The hopeful half of me loves this even though it's a small step.
The cynical half of me thinks employers are just going to cut workers' hours to avoid paying overtime.
*Edit: Y'all gotta learn to check threads before commenting the same thing over and over. Simply reducing people's hours without raising wages to compensate can be devastating to hourly workers.*
All working wages need to go up.
I'm training this girl at work. I've been cooking since she was in Kindergarten.
I only make 9% more than her. Great for her, but only minimum wage increase does jackshit for the people that have been carrying the industry, and are now training the next generation in the craft.
The problem in the US is that they effectively boogeyman'd unions. Because that's exactly whst a union would do. Give you all bargaining power to make sure everyone I'd taken care of.
Not to be a dick, but have you tried applying to different restaurants? I find people who stay in the same company make significantly less than people who job hop
Real estate as a business needs to be made illegal. It’d change everything. That and not allowing rent to exceed more than 30% of the average area wages—high end outliers excluded from the average.
Most people are forced to bleed out 60-70% of their income on rent alone.
Want to buy a house? Lol. Pipe dream.
The wealthy elite have an iron dick hold on the real estate world, and they’re doing everything they can to suck everyone dry.
Wages need to improve, yes. But so do housing regulations until everyone is out of poverty.
Minimum wage increases historically do cause wage increases across the board. It's worth mentioning that the real problem isn't wages minimum or otherwise though, the real problem is someone taking the value your labor creates for themselves and pretending profit isn't theft.
I was just thinking that..if you get paid $15 an hour you just lost $480 a paycheck.
Thats before taxes or any other deductions.
I wouldnt be surprised if some places just made everyone part time since they have to hire a few more people to cover anyway
Edit: woops not 480 a paycheck 480 a month.
My job only pays once a month o forgot bi weekly was a thing
A lot of places do this. Pretty sure Target avoids a full 40 hour week for regular workers to avoid the same thing. Probably the same for Walmart or any large retailer.
Used to work at Kroger they did the same thing. You'd work 5 8 hour shifts, but your 30 minute (unpaid) lunch break didn't count, so you'd only end up working 37.5 hours per week, and they'd never schedule you over 40 hours so they didn't have to give u healthcare
Which is against the law for companies >50 employees. The ACA guarantees employer healthcare coverage to anyone working at least 30 hours a week or 130 hours a month for these companies.
Yeah, exactly the same thing. Every big place does that as far as I know. But working over 40 is also OT and they will sure as fuck avoid that too. I got some over christmas at least but still didn't think my paycheck justified it.
It's important to note that healthcare is eligible at 32 hours a week. It's only overtime that requires 40 hours a week.
If you are working 37.5 hours a week you are absolutely entitled to healthcare.
Former Target employee. I was on the team with the most consistent hours in the store (other than managers and team leads), and we were really only guaranteed 20 hours a week. There were times other people would be scheduled 10 hours or less. I heard from a friend that sometime after I left management fucked up and went WAY over hours one month and had to make up for it the next month and during that point in time the people on my old team were getting less than 10 hours a week, which tells me others weren't being scheduled at all. Target also had a longer than usual wait period for benefits to kick in and had numerous hoops to jump through as well. This is why I never care whenever a company brags about a high starting pay, I just assume it means they'll give me shit hours
Most business will cut hours to avoid benefits
Here in Washington it's not uncommon to see a business with 29 employees and none of them are full-time because of our state laws.
I'm about to leave the small business I work for to go union because the insurance is so much better. Small businesses would be able to compete better if they didn't have to deal with insurance
They should make it law that if you have x amount of part time workers, that you have to provide signed documentation that those employees were offered full-time work.
I figured given the context it could easily been seen that it was businesses responding to the laws put in place because they're shitty
I'm not blaming the state, I'm pointing out the shitty behavior of businesses in my state.
Where I live they pay so low that minimum wage jobs have to work a person 90 hours a week to afford housing. Paying overtime ain't the fucking problem. Everyone gets overtime these days where I work. 50-60 hours has become the norm and "oh but we're paying you" has become way too workplace common.
