The New York Times - USA (2020-12-07)

B2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2020

WORKPLACE | REGULATION

Unilever New Zealand said it
would begin a one-year experi-
ment to allow all 81 of its employ-
ees to earn their full salaries while
working one day fewer per week,
a move the company said might
actually boost productivity and
improve employees’ work-life bal-
ance.
The company, which imports
and distributes Lipton tea, Dove
soap, Vaseline and Ben & Jerry’s
ice cream, is the latest to experi-
ment with the long-discussed
four-day workweek. Some busi-
ness and productivity experts say
the concept may finally get a seri-
ous look amid a pandemic that has
altered how billions live and work
around the globe.
Nick Bangs, managing director
of Unilever New Zealand, said the
four-day-week experiment repre-
sented a fundamental shift in how
the company views its work force.
“Our goal is to measure per-
formance on output, not time,” Mr.
Bangs said in a statement. “We
believe the old ways of working
are outdated and no longer fit for
purpose.”
The goal, he said in an email, is
to get the same amount of work
done in fewer hours for the same
pay. “If we find that we’re all work-
ing the same number of hours as
before but in four days, then we’ve
missed the opportunity this trial
presents us with,” he said.
Essentially, Unilever is testing
what the British historian and
writer C. Northcote Parkinson
theorized was the nature of man
and time. “Work expands so as to
fill the time available for its com-
pletion,” he wrote in 1955.
The concept has been widely
disseminated — it was in the first
sentence of Mr. Parkinson’s New
York Times obituary — and has fil-
tered its way into popular think-
ing. Michael Scott, the bumbling
manager of a regional midsize pa-
per distributor in NBC’s “The Of-
fice,” demonstrated a working
knowledge of the idea in a conver-
sation with his supervisor, Jan
Levinson, after she caught him
watching television with his staff
during work hours.

Jan:How would a movie increase
productivity, Michael? How on earth
would it do that?

Michael:People work faster after.

Jan:Magically?

Michael:No, they have to make up
for the time they lost watching the
movie.

Mr. Bangs, luckily, is relying on
more than just Michael Scott witti-
cism. Experts at the University of
Technology Sydney Business

School are consulting with the

company, as is Andrew Barnes,

founder of Perpetual Guardian, a

New Zealand firm that shifted to a

shortened workweek in 2018.

“A contract should be about an

agreed level of productivity,” Mr.

Barnes said at the time. “If you de-

liver that in less time, why should

I cut your pay?”

The move to a four-day work-

week has been kicked around for

decades, well before Richard M.

Nixon, as vice president in 1956,

predicted it would come to pass in

the “not too distant future.”

Still, it has remained elusive.

Though technology has made em-

ployees more productive (thanks,

email!), it has not led to employ-

ees’ working fewer hours (thanks

again, email!).

And, in a work-centric culture,

people simply are not wired to un-

plug from the office, particularly

in industries like finance, medi-

cine and consulting, according to

Paolo Gaudiano, an adjunct asso-

ciate professor at New York Uni-

versity’s Stern School of Business.

“Here are these fields where it’s

expected that you’re going to

work insane hours that will burn

you out and will make you miser-

able, and it’s almost like you have

to prove that you can do that in or-

der to survive,” Mr. Gaudiano

said. “And certainly New York has

its fair share of large companies in

all of those spaces.” (Even the

New York Stock Exchange experi-

mented with a truncated work-

week in the 1960s, to give firms a

chance to catch up on unpro-

cessed paperwork.)

Societal changes, like the push

to work remotely, “might lead to a

reformulation of what success ac-

tually requires,” Mr. Gaudiano

said.

The push to be more productive

with less time has created a cot-

tage industry of productivity ex-

perts like Chris Bailey, the author

of the books “The Productivity

Project” and “Hyperfocus.”

Producing 40 hours of work in

32 hours takes more than a firm

deadline, he said. The other ingre-

dients are energy and attention.

“If we are burned out, there

goes our productivity,” Mr. Bailey

said. “It doesn’t matter how well

we can manage our time.”

Even with all the right ingredi-

ents, it can be hard to actually see

productivity, according to Mr. Bai-

ley, who cautioned against using

old metrics to gauge what he calls

“knowledge work.”

“We tend to look for proof that

other people are productive,” he

said. For repetitive, easy-to-quan-

tify work (entering sales of paper

into a computer, for example),

that’s easy. For knowledge work,

which is more creative and hard-

er-to-measure work (managing a

team of paper sales representa-

tives), it is best to look at impact,

not activity, Mr. Bailey said.

“When we do knowledge work

for a living, it’s not as though we

can measure how many widgets

somebody made at the end of the

day,” he said.

Still, even avid supporters of

the four-day workweek are not al-

ways in a position to put it in place.

