BROKEN PROMISES

Like Gompers, Reuther, and, later, Rifkin, Schor thought this a travesty given the nation's relatively high unemployment rate at the time. The End of Work, Rifkin's 1995 death knell for labor, added a computer-age twist to the argument, warning that industry would have to restructure the workweek to make room for laborers who were displaced by advancing technology. But both Rifkin and Schor missed the boat, at least for now: With the official unemployment rate hovering around 4 percent, making room for those without work has more or less become a moot point. And in what must seem a huge blow to labor organizers, many workers seem to want to spend long hours on the job, either out of fear of losing their jobs or because they enjoy it, say Reich and others.

These days, the notion of shortening the workweek registers barely a blip on organized labor's radar. Ernest Grecco, president of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council of AFL-CIO Unions, says some unions have negotiated for fewer hours, "but there's no real effort to lower hours across the board. The labor movement has advocated for flex time, longer vacations, and allowing more time for employees to spend with their families. [Mandating fewer workday hours] is not one of our priorities."

Given the zeitgeist, Sinclair knows it'll take a little time--perhaps millennia--to make the four-hour day happen. Leaning back in a chair in his daughter's room, decorated with fish painted along the tops of the walls, he can smile about that. Sure, cutting everyone's workday back is a great idea, he says, one overworked folks everywhere who are struggling to balance leisure, family, and jobs should think about. But people aren't ready to give up their creature comforts, the monkeys on their backs. In Sinclair's world, with its free distribution system, some might worry that others are hoarding all the goodies. The Gandhi-style non-violence that underpins his vision can't be taught in a generation. And there are those workaholics to deal with. "If I told a lot of people they could work a four-hour day, I'd scare them," he says. "For a lot of them, work is the only social life they have. They wouldn't know what to do with four extra hours."

These things take time. There are only so many hours in a day.

Sinclair's willing to admit he's not going to sweep the country by storm. He's determined to lay the foundation one hand-carved stone at a time.

"I will be extremely happy if one in 10,000 Americans responds to this," he says, outlining his outreach plan. "That would be 27,000 total. Can you imagine what we could do with 27,000 committed, like-minded people?" He's convinced these like-minded people will hold their first four-hour-day convention in a few years. If any of them especially one who is an "unscrupulous marketing genius"--want to appropriate his ideas as their own, fine. He didn't copyright the book he doesn't even charge an official cover price, asking instead for a $15 tax-deductible gift to his foundation--so people would feel free to run with the idea.