The four-day work week represents the next great leap for workers to win more equitable hours and just compensation for their labor. As the pandemic sows financial and health dangers among Oregon’s working class, we should pursue relief for our workers, not elect CEOs.
Earlier this month, gubernatorial candidate and tech CEO Jessica Gomez wrote an op-ed in The Oregonian attacking a Portland teachers union’s proposal in favor of four-day weeks with asynchronous Fridays. She used this request to decry a potential four-day week for students and workers. This is the most recent attempt to differentiate herself as a pro-business Republican in a state that has had Democrat governors since 1987. While it’s unlikely Gomez will win, her rhetoric is still harmful to Oregon workers.
In the op-ed, Gomez wrote, “Public education, our students, working parents and businesses, will all be casualties in the battle over the four-day work week.” Instead, “Oregonians should expect results from the CEO of this state, not unworkable experiments.”
When Gomez tells you she’ll be “the CEO of this state,” listen to her. She’ll legislate in favor of elite interests and stamp out worker’s rights. Gomez represents the contemporary “pro-business” political position that is actually just pro-boss and anti-worker. Who among us would elect our boss as governor?
Gomez’s comments come at a time when Oregon educators and students are overwhelmed by trying to adapt to COVID-19. According to the teacher union’s proposal, 25% of educators have averaged 60-hour weeks, and 50% have considered quitting. Providing a weekday without structured classes would allow teachers more time to develop lesson plans and work with individual students. No matter how you feel about a four-day week for students, know that the status quo is unsustainable. A status quo that Gomez has no response for.
All Gomez can do is pander to parents and obfuscate genuine labor concerns as the “ideology of the far left.” However, you can’t obfuscate the benefits of working families receiving close to the full value of their labor and having more time to spend together.
Don’t let self-proclaimed “pro-business” types cheat you out of the fruits of your labor; since 1979, productivity has increased by 61.8%, but hourly pay only increased by 17.5%. If this was a just society, we would work less and get paid more.
It is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gomez’s dismay at the four-day week is on behalf of bosses, not workers. She tries to belittle the four-day week as “unworkable” in Oregon, ignoring the successes in Spain and Iceland, and how just this month 30 UK companies switched to a shorter week.
In any case, understand that the current organization of work is not natural. We’ve had this same debate when the financial barons condemned the struggle for five-day weeks under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
A four-day week would make Oregon workers happier, less stressed and healthier. Plus, if Gomez even cared to look at the leading data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, she would find that productivity actually increases with fewer hours worked. 
When asked in a phone interview of the possibility that a four-day week could actually benefit Oregon families, Gomez defaulted to the claim “it would be harmful for the economy.” This is an argument that is never made in good faith, but as a rhetorical backstop to protect the profit margins of the current holders of capital. If the economy is going to have a disaster, it is not because the working class did not toil enough, but because the financial barons are unrelenting in their quest to extract value.
No amount of evidence could convince Gomez, not because she’s ignorant, but because her success as a CEO depends on her not understanding. She resists the four-day week, not because she believes it’s bad for Oregon families, but because she knows it has the potential to redistribute power away from executives. Which, y’know, she may be right. On one hand, it would be good for everyone physically and emotionally as we would have more time with our families away from work. Yet, on the other hand, it may slightly inconvenience some rich assholes.
If that meeting could be an email, why couldn’t Friday?