Did your salary also drop to 80%? Did other benefits which legally require a 'full time' schedule go away?
The worst possible scenario would be workers switching to shorter work weeks, accepting pay cuts and loss of benefits, and proceeding to be more productive for their employer. I mean, unscrupulous employers would love it, but for society it would be terrible.
Yes, sort of. I approached this during the yearly salary interview. I negotiated a 10% raise, and a change in work schedule to 80%. So I'm getting paid 0.8*base_pay, but I didn't just take sudden a 20% cut between months.
> Did other benefits which legally require a 'full time' schedule go away?
I checked with my union (union membership is mandatory here but they really only negotiate minimum vacation days and minimum salary for a given profession/class, neither of which affects me since I have negotiated above and beyond what they have - it's a very different system than US people are probably familiar with) and according to them, there should be no change to any benefits or legal rights. Things like the fixed christmas bonus will be paid to 80%.
> The worst possible scenario would be workers switching to shorter work weeks, accepting pay cuts and loss of benefits, and proceeding to be more productive for their employer. I mean, unscrupulous employers would love it, but for society it would be terrible.
I'd rather not work more hours than I really want because my employer might benefit from me doing what I want to. If this concerns you, you can just keep your productivity per hour to the same level as it was before. I have no idea if I'm actually more productive, and I don't really care. What matters to me is I now have an extra day every week to do something that I actually want to be doing, rather than working for someone else.
Put another way, if you feel like your skills are undervalued, talk to your employer about a raise. This holds regardless of whether your work proportion is 100% or 80%.
The worst possible scenario would be workers switching to shorter work weeks, accepting pay cuts and loss of benefits, and proceeding to be more productive for their employer. I mean, unscrupulous employers would love it, but for society it would be terrible.