Employees of the Floriddia farm: “We work less and are happier”

At the Floriddia farm, a company that produces and transforms cereals and legumes on the Pisan hills, work on short-time hours has been experimented for exactly ten years. The company employs 11 people, 7 of whom are on permanent contracts, an apprentice, plus three members of the family. Their working week averages 29 hours each. The highest peak is 35 hours per week, the lowest 20. It was the workers themselves, with a letter addressed to the media, who spokesman for this experience, hoping that it could be replicated elsewhere. «In this decade» write the employees of the Tuscan company «thanks to less work and very little time spent in the car for home/work trips, as employees we have built up a personal baggage of experience and responsibility, so much so as to earn us an average salary increase of 10%, in addition to the increases due for the contract and specialisation”. The document also reflects on the possible benefits for the community, such as the fight against unemployment and the reduction of public expenditure.

«Too much work» the employees write again «causes crazy bureaucratic expenses to create employment, or to give economic and social support to those who don’t have work. But it also brings with it high taxes for employees and for small/medium enterprises (which do not have the tax havens of large companies). It leads to a suicidal race to increase production to generate new jobs, not taking into account that technological innovation, married to profit, tends to reduce employment. We start from the words of Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, to hope that in the very near future we will not need to manufacture and buy useless and devastating objects for the planet and those who live on it. We can hope that we will all work, but little. Work less, make people work less! We all have, in addition to rights, responsibilities and that of reacting is the most important ».

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New Earth December 2022