My husband's printing company went to a four day work week. He prefers the arrangement to the traditional five day work week even though his day is now ten hours long. However, the company still considers the day off as a work day whenever they feel it is necessary and call people in to work. Sometimes they will make that decision as late as the end of the previous workday. If you can't work that day because of other obligations, that will go as an occurence on your work record.

Having the extra day off may seem great to some people, but blue collar jobs often require strenuous physical labor. My husband's job requires him to stand on his feet and to do heavy lifting. Sitting behind a desk all day just isn't the same. Extending the work hours just causes people to do their jobs at a slower pace because they just get too tired.

Most people don't realize that blue collar workers are overlooked as far as wage increases and don't get all of those nice little benefits that office workers get. When a company scales down costs, it is most often done by freezing wages and eliminating benefits for blue collar workers, even if the cost of living has gone up.