Washington – Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas.

The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress on Tuesday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.

The horror.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week to which they have grown accustomed.

“I have bad news for you,” Hoyer told reporters. “Those trips you had planned in January, forget ’em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the fourth.”

The reporters groaned. “I know, it’s awful, isn’t it?” Hoyer empathized.

For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon – and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn’t in recess.

Next year, House members will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 4:30 p.m. MST on Monday and will finish their business about noon MST on Friday, Hoyer said.

With the new calendar, the Democrats are trying to project a businesslike image when they take control of Congress in January.

House and Senate Democratic leaders have announced an ambitious agenda for their first 100 hours and say they are adamant about scoring legislative victories they can trumpet in the 2008 campaigns.

Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government.

By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That’s seven days fewer than the infamous “Do-Nothing Congress” of 1948.

Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, such as the six relaxing days around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn’t mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.

For lawmakers within a reasonable commute of Washington, longer weeks are not a burden – although they probably will cut into members’ fundraising and campaigning activities, but for members from Alaska and Hawaii, the West Coast or rural states, the new schedule will mean less time at home and more stress.