«Sardinia, laboratory for the 4-day working week»: the proposal of the Sardinian CGIL to Alessandra Todde

«Sardinia can become the Italian laboratory for experimenting with the 4-day working week».
Fausto Durante, secretary of the Sardinian CGIL , is convinced of this, who during the last electoral campaign for the regional elections included the topic in the union's "proposals" to the gubernatorial candidates and who today, after the plans for reducing working hours drawn up in other countries , like France , relaunched the idea to the newly elected president Alessandra Todde.
Work less for the same pay. Is it really possible?
«Already two years ago I addressed the topic in a book, entitled “Work less and live better”. Today the issue becomes more and more relevant. And it's not just me who says it, but a lot of research confirms it, not only trade union or "left-wing" studies, but also scientific studies of liberal inspiration."
And what do these studies say?
«They confirm that, just as the twentieth century was the century of the transition to 8 hours of work per day, the twenty-first, the one in which we find ourselves living, could be the century of 32 hours of work per week, divided over four days».
Why is the time ripe?
«Because the need for human labor is progressively decreasing. We are in the era of technology, innovation and artificial intelligence applied to production processes. And the work done by human beings is already inevitably becoming marginalized. Therefore it is necessary to change the approach."
How?
«Starting from the assumption that new technologies, intelligent machines, robots and so on will take care of most of the work, it is possible to divide the residual work time borne by human beings among several people. This way more people will work, but they will work less. Obviously, without prejudice to equal pay."
But if machines have the upper hand, won't we risk having an infinite mass of former human workers "on the loose"?
«Yes, if social corrective measures are not introduced there is the risk of having on one side a restricted elite of highly specialized human workers and on the other a mass of new plebeians with poor skills. For this reason it is necessary to govern the process and distribute the work that will not be carried out by machines among all workers, without exception."