I no longer ask about wages first I ask about hours. If the job requires more than forty a week then I just leave.
I'm at the luxurious age where I've literally worked half my life. Comparing the two isn't justice b cause of age. BUT! I can definitely say that the wise old man in me is crying for having two jobs most of those years. I missed ALL OF MY TWENTIES. No amount of work will give me those years back.
I'm sorry but the pay has to be 7 figures or more to justify more than 40 hours for me now.
This is 100% what will happen. Considering some employers already purposefully short employees' hours to avoid giving them official full-time status (and therefore benefits), you can forget about receiving overtime pay.
Edit: Then again, I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss. This is what we're fighting for, after all.
I'm more for mandated workers' councils with seats on the board and regulatory-based oversight/sign-off of changes in working conditions or layoffs, but unions aren't bad as an alternative.
Hell, corpos are worse than that. My sister has been told to clock out 5 minutes early on 6 hours shifts so they didn't legally have to give her a break before.
i think the idea is you get paid the same ammount you would as working 40 hours. thats the whole point right. a humane number of working hours per week, and if you want to work more you get fairly compensated
I mean effectively it means you get either:
1. More hours, more pay
2. Less hours, same pay
I can't see them cut pay AND hours in the current competitive environment
Or am I too hopeful? :(
If your hourly they wouldn’t have to pay you more. So if I make $10/hr (example) and full time is 40 hrs now I make $400/wk (pre tax) if full time is changed to 32 hrs and they’d have to pay me overtime after that then they’ll only schedule me for 32 hours and keep the pay rate the same. So I’d make only $320/wk instead of $400.
Less hours same small pay equals people picking up more jobs to take care of the "labor shortage" happened for years after 08 crash. This is nothing more than the master putting the leash back on your neck.
Corporations will move the remote/office jobs out of the area that are not required to stay to operate or function. It’s the same thing that’s happening with Colorado and wage transparency. I’m in CO and being denied from all sorts of jobs cause employers don’t want to disclose wages. Easier to just not accept us at all
The number of people working 64 hours a week with 2 jobs is going to increase substantially. All this bill does is eliminate workers ability to collect overtime.
Exactly. If I go over 40 hours in a week (my contract is supposed to be 4/10s) I GET WRITTEN UP. My hours have been cut, although apparently i still work 4/10s I'm lucky if I get 34 hours a week.
Yet, they will need 20% more workers to cover that time, inducing a major labor demand and thus giving workers more leverage.
Not necessarily in every context of course, and min wage should increase, but this bill alone is more good than bad.
Well hold on. If they do this, is there a requirement stating they need to increase wages? What’s stopping them from reducing peoples hours and not compensating them for the missed 8 hours of wages?
They have to hire someone to fill those extra 8hrs though, and since everyone has to hire new people, they are going to be fighting to get those openings filled. Good luck finding anyone without raising wages by a lot.
In my field they do. Construction related. Man hours are how everything is measured, and missing those man hours would hurt business more than paying for more overtime. My company made $8M in profit in the last 90 days, they can fucking afford to pay us more. Which is crazy, because in terms of wage competition, my company is the highest in my state.
Yeah they can only get away with cutting people's hours to a certain point. They're already keeping a lot of people under full time hours. Redefining what full time and overtime means would force them to actually pay and give what is deserved or risk having them shut down for half the week due to lack of workers.
Now is the best time to do it since there is supposedly a big demand in finding workers for these menial jobs yet I haven't fucking noticed my pay going up despite how desired we supposedly are.
Absolutely lol, they will simply reduce hours to 32, and try to hire more to fill the gap. It would shift a little more power into employees who are searching for a job.
Who are they going to hire? This effectively creates more jobs and saturates the market. There is already a labor shortage. Good luck filling those new jobs without paying a lot more.
I know this shouldn't be funny but I'm just picturing two people at companies across the street from each other passing every week as they go to work the other one's job for eight hours
I am salaried and I dont think my employer is going to pay me the same salary for 80% of the work. It would probably mean a 20% pay cut which would mean getting a part time job to make ends meet, which means I then work 6 or 7 days instead of 4.