Andrew Yang, who ran for pres-

ident in this year’s Democratic

primary, is a longtime advocate of

shorter workweeks. Before his

campaign, as chief executive of an

educational company, he fre-

quently let employees go home

early on Friday, as the company

did not offer classes those eve-

nings.

“So Fridays tended to be qui-

eter days when we tried to do

projects and reflect,” Mr. Yang

said in an interview on Tuesday.

“But sometimes that really meant

people were really just chilling.”

He would let people go at 3:30

or 4 p.m., which “made me seem

like a generous boss,” Mr. Yang

said. “But it does make one re-

flect: Did they need to be there be-

tween 9 and 4 that day, really?”

As a candidate, though, no luck.

“When I was running for presi-

dent, if I had said, ‘Hey guys, like,

I’m going to take Friday through

Sunday off,’ then the campaign

would never had gone anywhere,”

Mr. Yang said.

Still, Mr. Yang said early adopt-

ers of this concept would attract

the best talent.

“This is a way to compete

smart,” he said. “If there is an en-

lightened company that does this,

they are going to have their pick of

the best people in the industry and

those people are going to be ex-

traordinarily loyal.”

As for Mr. Bangs in New Zea-

land, he is leading by example.

“Yes, I will be working a four-

day week,” he said. “I have three

young children, so I’m looking for-

ward to spending more time with

them, as well as using the extra

time to learn new skills.”

In New Zealand, Unilever Tests 4-Day Workweek for 5 Days’ Pay

JAMES FRANKHAM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Top, New Zealand will try a four-day workweek for one year, a policy supported by Andrew Yang, right, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

The New York Stock Exchange, left, experimented with a shortened workweek in the 1960s to give firms a chance to catch up on unprocessed paperwork.

ASHLEY GILBERTSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES ALYSSA SCHUKAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By AZI PAYBARAH

ing, or there is a terrorist attack,
it’s very easy to say we have to be
strong and we have to restrict
rights,” said Birgit Sippel, a Ger-
man member of the European
Parliament. “We have to be very
careful.”
Of the more than 52 million pho-
tos, videos and other materials re-
lated to online child sexual abuse
reported between January and
September this year, over 2.3 mil-
lion came from the European Un-
ion, according to the U.S. federal
clearinghouse for the imagery.
Under the new rule, part of Eu-
rope’s ePrivacy Directive, the rate
of reports would drop precipi-
tously, because automated scan-
ning is responsible for nearly all of
them. Photo- and video-scanning
software uses algorithms to com-
pare users’ content with previ-
ously identified abuse imagery.
Other software targeted at groom-
ing searches for keywords and
phrases known to be used by
predators.
Facebook, the most prolific re-
porter of child sexual abuse im-
agery worldwide, said it would
stop proactive scanning entirely
in the E.U. if the regulation took ef-
fect. In an email, Antigone Davis,
Facebook’s global head of safety,
said the company was “concerned
that the new rules as written to-
day would limit our ability to pre-
vent, detect and respond to harm,”
but said it was “committed to com-
plying with the updated privacy
laws.”
There are also concerns among
child protection groups that there
could be a domino effect — that
Facebook and other companies
may cease scanning worldwide
because they do not currently
have a legal obligation to do so.
“The issue that we’re talking
about is global,” said Julie Cordua,
the chief executive of Thorn, a
nonprofit that develops and li-
censes technologies to defend
children from online abuse. “What
happens in the E.U. will have cas-
cading effects around the world.”
Child protection organizations,

international law enforcement

agencies and U.S. lawmakers

have warned that the rule would

be a major setback for global ef-

forts to combat the exploitation of

children.

“It would be a total failure if dur-

ing the pandemic and the lock-

downs going on in many countries

that we should now forbid the de-

tection of grooming,” said Ylva Jo-

hansson, a Swedish member of

the European Commission with

responsibilities for security strat-

egy and terrorism.

Ms. Johansson and other offi-

cials are pushing to find a compro-

mise that would allow the scan-

ning to continue for several years,

but under a deadline imposed by

previous privacy legislation, they

would need to settle on a solution

by Dec. 20.

“There is this balance between

the privacy of the user and the pri-

vacy of the child victim,” she said.

“The role for politicians is to find

the right balance.”

The New York Times reported

in 2019 that online child sexual

abuse imagery had grown expo-

nentially in recent years and was

rampant across the internet, in-

festing nearly all major platforms.

Perpetrators often leverage multi-

ple services, including cloud stor-

age, messaging apps and social

media networks. Online video

games are another frequent tar-

get, with some abusers grooming

hundreds and even thousands of

victims while they play.

The new restrictions in Europe

can be traced to a policy change in

2018 that brought email, some di-

rect messaging and internet serv-

ices like Facebook, Gmail and

Skype under regulations that

would prevent companies from

monitoring electronic communi-

cations. The rule was scheduled to

take effect this month to give com-

panies and governments time to

prepare.

