Unwinding Enfranchisement

It’s…the Weekend

The American people say TGIF because it is the day before the weekend.

The weekend itself is a symptom of labor unions leveraging the power of collective bargaining for better wages and working conditions.

Better working conditions includes a 40-hour work week, and 48-hour period off the clock. The weekend is an homage to the power of unions.

Happy Friday!

Weekends are baked into society now.

If executives decided to unilaterally schedule people to work on Saturday and Sunday, there might be some pushback.

The worker was enfranchised and now it can’t be unwound.

Office Conditions

The tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 provoked widespread demand for changes in workplace health and safety standards.

Systematic violations of workers’ rights, including wage theft, gender-based violence, and abuse were common.

It used to be possible to do and say anything you wanted without consequence.

Eventually, standards were implemented to protect enterprises from suffering consequences of not protecting their own employees.

The worker was enfranchised and now it can’t be unwound.

If executives decided to delete the Human Resources code of conduct document and permit a culture of wanton meanness, lack of acceptance for others, and interpersonal cruelty, the talent pool might object.

The second-order effects: diminished morale, increased attrition, and decreased customer satisfaction, all of which have systematic impacts on the bottom line.

Work Anywhere

As the U.S. economy shifted into IT and services and, more specifically, knowledge work, the tools of trade became a mouse, keyboard, and a digital screen, conveniently embodied in the form factor of a laptop.

This birthed elite overproduction and the Laptop Class™.

The worker was enfranchised and now it can’t be unwound.

Then, a global public health emergency enfranchised the Laptop Class with the right to work from anywhere.

Some companies are doing a performance improvement experiment, and trying to complete 5 work-days worth of productivity in only 4 days.

That leaves a “three-day weekend”.

My prediction: some companies will have a 3 day work week, getting everyone who needs to be together to make decisions in person and “see the whites of eyes” on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Jamie Dimon agrees.

Because, once the worker is enfranchised and it can’t be unwound.