kantonburg

The company I work for is going to four 10 hour days starting October 31st. Evidently they are removing 4 holidays from our present 9 for the work year starting 2006. Basically we are going to lose Good Friday, Day after Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. But here's the catch. The weeks of Memorial and Labor day we're having to work Tues.-Friday vs. standard Monday - Thurs.

Now in the summer months we work a good bit of OT and this usually runs into November. Now the only people that are working these hours are manufacturing employees and support staff. The "office" people are staying on five 8 hour days.

The gripe we've been hearing is how can on the weeks of Labor Day and Memorial Day the "office" people get paid for the holiday and the rest have to work a "shifted" work week and actually work 40 hours vs. their 32. Sure they have the possibility of having 48 friday's off a year but they may see about half of those friday's off.

Anyway what do you guys think? Is it a fair trade? I guess it varies from person to person. I'm support staff so I fall under the 4-10s. In my situation I'm not really sure if I'm going to like it. I have to get my son up at 5:30 now instead of 6:30 and I won't get home till 4:30 everyday vs. 3:30. Getting my son up that early is my only gripe right now.

edit to change 52 to 48.

Numanoid

So you'll be working the same number of hours in an average week, but losing 4 holidays for the year. Bad deal.

mikehunt

wait. so you lose 4 hollidays yet still work 40 hour weeks?
you're getting fucked

grrrah

I used to work a 9-80, and miss those days a lot. But its not right to give up paid holidays.

but for us, those holiday weeks, usually didn't count toward the 9-80 (they won't give more than 8 hours on those days), so we ended up getting the paid holiday and working 8 hours/day the rest of the week. Then the following week, pick up where we left off the week before the holiday. Sooo you should have to work 4 8-hour days those weeks, but they shouldn't take the paid benefit away from you.

kantonburg

That was my first thought. My argument was worked hours is worked hours. Their's was that we get 3 day weekends. I dunno. 3 day weekends are nice and technically I can have off every weekend. I basically work when I want to (OT) but who knows.

asabase

Only seems fair if you are allowed to only work 2 hours on one day of the affected holiday week. Or more realistically, work 3 10.5 hour days.

kantonburg

Yea but I guess my question is do you think it's worth giving up 4 holidays to have 3 day weekends every week?

Numanoid

And if you worked 40 straight hours from Monday to Tuesday, you'd get a 5 day weekend. You're still putting in the hours, though. Their argument is typical doublespeak used to trick you into thinking you are coming out ahead.

I know, I'm a manager.

BigPete

I'm gonna disagree and say that it's not a bad deal. But then again, I work for a company which doesn't care where you are as long as the work is always done. And it's manufacturing as well.

strife

4 holidays for 48 long weekends. I'd say go for it.

SunMonkey

The company is giving up nothing for you to gain the long weekends. In fact, I would guess that it will probably save them money having a four day week. They shouldn't make you "pay" anything to take this option.

NotThatGuy

Agreed. They still get their hrs. As long as productivity per hour per employee stays the same...they will actually SAVE money not having you there a 5th day/wk.

As for flex time.....I use to do this. I would work longer days during the first half of the week, and by thurs and fri.....i'd have too many hours, so i'd either leave early, or get OT. I took a bunch of friday's off, and sometimes i'd take part of thursday off too.

ShagMan

ouch, I'm work you, worked time is worked time. Bad deal.

naughty jonny

Do you actually have a choice in this, or is it a faite accompli?

msdmoney

You're getting screwed, they are getting four free days out of you. I work for a company where it's pretty flexible, I can work longer days and shorter days as long as I put in my 40. The reasoning that you are getting long weekends is silly, if you are still working full time. you aren't "getting" anything, you are working for those weekends.

WallyOPD

Yeah you're not really gaining long weekends, you're losing 2 hours of evening (or morning if you're one of the disgusting morning people) time for 4 days a week.

Cameron

screwed...i'd get out of it

La Bella Rose

Two words... "Bad Deal"

kvrdave

I guess I don't see it as being that bad. I have always been surprised that Good Friday and the day after Thanksgiving are holidays for people. It is like having a holiday for the day after Easter, or the day after Memorial Day, or something. It may be that those 4 holidays is a significant amount of your paycheck, however. I don't really have any experience there as I have never had a paid holiday in my life. Personally, rather than having paid holidays, I would rather they just increased my wage in line with what those holidays would pay me.

kantonburg

I don't see it fully as a bad deal. I guess I'm still debating as to if it's benefiting me or just flat out doesn't matter. Here's my situation personally. I live about 3 minutes from work. Currently I only get Sunday's off because we are always having to work on Saturday because we're so freaking busy. Always are from May-November. I really like my job (fwiw). I mean is it really so bad that you give up a few days so you can actually have weekends off. At least if we're working 48 hour weeks I still get Saturday and Sunday

The Bus

I don't think that it's so bad. The company is now is making you work for 4 more days rather than have holidays, but now it's much easier to go in for overtime on one day (if you can) and get paid a bit more.

I'm in the type of business where I work if not 7 days a week, at least 6, and I am working as early as 7am and sometimes I'm not done until 8pm or later. That's life.

Let me ask you this, though. What's going on with lunch breaks? Are they paid or unpaid? If they are unpaid breaks, you're cutting out 52 hours of lunch breaks and getting paid for 52 more hours. That's like a week's extra pay. If they are paid breaks, then you lose out even further because now you only get four breaks a week instead of five.

kantonburg

They are unpaid. 30 minute lunches.

AGuyNamedMike

You keep mentioning that you guys work alot of overtime since you're busy. Wouldn't that mean you would continue to word 6 days a week, only now it would be 10 hour days instead of 8, and you lose the 4 holidays? Bad deal, smacks of exploitative management. I'd start looking for employment elsewhere.

kantonburg

No we'd work Monday-Thurs. 10 hours and 8 hours on friday. Saturday and Sunday off.

Right now it's Monday-Saturday. Sunday off.

AGuyNamedMike

So you have a written guarantee that there would be no more Sat/Sun work. If that's the case, and you really like the job, go for it.