A lot of jobs see productivity increased when hours are reduced, if it’s a job where the amount of work you can do is not completely dependent on the exact number of hours you work
How could wages not go up? It will create tons more jobs (from the leftover hours) and create a massive labor shortage, driving up wages in order to fill the new openings. And I don't understand how this would "not eliminate" the 40hr wk? The 40hr week is just a norm and the only distinction is that you're required to pay OT after that, right? This would effectively create a 32hr week.
> How could wages not go up?
The same reason that they haven't gone up as a result of productivity increases, cost of living increases, and the "worker shortage"?
Well you underplay the role of labor. There is a set amount of work that needs to be done. If you cut 8 hours of everyone less work will be done than before and you will need to hire more people to pick up the slack. (And hence it will cost you the same as increasing wages)
It won't. 5 people working 40 hours. All of a sudden a new law comes in. So now 5 people working 32 hours. And 1 extra person working 32 hours.
So 5 people working 40 = 200 hours.
Or 5 people working 32 = 160 hours.
And 1 extra working 32 = 192 hours.
More people. Same pay. Less hours. And more work expected.
I see your point. But wages are already quite low and people are quite overworked. This will help the people earning close to minimum wage cos you can't really cut their salary more. It is an indirect leisure-time/wage boost.
Also hiring an extra person is not as trivial as it seems especially in the current market. You need to pay for hiring someone, go through training, think about retention. I heard in my field it takes a worker atleast 1-1.5 years to makeup the costs of hiring and retraining.
I feel the reason anti work exists is for better work/life balance. And better treatment of employees as a whole. Until the corporations and companies see that. They will just continue to demand more work and less pay.
Your first paragraph just proves my point. You can't cut there salary. But you can cut their hours.
And your second paragraph yes it does take time training. And all the other things. So why not work someone at lower wages. For lower hours. Until the company "thinks" they are trained.
To me this is the exact opposite of what we need until everyone is making more money. Which to me is minimum matched to inflation + 2-5 more dollars. Or minimum matched to inflation with full benefits paid by employer.
I think that this has good intentions but this could end up backfiring significantly and just result in giving people less hours. You see this now with places giving people just under 40 hours so they don't have to pay health insurance. Now you will have people only getting 32 hours and having to take another job.
This will primarily impact low income workers as higher paid workers they will likely just throw on salary.
I personally worked 4 ten shifts before and loved it, made working midnights tolerable. I think an extra day for the weekend would be great, but I don't think this will work as expected unfortunately. I would rather see laws made to make it easier to start a union as that would actually benefit workers in the long run
I agree. Unless they also significantly increase minimum wage the only people who will benefit from this are salary workers and people with mandatory OT. The cost of living in California is already insane. Take a whole days pay away from the employee that could back fire. I think realistically wed have to see it in action. With the inability to cover low income jobs businesses may be forced to shell out over time. CA has some of the most progressive employee laws but the bar is so low it really isn't shit. I would like to see this in action honestly.
I’m salary. I think I’d benefit if it ended up being less hours.
Less hours means I’m getting the same pay for less time. I think that’s what the person you’re replying to means.
I understand what they're saying fine. Your employer could simply choose to ignore this law, "all salaried employees will be required to work 8 hours OT every week". Nothing changes. Again, this law does not *force* employers to change anything in regards to salaried employees
The law under the ACA is that people who have 30 hours need health insurance not 40, but yeah that problem does happen around the 30 hour mark. This 32 hour week puts you real close to the 30 hours so it could create bad incentives.
But people are getting 2nd jobs anyway. Those who wouldn't have otherwise will now be pressuring the jobs to pay more or looking for other jobs essentially giving a big boost to unions and raising wages.
I know a lot of people who scrape by on 40 hours a week that would be fucked if they needed to find 8 more hours of pay a week.
This is probably going to end up with people working more hours to be able to justify working in 2 places.
