Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

The Guardian

There are currently 28 articles from this source    RSS

  • faviconWill I ever retire? It doesn’t look like it — The thought of not working every waking second, of not feeling pressure to produce for the good of the capitalist machine, is undeniably appealing [2026]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Leisure   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconAI job layoffs are here: it’s time to revive the push for shorter working hours — While bosses used to push for workers to continue working at home outside standard hours, the introduction of the legal right to disconnect, combined with changes in social norms, has pushed back against this form of work intensification [2026]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Remote Working   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconIreland’s basic income for artists changed my life. Other people deserve the same luck — The state’s own research found that for every euro the government spent on supporting artists, society received €1.39 in return, and the scheme was estimated to have generated more than €100m in social and economic benefits [2026]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: UBI   
    Comments   
    Country: IE   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconMore than 200,000 UK workers switch to 4-day week since 2019 — the percentage of people in the UK who report working a four-day week has climbed from 9.8% in the final three months of 2019 to 10.9%, representing 2.7 million across full- and part-time work [2015]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconHalf of UK professionals might quit if ordered back to the office full time, poll shows — Hybrid working, with time spend split between the office and another location such as home, is the working pattern for more than three-quarters (77%) of the workforce [2025]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Remote Working, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconFour-day week could alleviate cost of living crisis, thinktank claims — Campaigners and economists in favour of a 4-day week tended to focus on the benefits to workers in the form of increased leisure time and potential improvements in productivity, but the policy would also help UK workers struggling with the increased cost of living [2022]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconIn their plaintive call for a return to the office, CEOs reveal how little they are needed — The case of remote work shows that the CEO class as a whole failed to pick up an innovation yielding massive benefits before it was forced on them by the pandemic, and have continued to resist and resent it ever since [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Remote Working   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconExpert who coined presenteeism term says employers who force staff back are dinosaurs – Cary Cooper says ‘micromanagers’ risk driving away talent and damaging wellbeing [2024]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Remote Working, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconEnforced return to office leads workers to seek new jobs — Two-thirds of recruiters have seen an increase in applicants looking for new jobs who are working at companies that are mandating five days a week in the office, according to a survey [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • favicon‘I love the four-day week’ — Independent school says its four-day week model is designed to offer pupils “increased opportunities for independent exploration and personal development. This approach not only fosters independence but also promotes a more balanced and fulfilling educational experience” [2025]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconPay gap between bosses and employees must be reduced, UK workers say — The majority of the widening income gap was caused by a reduction in the disposable incomes of the UK’s poorest 20% of households, while the disposable incomes of the richest 20% of households grew [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Trickle-down Economics   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconIceland’s shorter working week has been a huge success — contrary to fears that productivity and the provision of services would suffer, nothing could be further from the truth. Extensive research has shown that they have remained the same or even improved [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: IS   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconEurope’s far-right parties are anti-worker — analysis shows that the far right voting patterns on proposed EU directives do not indicate a pro-worker stance on socioeconomic issues, let alone a leftwing one. Quite the contrary: on virtually all eight issues we examined, the far–right’s voting behaviour suggests a stance that is indifferent, if not outright hostile, to workers’ rights [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Research, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconWe are still enslaved: we may not die from hunger, but we are certainly overworked and stressed out. Work has overtaken us and invaded our consciousness. And the physical hardships of working in the old mills have been replaced by new psychological hardships [2004]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Workism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconProductivity culture and technology has been very successful at making us working more, not less. And with millions either quitting their jobs or having to work from home, this is the time we should capitalize on this moment for the good of workers, not the bosses [2021]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Productivism, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconUK Government axes ‘gimmick’ anti-strike law as it plans major reset for workers’ rights. Insiders said the new law had not been used to resolve any dispute so far, stating that an “adversarial approach” over several years had seen the UK lose more days to strike action than France [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconSleeping in the office is making a comeback? Elon Musk would approve – but what about having a life? There is a wider belief there that asserting your right to leave, leisure and a life outside work is a duty, not a self-indulgence, since these were hard-won, historic social gains [2022]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Leisure, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconJapan asks young people why they are not marrying amid population crisis — many young Japanese are reluctant to marry or have families because of concerns about the high cost of living in big cities, a lack of good jobs, and a work culture that makes it difficult for both partners to have jobs, or for women to return to full-time employment after having children [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: How to be Human, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: JP   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconWork anxiety is built into capitalism: Max Weber’s 1905 book still perfectly captures the mindset that sustains our work ethic today. He shows how European Protestants created a mode of thinking about money, work and dignity that we, to this day, cannot escape: it is our “iron cage” [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Protestant Work Ethic, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconWords indicating labour in most European languages originate in an imagery of compulsion, torment, affliction and persecution. It seems that despite the progress, work doesn’t bring relief from poverty, but it’s rather a confirmation that humanity is destined to suffer needlessly and endlessly [2013]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconFour-day week campaign to launch UK pilot – The latest trial will also look at other flexible working policies, including a shorter working week, flexible start and finish times, a nine-day fortnight or compressed hours, when people work the same number of hours but over fewer days [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconEveryone working less – with no reduction in pay – could be a solution to everything from Britain’s chronic productivity problems and the mental health pandemic to the broken care sector. It’s better for the planet, too: the overworked drive more, eat more processed food & buy more disposable items [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Environment, Mental Health   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconThe vast majority of companies taking part in the world’s largest trial of a four-day week have opted to continue with the new working pattern, in a result hailed as evidence that it could work across the UK economy [2023]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconIt may not be that the 4-day work week revolutionises our minds as much as it might revolutionise our schedules. It will take more to truly disconnect ourselves from the impetus to work ever more or from the view that leisure’s purpose is to recuperate or distract from work [2023]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconEmployee surveillance isn’t only about logging, it’s the potential for it to be used against workers. This technology can just be used to exert power over employees in a way that wasn’t possible before [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian