“Political Party Rødt Pilots Six-Hour Working Day in Aurskog-Høland”

The political party Rødt in Aurskog-Høland believes it is time to look at the possibilities of introducing a six-hour working day, writes Indre Akershus Blad.

The party’s top candidates in the municipality, Trond Helle Bergsjø and Gro Heidi Aagesdatter Emilsen, will start a pilot project in the health and life management sector in the municipality.

Rødt has the introduction of six working days as a concrete point in its party programme.

Bergsjø points out that the six-hour working day has been a battleground for the trade union movement for a long time.

– The time has come

Storting representative for Rødt, Mímir Kristjánsson, tells ABC Nyheter that it is now time for change.

– Rødt has long worked for the six-hour day with general wage compensation in both the public and private sectors.

Over a hundred years after we got the eight-hour day, the time has come for a new, large-scale reduction in working hours. Whether it is a six-hour day or a four-day week that suits best will certainly vary from workplace to workplace, but the point is to extract some of the growth in time and not money going forward, says Kristjánsson.

The Storting representative also highlights the number of disabled people:

– The main problem with today’s working life is that we wear people out. The proportion of disabled people only increases and increases, and working life cannot find room for people who can no longer give 100 per cent. It must be better to share the work than to have an A and B team where the former have to work until they are 70 and the latter end up at NAV long before some kind of retirement age, says Kristjánsson.

– It is also worth remembering that we still have many physically demanding jobs in Norway, and it is in these that the degree of disability is highest. A representative of the Storting should probably be able to work for eight hours from the time he is 20 until he is 70, but for a healthcare worker or a plumber it goes without saying that it is not possible, Kristjánsson continues.

Absence

Mímir Kristjánsson points out to ABC Nyheter that a shorter working day will give people more freedom:

– First and foremost, it will give people increased freedom. Many families with small children, for example, struggle with time constraints, and shorter working days or more days off will obviously make their everyday life easier, says Kristjánsson

– The six-hour day will also be able to increase productivity during the hours we are at work, and probably have positive effects both on sickness absence and to prevent workers from exhausting themselves in heavy industries, concludes the parliamentary representative.