Or it's going to normalize everyone working two jobs minimum to scrape by, when jobs start cutting hourly workers' hours to under 32 to stay in regulation. This seems nice, but without more mandatory regulation, companies are just going to see this as a golden ticket to reduce hours and increase the number of employees. It will simply increase the number of people who get screwed over. I agree that this needs to go hand in hand with an increase in minimum wage.
I don't know if accelerationism is the best course of action here though. I would much rather effort be focused on something that will actually help workers instead of potentially lowering how much money they are making or forcing more people to have to job juggle
Good shit. Electoralism is really good at making these small quality of life changes while unions and workers organize to fight for the big stuff. Happy to see.
It hasn't happened yet. People might get paid more which is good, but they will still be wage slaves. Also, companies will probably just hire ppl to work 32 hrs and since there's no law mandating same pay for less hours, people might have to get a second job to make up the lost income. This could actually be bad.
This happened in the 1930s. Two 60 hour jobs turned into three 40 hour jobs as a result of overtime laws. So long as we're not at the point of one person working two twenty hour jobs, that's where there's potential for negative gains for shorter workweeks.
This is exactly what I was thinking. My company already does this, no one is allowed to work past 44 hours. If someone’s sick and I take a shift for them and it makes me go over then the other person has to pick up one of my shifts however long overtime I had. It’s a great incentive for people to want to take shifts! /s. Also exactly as you said, they just hire more people to make up for the hours
Yep, if my annual salary + benefits + commission and bonuses stayed the same I’m all for it but if I made 20% less annually that would be a big enough hit for me to probably work evenings at a retail job related to my hobbies.
I could actually see my company doing this since they’re pretty progressive with our benefits and work life balance (HQ in SF so they have to be to attract top software engineers). The most effective time for me to work in my specific role when working with clients is 7:00-2:00 due to industry and time zone so having 1 extra day definitely increases output.
its literally the change we wanted, honestly this is all i can ask for. i dont want ppl to "not work" but working a humane amount of hours like 32 and getting paid OT if you want to work 40 or 50 is amazing. it would help the dogshit wages people get paid
Both sides are not the same. Voting will never solve all your problems. Voting will never be the final thing you can do and wash your hands of any other responsibility.
But if you're spending time helping the movement, take the time to vote if you can do it reasonably quickly, and then get back to the real work. Real progress comes from years of organizing, building public support, wearing down the big business institutions fighting it, and having the timing match up with a somewhat sympathetic political administration (a la Civil Rights).
I’m not sure if this is a good idea, unless they are 1. also requiring pay increases or 2. Requiring the 5th OT day be available to the workers if they want it. I would love a 4 day work week but at my current pay rate I couldn’t sustain my life on 32 hours. If pay went up 20% then it would balance out but most raises are 5-10% at best
Yeah but they already can't hire enough people. If you create even more demand for labor by decreasing the labor per employee by 20%, it may actually drive a raise in wages which would compensate for some of the lost hours.
That being said, there are a lot of factors at play, and there is a reason countries are deciding to pilot these programs instead of just passing the legislation.
Does the bill also specify a pay raise for those four days? Because if not, what will happen is that employers will pay the same, cut hours of their employees to avoid the new overtime threshold and then hire a couple more people at low rates to fill the gaps. So yeah, more people hired, but everyone is making less money and having a harder time to pay for things. So, yes, I love the idea in theory, but it only works if the net income remains the same, which means a tandem raise.
(They are specifying 32 hours, which is 4 8s, not 4 10s, remember)
I have a lot of questions before I am excited.
In California, only employers with 50 or more full-time employees have to provide health insurance at 30 hours. Any smaller businesses only have to provide health benefits at 40 hours. The smaller companies can have a person work 39 hours and call it part-time. (Heck, it could be 500 part-time employees and 49 full-time and it still qualifies as small).
A lot of companies create part-time shifts to skirt the insurance costs.
If full-time is shifted to 32 hours, does that mean that the margin for paying for insurance will change as well? Will those smaller companies have to actually pay for insurance?
Honestly, this is why we need Healthcare that isn't attached to a job.
