayans will get tired of counting the years ahead and today's pessimists are already screaming - the end of the world! Then the Romans cannot figure out the division into months and come up with all sorts of ides when it is more convenient to soak Caesar. And with the name of the months in Greece and Rome, real outrages were happening. Somehow, June, July and August, named after persons, have survived to this day. And sooner some successful commander will appear, so sycophants are in a hurry to rename the months. There were Alexandrius, and Demetrius, and Pompey… But it seems to have settled down. They used to consider December the twelfth month, although the name is translated from Latin as "the tenth".
And don’t feed the revolutionaries with bread, let them mock the calendar. The Jacobins abolished the previous names of the months, introduced Germinal, Thermidor, etc. How come new era has come. The era lasted 12 years. The Bolsheviks also did not keep themselves waiting with calendar reforms. First, they famously switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. And after January 31, 1918, February 14 immediately came. But it was right. The world revolution is on the nose, and we have a discrepancy with the whole world. But then something more strange happened.
With the beginning of the revolutionary movement, one of the first demands of the proletariat was to shorten the working day. For the first time in Russia, an 11.5-hour day was legally established in 1897. The Bolsheviks introduced a long-awaited hourly day, a 48-hour week.
But industrialization came, the first five-year plan, intensification and reforms began. In 1929, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars was issued on the introduction of the "five-day period" from 1930. The year was divided into 72 five-day weeks, at the end of each of which there was a day off. The main focus was that the staff of each enterprise was divided into five parts. And each part of the working year began on different days of the first five days. It turned out that the enterprise or organization worked without days off at all. Under such a system, the order of the days of the week lost its meaning, and Mondays and Tuesdays disappeared altogether. Instead of them, “the first day of the five-day period”, “the second day of the five-day period”. One of the goals of the reform was anti-religious. Sundays have disappeared from Christians, Saturday from Jews, Friday from Muslims.
“When the methodological and pedagogical sector switched to a continuous week and, instead of a clean Sunday, some purple fifths became Khvorobiev’s days of rest, he disgustedly used his pension and settled far outside the city.” (I. Ilf, E. Petrov "The Golden Calf".)
But the confusion with the division of labor collectives into parts, with the distribution of holidays, with cases of absence on sick leave, turned out to be too big. If enterprises with a continuous production cycle did not already have general days off, then why was it necessary at school, in the theater or in Glavuprban? In 1931, the five-day period was replaced by the six-day period. The 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of each month were public holidays. On the 31st they were working, in the absence of February 30th they walked on March 1st. But still lived without Sundays and Saturdays. Only six holidays per year were independent of the new order. The modern viewer does not understand what the title “the first day of the six-day period” means in the film “Volga-Volga”, but then everyone understood.
Only on June 26, 1940, the seven-day week returns again and the days return to their former names. Everything falls into place.

