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42 Conn. L. Rev. 1223 (2009-2010)
What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It - Work/Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week

handle is hein.journals/conlr42 and id is 1235 raw text is: CONNECTICUT
LAW REVIEW
VOLUME 42                    MAY 2010                     NUMBER4
Article
What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It?
Work/Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week
MICHELLE A. TRAVIs
This Article considers the growing reliance that four-day work week
advocates have placed on work/family claims. It begins by analyzing
whether a compressed work schedule may alleviate work/family conflicts,
and more importantly, for whom such benefits are most likely to accrue.
While studies consistently find that many workers experience lower levels
of work/family conflict when working a compressed schedule, the research
also suggests that workers with the most acute work/family conflicts may
be the least likely either to obtain or to benefit from a four-day work week
design. Nevertheless, the political climate surrounding the four-day work
week provides a unique opportunity for action. This Article therefore
considers how legal regulation might be used to shape four-day work week
initiatives as a work/family balance tool. In particular, the Article
considers how reflexive law proposals might contribute to the four-day
work week debate. While existing reflexive law models typically rely on
the creation and exercise ofprocedural rights vested in individual workers,
this Article explores an under-developed alternative that would instead
vest procedural rights primarily in workers as a group. The Article uses
California's extensive four-day work week regulations and the Federal
Employees Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act to illustrate this
collective reflexive approach, and to explore what this type of
regulatory model might offer advocates who are seeking to facilitate
greater work/family balance for those who may need it the most.

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