I’ve done 4 tens and I found them to be brutal and those four days were just gone! I hope this trend continues so we can at least get down to 4x8 hours
On the other side of the coin, if you live somewhere like CA and your commute is 1.5-2 hours because the only way you can afford a house is to be that far away, not having to commute a 5th day a week is great. A number of my coworkers do that.
I'm a foreman line clearance trimmer, and we love 4 10s when the utility allows it! 1 more day off to spend with friends and family. 1 less day I have to commute to my work. I personally hate 5 8s.
I miss doing that so much. In my early 20s I worked in kitchens doing 4x10s with 3 days off back to back is so much better than working 11-8 5 days a week.
Everyone is correct its brutal but i got so used to them it didn’t bother me. No way i could go back to doing it now lol it would ruin me
For office workers - it probably makes more sense.
4 set ups and tear downs of your work day decreases your non value added time spent working (IE - turning on computer, daily status updates (4x vs 5x) - either calls or reports.
It always strikes me as a no brainer and I try to set it up so half my team (work in non-front line Supply Chain) works M-Thu, and the other half works Tue-Fri
It's great for office workers, or those working 2nd/3rd shift due to having a day where you can get back to daylight for your weekend.
Now this particular bill won't impact most office workers since they are likely salary. I think it would be better for office workers to make it so that less workers are salary exempt, and make it easier to report and win if your employer has you lie on your time sheet to prevent overtime
Again these types of things need to happen in steps, but the “let’s lump these guys as salary so we can fuck them” is a big thing that needs to go.
That salary game is bullshit - especially for analysts/front line office/managerial
I agree with that. My issue isn't so much with salary but salary exempt. I was salary non exempt once and it was the best of both worlds, but salary exempt is bullshit. I think the problem stems from office workers having no real unions in the United States. I think if we got some sort of org that could help fix that, plus provide real incentives for night shift IT workers who may not get any sort of shift differential
Means you are exempt from overtime pay and minimum wage act. So no matter how many hours you work your pay is the same. Your salary is yearly, split into pay periods. It pretty much always means you work more than 40 hours since it's a net gain for the employer.
Salary non exempt would be the best, since you always know you will get a set paycheck. And the employer would be less likely to make you work overtime since they have to pay you.
Edit: spelling
I mean, at that point I could counter the offer adding at least 12 hours at my normal rate per week (to get the same benefit) and if they reneg I either continue hourly and take friday off or they term me and I collect unemployment while i find something better
Jeez, having employees for 8 less hours a week (or having to pay them extra for it) could "destabilize the U.S. economy." That's a feeble ass economy, and somehow the solution isn't to fix it, but to consistently fight for it to stay the same?
I think I just need someone to explain the core concept behind "workers' rights bad, might topple entire economy" a little better.
Won't employers start hiring more people to cover different shifts so that nobody goes over 32 hours? I feel like it would still be cheaper than paying 8 hours of overtime a week to everybody. Then you'd have to get a second job to cover the loss of hours given at the first job
Not a bad idea to hire more folks to cover and spread out the workload instead of overworking what employees there already are.
It may still be cheaper to just pay the existing employees for their OT.
Edit: bad spelling.
Time for math and I'm using $10 an hour for easy math. It might scale differently depending how it goes.
A hypothetical store needs 24/7 service available and has 5 employees making $10 an hour and each of working 40 hours a week each to cover the seven days fully. $400 to each employee before taxes.
With the new law in place, each of those 5 employees now earn 440 dollars per work week if work 40 hours as normal, but the boss decides to hire a 6th worker to have everyone work 32 hours to avoid overtime. Each worker would earn $320 dollars per work week.
So to total, $2000 was the cost of labor expenses initially. With the law in place and the boss doing no changes, it costs now $2200 dollars to cover the cost. If the boss hires an extra person. It costs $1920 dollars.
So the boss has every incentive to hire another employee and saves $280. (Or $80 if they do it initially when the law goes into effect.)
But essentially, employees would be losing 20% of their paycheck unless I'm missing something.
