Four-day work week not coming Clanton’s way

Published 11:42 am Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Birmingham has implemented a four-day work week for its city employees that began Tuesday.

The revised business hours of city offices and services are expected to save commuters and the city money, particularly money spent on gasoline. The week will be split into four days a week with 10 hour shifts. Most employees will begin work at 7 a.m. and end their shift at 6 p.m. with a 30-minute lunch break.

Birmingham is not the only innovator of this trend though, with other states like Florida, Arizona and Utah also joining the bandwagon with four-day weekly work schedules.

Utah recently announced its mandatory reduced schedule for state workers citing that employees will not only be saving themselves money, but also reducing the amount of energy used by the state. “Most states have a four-day work week option for their employees, but Utah is the first to go to a mandatory four-day work week,” Leslie Scott, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Directors, said in a recent article in USA Today.

Utah will begin the schedule on August 4. It will affect approximately 17,000 state and city employees.

Clanton will not be implementing this change any time soon, however.

Mayor Billy Joe Driver said that the city is trying to stay on a five-day a week schedule.

“We don’t anticipate it. We’re not a large city,” Driver said. “We are a closer knit organization, and I don’t know how much it would save to tell you the truth.”

The altered Birmingham schedule is on a trial based period until the last week of August.