Overtime Why We Need A Shorter Working Week

Work isn’t working

As precarity and low pay become further embedded in the job market, at a time when work-related stress and exhaustion are endemic, it is clear that a new, radical approach to employment is required.

Many industries already face existential threats from automation, climate breakdown, a crisis of care, and an ageing population. In Overtime, Kyle Lewis and Will Stronge identify a powerful and practicable response to these worrying trends: the shorter working week.

This urgent and timely book shows what a shorter working week means in the context of capitalist economies and delves into the history of this idea as well as its political implications. Drawing on a range of political and economic thinkers, Lewis and Stronge argue that a shorter working week could build a more just and equitable society, one based on collective freedom and human potential, providing scope for the many to achieve a happier, more fulfilling life.

Kyle Lewis is an Associate Lecturer in the Health and Social Sciences department at the University of the West of England, and a researcher at the think tank Autonomy.

Will Stronge is the co-director of the think tank Autonomy, and a researcher in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Brighton.