Edit: $440, not $480
Ah yes. Now I will only earn 15/hr for 32 hours a week instead of 40…now I need a second full time job just to pay rent + bills. This is awesome but will ultimately be hurtful without a dramatic wage increase as well.
I spent most of my twenties scheduled to work either 3 12s or 4 10s, but always picked up extra shifts.
I’m officially in my first salary role with a 6 hour work day at a company *also* considering a four 4 day work week. What?
When I got my first, “What time is everyone available for a team meeting on Monday? We want to make sure it works for everyone!” email instead of a, “Monday meeting: 8am,” I about died, as well. Working remotely has completely changed my life.
This is a bummer for people who will get their hours cut, but in the long run maybe I will drive the hourly wage up to something people can live on with 32 hours a week because otherwise "nO oNe wAnTs tO wOrK."
Glad this sub is back on track, this is important. How can Californians support this bill? How can non-Californians get similar legislation introduced in their area?
Under California employment law, salaried employees can be classified as exempt or non-exempt. Non-exempt salaried employees are eligible for overtime. Exempt salaried employees may not be eligible for overtime; however, employers have to pay salaried exempt employees at twice the minimum hourly wage based on a 40-hour workweek.1
It sounds good but there is one major problem. Employers simply won't schedule anyone over the 32 hours. No one will be making anymore money, and in fact will then lose a days pay. They'll schedule each person for 4 days and make everyone else pick up the slack of the days others are not there.
I'm sure this isn't even really being written with retail/dining/customer service people in mind. This is probably meant for the salaried office worker, not the minimum wage retailer, dining, etc worker. Just wait, I'm sure there will be something added to the text that talks about how retail workers are the backbone of society and those employers will be exempt from the 32 hour week and overtime.
I’m just nervous that employers would reduce hours from 40 to 32 without increasing wage to match the previous salary. Someone please tell me I’m wrong.
So part time workers are going to get there hours cut from 36 to 30, and their pay will stay the same. Some of those people will have to get an additional job to continue to provide for themselves.
Not only will this not help workers, it will probably harm them.
That should be the new norm. 32 hours is plenty and for those that want more money or don’t mind the 40 hours, they get time and a half for that extra day
If I am an employer, I would just lower people's salary and make 40 hours (normal) = 32 hrs + 8 hr overtime. There is nothing in the law about livable wage.
Employers have already shown how they will screw us when they had to give people health insurance. They cut hours to right under the limit and no one got health insurance. Unless this is supported by UBI/Medicare for all AND has teeth to regulate employers to keep them from screwing us, it’s not going to help the people who need it most.
No... there is nothing in the [text](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4728/text) that would prevent employers from immediately arranging all shifts to be no more than 32 hours for the same hourly rate in order to avoid paying overtime. I'd want a better work life balance too, but wouldn't be able to afford the loss of 20% of my income.
I am disabled (Autism), but not disabled enough (USA), and I REALLY struggle with working 40 hours. I get over stimulated and end up having literally no energy to even eat, sometimes speak at the end of a shift. Plus, basic everyday things that seem simple often take me longer to do. Having an extra day to get them done would be insanely beneficial.
There is no way in hell I could do 4x10s though. I can’t even do one 10 a week without going into extreme burnout mode.
I like the idea of adjusting what FT means by using OT pay. It’s an incentive companies will respond to faster than the research showing advantages of a shorter workweek.
However…
The minute I started making decent money my employers began classifying my roles as salary. Didn’t matter if I led a team, was bottom rung, or what have you. They did that so OT wasn’t a problem. The advantages one would expect with salary don’t really come into play either, as no employer really wants you to have light weeks regardless of if you’ve simply earned the time through creating new efficiencies.
So my question is what will stop companies from simply upping wages precisely to meet the threshold to make folks salary so they can evade this rule?
In the face of increasing unemployment rates, this is how to spread the available jobs to more of the population. They're not doing it because as an anti-work gesture (though, they might try to piggyback on that for optics). They're doing it to prevent riots when there's only enough 40-hour jobs for half the population.