Pavel Kuzmenko

On October 29 (November 11), 1917, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) in Russia established an 8-hour working day (instead of 9-10 hours, as it was before) and introduced a 48-hour working week with six workers and one day off afternoon. Works that were particularly harmful to health were subject to reduced working hours. On December 9, 1918, the Labor Code of the RSFSR was adopted, which consolidated these provisions.
From January 2, 1929 to October 1, 1933, in accordance with the decision of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, a gradual transition to a 7-hour working day was carried out. The working week was 42 hours.
On August 26, 1929, by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the transition to continuous production in enterprises and institutions of the USSR", a new personnel calendar was introduced, in which the week consisted of five days: four working days of 7 hours, the fifth was a day off.
In November 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution in which it allowed the people's commissariats and other institutions to switch to a six-day calendar week, in which the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of each month, as well as March 1, were non-working.
On June 27, 1940, the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR came into force on the transition to an 8-hour working day with a "normal" working week according to the Gregorian calendar (6 working days, Sunday is a day off). The working week was 48 hours.
On June 26, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree "On the working hours of workers and employees in wartime", according to which mandatory overtime work from 1 to 3 hours a day was introduced and holidays were canceled. These wartime measures were abolished by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on June 30, 1945.
At the end of the post-war recovery period in 1956-1960. the working day in the USSR was gradually (by sectors of the national economy) again reduced to 7 hours with a six-day working week (Sunday is a day off), and the working week was reduced to 42 hours.
At the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (March 29 - April 8, 1966) it was decided to switch to a five-day working week with two days off (Saturday and Sunday). In March 1967, a series of decrees and resolutions of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Central Committee of the CPSU introduced a standard "five-day work" with an 8-hour working day in the USSR. In general education schools, higher and secondary special educational institutions a six-day work week with a 7-hour working day. Thus, the working week did not exceed 42 hours.
On December 9, 1971, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted a new Code of Labor Laws (Labor Code), according to which the length of working time could not exceed 41 hours. The Constitution of the USSR adopted on October 7, 1977 (Article 41) legitimized this norm.
In Russia, the law of April 19, 1991 "On increasing social guarantees for workers" reduced working hours to 40 hours a week. On September 25, 1992, this norm was enshrined in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. In this form, the working week exists in Russia to this day.

...Probably, we should start with the fact that this year it opens today Maslenitsa!.. And at the same time ask: isn’t it time to make this glorious week a truly festive one - that is, a day off?.. No?.. Then we go to the past ...

... March 7, 321 Constantine the Great ordered to consider Sunday as a day off - as we remember, it was this emperor who legalized Christianity eight years earlier ... As if these events were interconnected - but in fact the edict gave rise to some confusion, about which nine centuries later Thomas Aquinas will say this: " In the new law, the observance of the day of the Lord took the place of the observance of the Sabbath, not according to the commandment, but according to the church establishment and the custom accepted among Christians "... One way or another - according to the modern European standard, Sunday is considered the last day of the week; and in Israel, the USA and Canada - on the contrary, the first. Also, according to the observations of scientists, in a month that begins on Sunday, it always happens Friday the 13th...

... It must be said that the tolerant Constantine was consistent - and there were no prohibitions on labor activity did not introduce, limiting itself to the closure of markets and public places on Sunday. (By the way, the Romans once had an eight-day week - for unclear reasons they borrowed the “seven days” from the conquered eastern peoples). Thus, initially the day off was distributed exclusively to the civil service - because the event went relatively unnoticed ...

... And it remained so for many centuries - despite various restrictions of a "local nature" ... even in the harsh Victorian England of the late 19th century, it seemed to be forbidden to work on this day - but with a number of exceptions. Russian "Craft charter" around the same time it says: “... there are six craft days in a week; but on Sundays and on the days of the Twelfth Feasts, artisans must not work without the necessary need. However, Sunday will become our official holiday only in 1897! (At the same time, an 11.5-hour working day will be legalized ... however, in those harsh times, this was a big relief).

The law on the day off took root in Rus' for a long time and hard ... and in the village - for obvious reasons! - and not at all. (Perhaps because of the name; in other Slavic languages ​​this day is called simply "a week"- that is, you can do nothing ... why our hardworking people called the whole seven-day period like that - a mystery! As you know, in most Germanic languages ​​Sunday is called "day of the sun").

The uncompromising Bolsheviks at first wanted to get rid of Sunday ... In 1930 they introduced four days with the fifth day off - moreover, it could be chosen independently; a year later the same six days. Finally, in 1940, they spat on the experiments - and returned Sunday with a seven-day week to its rightful place. And twenty-seven years later they became generous - and added Saturday to the weekend ...

... Coincidentally, this happened exactly on March 7 - in 1967, a resolution was issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions "On the transfer of workers and employees of enterprises, institutions and organizations to a five-day working week with two days off." So, after more than a millennium and a half, the edict of Emperor Constantine was significantly supplemented ...

PS: Nowadays, the most respectable public is working more and more, as it turns out - but, in fairness, the majority have warm feelings for Sunday ... However, this is a completely different story.