unmanaged wrote:

The major goal of the Five Day Weekend is simple: We want to reverse the U.S. workweek so that Americans clock in for two good days of work, followed by five well-earned days off.

Why? Because overwork has become a major problem for Americans, and it's getting worse by the year. The two-day weekend was created in 1930, and despite decades of unparalleled technology growth, our people are actually working more and more each year.

Check out the stats:

* Americans wasted more than 570 million vacation days in 2006(1)
* Unlike 96 other countries, the U.S. has no law governing vacations
* U.S. workers receive an average of 14 vacation days but only use 10 a year(1)
* By comparison, French workers receive 39 vacation days, and Germans get 27(1)
* Americans have increasingly worked more days a year since World War II(2)
* A nine-year university study recently found that not taking vacation can increase the chance of heart attack or coronary disease.(3)
* In 2006, members of the U.S. Congress clocked 104 days in session – which means they worked exactly two days a week.(4)

We want to stop this trend and begin to reverse it. So we're aiming high and going for a Five Day Weekend.

Oh wait... our government spends money like water and taxes the hell out of us.... so we work more for less....

On this site it also says "The two-day weekend was created in 1930, and despite decades of unparalleled technology growth, our people are actually working more and more each year." The only source I could find that backs this up is a 1991 book, Waiting for the Weekend by Witold Rybczynski. I had always thought that the week schedule was inherited from Genesis ("and he rested on the seventh day"), but I could be wrong. Are there any other sources backing up this 1930 creation?

Nanochick wrote:

The major goal of the Five Day Weekend is simple: We want to reverse the U.S. workweek so that Americans clock in for two good days of work, followed by five well-earned days off.

Why? Because overwork has become a major problem for Americans, and it's getting worse by the year. The two-day weekend was created in 1930, and despite decades of unparalleled technology growth, our people are actually working more and more each year.

Check out the stats:

* Americans wasted more than 570 million vacation days in 2006(1)
* Unlike 96 other countries, the U.S. has no law governing vacations
* U.S. workers receive an average of 14 vacation days but only use 10 a year(1)
* By comparison, French workers receive 39 vacation days, and Germans get 27(1)
* Americans have increasingly worked more days a year since World War II(2)
* A nine-year university study recently found that not taking vacation can increase the chance of heart attack or coronary disease.(3)
* In 2006, members of the U.S. Congress clocked 104 days in session – which means they worked exactly two days a week.(4)

We want to stop this trend and begin to reverse it. So we're aiming high and going for a Five Day Weekend.

Yes please!

Oh wait....grad students are expected to work on the weekend anyway...this wouldn't change anything for me:) Doh!

Grad students are one step above slavery, IIRC...