Seeking Balance: The Four-Day Work Week at CEJA

By Liam Fitzpatrick - California Environmental Justice Alliance, January 2024

At CEJA, we’re building a just transition away from our current extractive society and towards a sustainable future. We believe the lives of human beings should not be dictated by antiquated colonialist labor practices. So in keeping with our anti-capitalist, anti-white supremacist values, we’re thrilled to be launching a four-day work week pilot, starting this week.

Our full-time exempt staff will now work Monday through Thursday each week. We will not be reducing pay, extending hours, or cutting benefits. Instead, CEJA is adopting the 100-80-100 model – staff will receive 100% of their salaries, work 80% of current time, and maintain 100% of CEJA’s current impact.

To put it another way, we’re not doing less work, we’re working less. We will be innovating new workflows, developing tools for prioritization, and testing state-of-the-art technology to ensure we continue to represent the best interest of our communities. CEJA is committed to continuing its fight against structural environmental racism and injustice, and building a sustainable, just future for all Californians. 

This was not a simple decision. CEJA spent months researching and developing our four-day work week program before the launch of this pilot. We worked with 4 Day Week Global, a global organization dedicated to prioritizing productivity over working hours and improving work/life balance. And as the pilot continues, members of CEJA staff will continue to evaluate, iterate, and implement new benchmarks and strategies. 

So, why are we putting in this level of effort? 

A sustainable future requires a sustainable workforce – too often, burnout is accepted as the norm in environmental justice spaces. As CEJA continues to seek radical environmental justice solutions while operating in a capitalist system, we can challenge that structure by providing our team with the labor justice everyone deserves. We believe we can serve frontline environmental justice communities better than ever as we liberate our work force from the constraints of industrial-age work schedules.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.