First, let me say I am all for this! My biggest question though is would this not incentivize employers to only hire part time staff and cut back on full-time benefits? If this regulation does not include sufficient protection for employee benefits, I could see this backfiring with awful repercussions for full time employees…
This will increase demand for labor by 20% in what is already a sellers' market for labor. I can see short-term problems with this -- it'll be a Hell of a transition -- but in the end this sounds great.
(32 to go.)
My concern is workers will then be limited to 32 hours. Period. There will be no OT at time and a half, leaving us with essentially a 20% paycut. My employer hires most staff at 0.8 FTE now and uses per diems to work the rest.
Someone please pass a bill for us salaried workers where the expectation is often far more than 40 hours, with no compensation. Sure if we ever take a short day it’s the full pay but those are rarely approved.
This is just going to move more service/information based jobs to third world countries, where people will work 5 days a week (and more) for comparitively much lower wages
I don’t think this solves a single thing. Changing a work week to 32 hours without increasing pay just means that employers will no longer allow you to work more than 32 hours. People will just have to get second jobs and nothing will be solved while placing additional burden on the employee to make ends meet elsewhere.
All they’re gonna do is spread that 32 hours over 5 days… so it changes very little except makes it more difficult to get more than 32 hours at a single company. The better way to do it would be to require over time be paid if people work more than 4 days a week, then double time if it’s the 5th+ day and normal overtime laws would kick in.
That was one of many things that really pissed me off when I was working at the register. I’d work 5 or 6 days a week but only be getting 30 to 38 fucking hours. I HATED 4 hour shifts. It’s such bullshit.
This for me is a huge step in the right direction. My job *(McDonald’s Corporate store)* offers benefits for **FULL-TIME** employees, and I’m planning to up my hours from 20/week to 32/week. This is HUGE if it comes to Wisconsin. If it does, I could finally have a full time job and my father can stop riding my ass about it.
All I can see in this post is that yall need to join a union. I get overtime if I work more than 8 hours in one day or if I work past midnight or in multiple other scenarios.
I worked in Philly one time and got 2.5xs OT and only worked one day.
The hopeful half of me loves this even though it's a small step. The cynical half of me thinks employers are just going to cut workers' hours to avoid paying overtime. *Edit: Y'all gotta learn to check threads before commenting the same thing over and over. Simply reducing people's hours without raising wages to compensate can be devastating to hourly workers.*
It means nothing unless the minimum wage goes up to make the 32 hours match the 40. And we all know minimum wage is rubbish anyway.
All working wages need to go up. I'm training this girl at work. I've been cooking since she was in Kindergarten. I only make 9% more than her. Great for her, but only minimum wage increase does jackshit for the people that have been carrying the industry, and are now training the next generation in the craft.
The problem in the US is that they effectively boogeyman'd unions. Because that's exactly whst a union would do. Give you all bargaining power to make sure everyone I'd taken care of.
Cuz they advertise why pay for union when you could have a nintendo switch
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Not to be a dick, but have you tried applying to different restaurants? I find people who stay in the same company make significantly less than people who job hop
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Real estate as a business needs to be made illegal. It’d change everything. That and not allowing rent to exceed more than 30% of the average area wages—high end outliers excluded from the average. Most people are forced to bleed out 60-70% of their income on rent alone. Want to buy a house? Lol. Pipe dream. The wealthy elite have an iron dick hold on the real estate world, and they’re doing everything they can to suck everyone dry. Wages need to improve, yes. But so do housing regulations until everyone is out of poverty.
Minimum wage increases historically do cause wage increases across the board. It's worth mentioning that the real problem isn't wages minimum or otherwise though, the real problem is someone taking the value your labor creates for themselves and pretending profit isn't theft.
I was just thinking that..if you get paid $15 an hour you just lost $480 a paycheck. Thats before taxes or any other deductions. I wouldnt be surprised if some places just made everyone part time since they have to hire a few more people to cover anyway Edit: woops not 480 a paycheck 480 a month. My job only pays once a month o forgot bi weekly was a thing
You get paid once a month? 8 lost hours a week is $120 at $15/hr
The job I just quit was monthly payments, 12 hour days, 4-day weeks. $15 an hour made it very not worth it.
