Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has announced plans to introduce a four-day, 32-hour working week for all employees within the next 10 years if Labour win the general election on December 12. The radical plan to overhaul the working week for millions of British people has been firmly rejected by more than nine-in-ten Express.co.uk readers. A poll conducted on Thursday November 14 between 2.45pm and 8.30pm asked 4,944 Express.co.uk readers: “Would you accept £10BN hit to economy for Corbyn’s four-day work week?”
A huge 91 percent (4,450) firmly rejected the proposals and voted no.
Just eight percent (433) of readers were in favour of the plans and voted yes.
Meanwhile, less than one percent (52) of those surveyed voted said they didn’t know.
Express.co.uk readers condemned the plans and insisted Jeremy Corbyn had “lost the plot” and a Labour Government would be “lucky to last ten weeks”.
One user commented: “Corbyn has lost the plot.”
A second reader said: “A Labour government would be lucky to last ten weeks let alone ten years.”
A third disgruntled user said: “Let’s be honest the Far Left Labour Party are complete nut jobs. This is no more than a stunt to win votes.”
A fourth reader said: “Corbyn’s money tree is getting bigger. It’s had a few years of extra growth since the last election.”
Meanwhile a fifth said: “Corbyn is still dreaming and needs to wake up.”
The plan was announced after Labour commissioned a report by Lord Skidelsky.
The report cited the French model of a cap of 35 hours a week and said it is “not realistic or even desirable” for it to apply in the UK.
The report added: “The evidence is that, after a brief impact effect, France’s legislation was rendered broadly ineffective by an accumulation of exceptions and loopholes.”
Len Shackleton, editorial and research fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, warned the plan could cost £10billion each year.
He said: “If more people are unemployed or economically inactive as a consequence, welfare expenditure rises and the tax and national insurance take falls.
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The Shadow Chancellor has insisted the proposal will not be implemented overnight and said it would be “planned and negotiated between employers and trade unions over time”.
Mr McDonnell said: “It’s a bit like the implementation of the minimum wage, which was opposed then – if you remember – saying it will cost thousands of jobs and the economy would collapse et cetera.
“What we’ve said, just like every other reduction in the working week, it is planned and negotiated between employers and trade unions over time.
“We’ve said, realistically, as we put this investment into our economy, we will become more productive, there will higher wages, because of the higher skills that we’re producing, and over time as the economy grows we want – as that wealth is created – a proportion of that wealth should be shared more fairly with the workforce.
“And we can share it in two ways. Higher wages, of course, but also traditionally what the trade unions in this country have negotiated to do is a shorter working week.”