With the deadline looming, Eu-

ropean officials are facing criti-

cism for waiting until the last

minute to resolve an issue with

broad implications for privacy

and child safety.

Whether a compromise can be

reached may depend on the de-

bate over grooming-detection

software. Last month, Ms. Sippel

proposed a competing rule that

would allow scanning for photos

and videos but ban the grooming

software, although it was unclear

if she had enough support in Par-

liament for that position. A com-

mittee is scheduled to consider

the proposal on Monday.

Unlike imagery-scanning tech-

nology, which is almost 100 per-

cent accurate in identifying illegal

photos and videos, grooming soft-

ware is right about 90 percent of

the time, according to Hany Farid,

a professor at the University of

California, Berkeley, who assisted

on the development of both tech-

nologies. That means about a

tenth of the material flagged by

the grooming software is not illic-

it.

Dr. Farid compared grooming

software used by companies in the

United States and Europe to

spam-filtering software, which

searches for combinations of

words and phrases. Technologies

that scan for spam and malware

would be exempted from the new

regulation.

“I don’t hear anybody com-

plaining that my spam filter reads

my email,” Dr. Farid said.

When grooming is discovered,

there is a major upside compared

with the detection of illegal photos

and videos: A grooming report is

more likely to result in the rescue

of a child because the illegal activ-

ity is happening in real time.

“The grooming of children for

sexual purposes is always about a

child on the verge of or in the

midst of abuse,” said John Shehan,

a vice president at the National

Center for Missing and Exploited

Children, the U.S. federal clearing-

house that works with technology

companies and law enforcement

agencies around the world.

As of September, according to

the clearinghouse, 1,020 reports of

grooming had come from the Eu-

ropean Union. Cases of grooming

were reported in all 27 E.U. coun-

tries and contained many exam-

ples of “sextortion” — when an

adult poses as a minor to solicit

photos or videos, then uses the im-

agery as blackmail to further ex-

ploit the child.

Diego Naranjo, head of policy at

European Digital Rights in Brus-

sels, an advocacy group, said the

subject was fraught because any-

one who questioned the tech com-

panies’ practices was cast as

“somebody who doesn’t care

about the children.”

Even so, he said, the tech com-

panies and child protection

groups had not made a strong

enough case for scanning to jus-

tify the intrusion on privacy.

“They haven’t given evidence

needed to show this is proportion-

ate,” he said. “We don’t open every

letter in the mail to see if there is

something illegal.”

The European Data Protection

Supervisor, an agency that ad-

vises on privacy issues, said

clearer safeguards were needed

for consumers. Privacy is consid-

ered a legally protected human

right in the European Union. In an

opinion published last month, the

agency said “confidentiality of

communications is a cornerstone

of the fundamental rights to re-

spect for private and family life.”

The tech industry has largely

stayed out of the public debate.

While Facebook said it would

stop proactive scanning in Eu-

rope, other companies have re-

mained quiet. In October, Micro-

soft filed a declaration with au-

thorities saying that its detection

software was used solely to iden-

tify child abuse and not for any

commercial purpose. But a com-

pany spokesman would not indi-

cate if it would stop scanning un-

der the new regulations.

Google, which reported 3.6 mil-

lion illegal photos and videos in

2019, did not respond to multiple

requests for comment.

Advocacy groups and law en-

forcement agencies around the

world have drawn attention to the

rule in recent weeks in hopes of

derailing it.

In a statement last month, the

European Union Cybercrime Task

Force described scanning by com-

panies as an “essential function in

the fight against child sexual ex-

ploitation and child sexual abuse

online,” and warned that stopping

it could result in a significant re-

duction in criminal investigations.

On Thursday, Senator Tom Cot-

ton, Republican of Arkansas, an-

nounced that he would introduce a

resolution urging the E.U. to let

companies continue monitoring.

“Closing our eyes to child ex-

ploitation doesn’t mean it stops,”

Mr. Cotton said.

Twelve members of the U.S.

House of Representatives, both

Democrats and Republicans,

made a similar case in a letter last

month to the European Parlia-

ment.

Ms. Sippel said she was hopeful

a compromise could be found. In

the meantime, she predicted, the

broader debate about how to bal-

ance privacy and security will

continue.

“You can always go too far, or

you cannot go far enough,” she

said. “That is what we are debat-

ing.”

E.U. Rule Will Limit

Online Hunt for Abusers

GERGELY KELEMEN ZOLTAN/MTI VIA AP

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

Birgit Sippel, a German

member of the European

Parliament, is seeking a

compromise that would

allow much of the

scanning to continue.

Outgrowth of a policy

to curb scanning email

and direct messages.