Toward a 4-Day Work Week

Michael Fischl (U. Conn.) writes to give us the scoop on Connecticut Law Review's upcoming symposium (Freiday, October 30) Redefining Work: Implications of the Four-Day Work Week.  The symposium is particularly timely given news continuing to come out of Utah at the end of the first year of its experiment with the four-day work week for public sector employees.  Register for the symposium here.  The star-studded program:

The Four-Day Work Week: Views from the Ground

• Chair: Sachin Pandya (University of Connecticut School of Law)
• Rex Facer & Lori Wadsworth (Brigham Young University, Marriott School), Four-Day Workweeks: Current Research and Practice
• Zachary Henige (Service Employees Int'l Union), Shortened Work Week: Ask the Workers
• Riva Poor (Author and Lecturer), How and Why Flexible Works Weeks Came About 
• Robert Bird (University of Connecticut School of Business), The Four-Day Work Week: Old Lessons, New Questions

The Law & Economics of Reduced/Compressed Work Weeks

• Chair: Peter Siegelman (University of Connecticut School of Law)
• Jennifer Hunt (McGill University, Department of Economics), If the Four Day Week Is Such a Good Idea Why Don't We Have It Already and other Reflections of an Economist
• David Howell (Milano, The New School for Management and Urban Policy), The Economic Consequences of Legislating Work Hour Reductions: Lessons from the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) and the French Aubry Laws (1998-99)
• Rachel Arnow-Richman (University of Denver, Sturm College of Law), Incenting Flexibility: What the Four-Day Week Tells Us About the Relationship between External Law and Voluntary Action in Enhancing Work/Family Balance
• Deborah Epstein Henry (Flex-Time Lawyers LLC), The Case for Flexible and Reduced Hours: Making Work/Life Balance a Win/Win Economic Solution for Lawyers and Legal Employers?

Keynote: Emily Grabham (Kent Law School, University of Kent at Canterbury)
Flexible Work, Gender and the New Economy: Retrieving Clock Time through the Four-Day Work Week?

Reduced/Compressed Work Weeks: Who Wins? Who Loses?

• Chair: Lucy Williams (Northeastern University School of Law)
• Shirley Lung (CUNY School of Law), The Four-Day Work Week: But What About Ms. Coke, Ms. Upton, and Ms. Blankenship?
• Michael Green (Texas Wesleyan University School of Law), Four-Day Weeks and Efforts Aimed at Reducing Work Time: Employer Sympathy or Circumventing Unions and Wage Hour Laws?
• Allison Hoffman (Academic Fellow, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School) , Working Time and Health 
• Lonnie Golden (Penn State Abington), The Greatest of All Times? Timing v. Length of the Work Week and Implications for Workers’ Well Being

Redefining Work: Possibilities and Perils

• Chair: Karl Klare (Northeastern University School of Law)
• Vicki Schultz (Yale Law School), Through the Gender Lens, Darkly:  The Need for More Reasonable Working Hours for Most Working Families
• Michelle Travis (University of San Francisco School of Law), What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It?  Work-Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week
• Brishen Rogers (Climenko Fellow, Harvard Law School), The Four-Day Work week and the Foundations of Employment Law
• Katherine Silbaugh (Boston University School of Law), Social and Institutional Practices Influencing the Value of the Four-Day Week

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