![Ross Clark](https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ross-clark-512x512-1.png?w=88)
Why Labour’s four-day week plan could backfire
Employees will have the right to ask their employers to compress their hours into four days a week rather than five, but employers will not be forced to agree. Just what is the point of the government’s latest employment reform, as proposed by Baroness Smith of Malvern, the minister for skills? Surely employees already have the right to ask for a four-day week, and always have had. There is no law I know that prohibits an employee knocking on their boss’ door and asking for a four-day week, a day off to go to the races, to bring their pet gerbil into the office or, indeed, anything else. We have