http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/World/STIStory_242529.html
May 30, 2008
CINCINNATI - WHEN Ohio's Kent State University offered custodial
staff the option of working four days a week instead of five to cut
commuting costs, most jumped at the chance, part of a United States
trend aimed at combating soaring gasoline prices.
'We offered it to 94 employees and 78 have taken us up on it,'
said university spokesman Scott Rainone.
The reason is simple: rising gas prices and a desire to retain
good workers. And while so far only the university's custodians are
eligible, Mr Rainone hopes the option will be offered to all
departments - including his own.
'In our office, we have people who travel anywhere from five or
six miles to a couple who are on the road 45 to 50 minutes,' Mr
Rainone said. 'As the price of gas rises, the level of grumbling
rises.'
Regular gasoline averages US$3.94 (S$5.39) a gallon in the
United States, up 33 cents in the past month and 88 cents since the
beginning of the year, the Energy Information Administration said
this week.
The federal government has offered four-day workweeks to
eligible employees for years as part of a flexible work programme
that also includes telecommuting.
But the surge in gasoline prices is pushing more private
employers as well as local governments to offer a four-day week as
a perk that eliminates two commutes a week.
Staff at Neighbourhood Development Services in rural
north-eastern Ohio were talking about quitting to find work closer
to their homes when executive director Dave Vaughan stepped in with
offers to compress their work week.
'I didn't want to lose people,' Mr Vaughan said of the
programme, which more than half of his 19 employees began last
week. 'In rural areas like we are, gas price increases are more
challenging because we don't have the mass transit alternative - we
can't jump on a bus or take a train.'
Eventually, Mr Vaughan hopes to close the office one day a week,
further reducing energy costs.
In America's struggling automaking heartland, the shorter
workweek offers employers a way of rewarding employees when the
budget does not allow a salary increase, said Oakland County,
Michigan, executive L. Brooks Patterson.
'By allowing employees to work four 10-hour days it will save
them 20 per cent on their commute costs and ease the financial
pinch of filling up their cars,' said Mr Patterson, who last week
proposed the compressed week for county workers.
Gasoline prices have begun altering United States commutes in
many ways, a survey released on Thursday showed.
Changing habits
Some 44 per cent of respondents said they have changed the way they
commute - doing things such as sharing a ride or driving a more
fuel-efficient car - or are working from home or looking for a
closer job in order to reduce gasoline costs, according to staffing
services company Robert Half International. That's up from 34 per
cent two years ago.
On New York's Long Island, Suffolk County legislator Wayne
Horsley also has proposed employees have the option of working four
10-hour shifts, rather than five eight-hour shifts, saying it would
save 461 barrels of oil in a 120-day pilot project.
'This is a gasoline-driven proposition and we're looking to
change people's long term philosophies of life,' Mr Horsley
said.
The programme, termed Operation Sunshine, will cut gasoline
costs for workers who drive an average round trip of 32 miles to
work. It also aims to cut the county's energy bill by having fewer
employees in the office at a time, Mr Horsley said.
In Oklahoma, a resolution is pending before the state
legislature encouraging state agencies to implement flexible work
schedules that would allow the four-day workweek.
'State employees are on fixed budgets and they are not usually
the most highly paid in our society,' said State Senator Earl
Garrison, a Democrat, who sponsored the measure.
Some schools, including community colleges in rural areas where
commutes are long and public transportation is scarce, already have
plans to drop a day of classes, usually Fridays.
The school district in Marietta, Georgia, a city north of
Atlanta, institutes a four-day week during June and July when
schools are out and it is mostly administrative staff who are
working, saving on air conditioning and water in addition to
commuting costs for employees, said Mr Thomas Algarin, director of
communications at Marietta City Schools.
But a four-day workweek brings problems too. The state
government in Ohio is bucking the national trend and cancelling an
8-year-old policy that allowed a compressed workweek.
'There were just too many vacant seats on Friday,' said Mr Ron
Sylvester, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Administrative
Services. -- REUTERS