CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Westbrook Four-Day Work Week Trial

When the City of Westbrook, Ontario, announced last winter that some employees would work four days a week for five days’ pay, reactions ranged from envy to indignation. Six months into the year-long pilot, the quarrel persists.

Roughly 400 of the city’s 1,600 employees, mostly in planning, finance, licensing and other administrative departments, are participating. They work 32 hours at full salary, provided their output does not decline, and days off are staggered so that municipal offices remain open Monday to Friday. Transit operators, road crews and water treatment staff were excluded because, the city maintains, their shifts cannot easily be reorganized.

Mayor Diane Tremblay, who championed the experiment, frames it as a matter of competition. Westbrook has long struggled to keep engineers, planners and IT specialists, who routinely defect to larger cities. “We will never outbid Toronto on pay,” she acknowledges, “but we can offer something Toronto doesn’t.” Applications for posted positions have nearly doubled, and sick days among participants have fallen by about a fifth.

Councillor Gord Pettigrew is decidedly unimpressed, noting that many of the taxpayers financing the arrangement work five or six days a week. Although he concedes that his office has fielded few complaints about municipal services, he warns of “a two-tier workforce” at city hall. Arjun Malhotra, whose union local represents many outdoor employees, endorses a shorter week in principle, yet considers it unjust that the people who plough the streets and drive the buses gain nothing. “If four days won’t work for them, fine,” he contends, “then the city owes them something of equal value, like more paid leave.”

Hélène Côté, a labour economist at McMaster University, counsels patience. “Early figures tell you less about the schedule than about people who don’t want to lose it,” she explains, “and the real test is whether they’re still this diligent in a second or third year.” She favours an independent evaluation over the city’s own reports.

Bakery owner Marjorie Klassen braced for interminable delays when she applied this spring to expand her shop. Her permit arrived within three weeks; the previous one took two months. Council is not scheduled to consider an extension until March.

After nineteen years in municipal government, I have no doubt the mayor means well, but six months is far too soon to 6. Choose…pull the plugpop the champagnecount the costsraise property taxes. As Dr. Côté implies, the early figures may say more about 7. Choose…staff on their best behaviourthe mayor’s recruitment drivethe excluded outdoor crewsthe staggered schedule than about the four-day week itself, and before council commits to anything I would want them checked by 8. Choose…the mayor’s officethe participating departmentssomeone outside city hallthe union local.

My larger worry lies elsewhere. It is hard to defend a policy under which bus drivers and road crews 9. Choose…earn less for overtimewere promised paid leave insteadmust cover for absent clerksget nothing comparable. Unless the city finds a fair way to include them, the pilot could end up 10. Choose…breeding resentmentcosting taxpayers moreslowing municipal serviceslosing the city its specialists.