Would you call this a holiday?

[Zelig]

I've long mused about a scheme making employers entirely responsible for paying their employees' commuting costs.

 

[Commodore]

Does a three day weekend count as a 'holiday' if the next weekend gets cut to a single day off

Yes because you are still getting the actual holiday off to spend with your family or whatever, which is the point. The point of holidays is not to reduce the total amount of days you work in a year, but rather to give people specific days off to observe something of significance to society or a religious group.

Plus, trash collectors are considered an essential service. When you work in a career field that is considered "essential" you typically get screwed over more than the average "non-essential" worker. Just comes with the territory. If any trash collectors are unhappy with the deal, they are free to seek out another career.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes because you are still getting the actual holiday off to spend with your family or whatever, which is the point. The point of holidays is not to reduce the total amount of days you work in a year, but rather to give people specific days off to observe something of significance to society or a religious group.

Plus, trash collectors are considered an essential service. When you work in a career field that is considered "essential" you typically get screwed over more than the average "non-essential" worker. Just comes with the territory. If any trash collectors are unhappy with the deal, they are free to seek out another career.

Well, yeah, Captain Obvious. The question wasn't about simple math and counting days, and it wasn't about whether trash collectors need to be locked into their careers like indentured servants.

The question was actually for you. Is a three day weekend for a one day weekend a good trade, in your opinion.

For me, I've had a lot of high energy physical jobs, and after more than a few weeks a single day off would be barely enough of a breather to hit Monday morning and feel like I had any chance to do anything but recover. So I'm not sure a three day weekend would be a good balance, for me...so yeah, I'd probably be inclined to skip the career in waste management, myself.

 

[Arwon]

I live in an apartment block and actually have no idea when our rubbish gets collected, but I found the calendar and apparently, they move Good Friday to Easter Saturday and Christmas to the Saturday before then:

This means collection still occurs on other public holidays as normal (Anzac Day, Reconciliation day, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Queen's Birthday, and Boxing day).

As is standard under most enterprise agreements, on Saturday collections workers get +50% pay, and the worked public holidays get +100%. I'm guessing New Years Day is treated like Xmas and relocated, too.

 

[Commodore]

Well, yeah, Captain Obvious. The question wasn't about simple math and counting days, and it wasn't about whether trash collectors need to be locked into their careers like indentured servants

You actually asked two questions in your OP. My post was my opinion on the first of those two questions.

so yeah, I'd probably be inclined to skip the career in waste management, myself.

As would I. Because of the schedule as well as the fact that I am not confident in my ability to earn my CDL, which is a requirement here for trash collectors, as I'm sure it is where you are as well.

 

[Farm Boy]

Flex schedules suck. 12s suck. But, but. Sometimes you want to actually be there for Thanksgiving Dinner. Or Christmas morning, or when everyone sees the show on the 4th. So it still sucks, but it's probably worth it. Helps if you wind up with time and a half or something like that, I suppose.

 

[Commodore]

Flex schedules suck. 12s suck. But, but. Sometimes you want to actually be there for Thanksgiving Dinner. Or Christmas morning, or when everyone sees the show on the 4th. So it still sucks, but it's probably worth it. Helps if you wind up with time and a half or something like that, I suppose.

Meh, I just found myself a job that gets me weekends and holidays off. I don't get that sweet holiday pay anymore, but I can live with that because I value my time more than I value my money.

 

[civvver]

they probably get overtime for working more than 40 hours the following week so yeah, it'd be worth it

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think my perspective is warped by having been a power plant worker. Power plants run 24/7/365 and there's no way around it. So I was already envious of normal five day week workers. If four had been the norm I'd likely have gone postal on someone.

Could in principle have enough people to allow 24/7/365 without having one person literally there every day.

Similarly, it'd be nice to have ~10 hour days 4 days a week rather than ~8 hour days 5 days a week, or even just have a productivity quota (for non-service related positions). If nothing else this would significantly reduce time lost on travel to/from work, and if people aren't all working the same 4 days likely reduce infra burden too. Hard to break habits and actually implement but still.

 

[Commodore]

Similarly, it'd be nice to have ~10 hour days 4 days a week rather than ~8 hour days 5 days a week, or even just have a productivity quota (for non-service related positions)

I had a job a while back that experimented with the four 10 hour days and it didn't work so well. Everyone loved the three days off, but hated the 10 hour workday.

Another one had all the salaried employees come in whenever they wanted as long as they were in the office for their required number of hours for the week. I wasn't one of the salaried employees so I can't speak directly on how good or bad that system is, but the salaried employees seemed happy with it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Could in principle have enough people to allow 24/7/365 without having one person literally there every day.

Well, there's no "one guy there every day." But the issue is that there is no such thing as "a weekend crew," or "the night crew." You need the same number of people at three AM on a Tuesday, or high noon on Sunday, as you need every time of every day. In my day, power plants all operated on some sort of "rotating shift work." Mine had four crews, and in 28 days each crew worked seven days, seven swings, seven graves, and had seven days off. So it was "fair." We all got one weekend off a month. We all had the same finish graves at eight o'clock one morning and go to work on swings at four the next afternoon. Whatever the problems it caused, we all had them the same.