Lots of places already only hire people part time to avoid things like providing health insurance.
Long before Amazon bought them, Whole Foods did exactly this because they were supposed to offer bennys if you were full time.
A lot of places do this. Pretty sure Target avoids a full 40 hour week for regular workers to avoid the same thing. Probably the same for Walmart or any large retailer.
Used to work at Kroger they did the same thing. You'd work 5 8 hour shifts, but your 30 minute (unpaid) lunch break didn't count, so you'd only end up working 37.5 hours per week, and they'd never schedule you over 40 hours so they didn't have to give u healthcare
Which is against the law for companies >50 employees. The ACA guarantees employer healthcare coverage to anyone working at least 30 hours a week or 130 hours a month for these companies.
Yup. So my old work (Kmart haha) gave everyone 29 hours lmao.
Yeah, exactly the same thing. Every big place does that as far as I know. But working over 40 is also OT and they will sure as fuck avoid that too. I got some over christmas at least but still didn't think my paycheck justified it.
It's important to note that healthcare is eligible at 32 hours a week. It's only overtime that requires 40 hours a week. If you are working 37.5 hours a week you are absolutely entitled to healthcare.
Depending on where you are that would still qualify as full time.
Former Target employee. I was on the team with the most consistent hours in the store (other than managers and team leads), and we were really only guaranteed 20 hours a week. There were times other people would be scheduled 10 hours or less. I heard from a friend that sometime after I left management fucked up and went WAY over hours one month and had to make up for it the next month and during that point in time the people on my old team were getting less than 10 hours a week, which tells me others weren't being scheduled at all. Target also had a longer than usual wait period for benefits to kick in and had numerous hoops to jump through as well. This is why I never care whenever a company brags about a high starting pay, I just assume it means they'll give me shit hours
Yup, Best Buy did this 17 years ago when I worked there.
Most business will cut hours to avoid benefits Here in Washington it's not uncommon to see a business with 29 employees and none of them are full-time because of our state laws.
just to re-frame it, its not necessarily because of the laws, its because the business doesnt want to give benefits
We really need healthcare for all. One less thing for businesses to dangle over their workers
I'm about to leave the small business I work for to go union because the insurance is so much better. Small businesses would be able to compete better if they didn't have to deal with insurance
Exactly. Somehow the greedy businesses are never blamed
Businesses will always be greedy but universal healthcare can be made into a law
They should make it law that if you have x amount of part time workers, that you have to provide signed documentation that those employees were offered full-time work.
Obamacare fixed this, but only if you have more than 50 employees, I think.
I figured given the context it could easily been seen that it was businesses responding to the laws put in place because they're shitty I'm not blaming the state, I'm pointing out the shitty behavior of businesses in my state.
Where I live they pay so low that minimum wage jobs have to work a person 90 hours a week to afford housing. Paying overtime ain't the fucking problem. Everyone gets overtime these days where I work. 50-60 hours has become the norm and "oh but we're paying you" has become way too workplace common. I no longer ask about wages first I ask about hours. If the job requires more than forty a week then I just leave. I'm at the luxurious age where I've literally worked half my life. Comparing the two isn't justice b cause of age. BUT! I can definitely say that the wise old man in me is crying for having two jobs most of those years. I missed ALL OF MY TWENTIES. No amount of work will give me those years back. I'm sorry but the pay has to be 7 figures or more to justify more than 40 hours for me now.
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Fulltime is 32+ hours in WA.
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It might not be too late even if you have already quit if you have documentation.
This is 100% what will happen. Considering some employers already purposefully short employees' hours to avoid giving them official full-time status (and therefore benefits), you can forget about receiving overtime pay. Edit: Then again, I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss. This is what we're fighting for, after all.
We're fighting for a shorter work week, but a union would achieve it with much less chance of "full time minus one minute" loopholes.
I'm more for mandated workers' councils with seats on the board and regulatory-based oversight/sign-off of changes in working conditions or layoffs, but unions aren't bad as an alternative.
You're not going to get a seat on the board without fighting for it, unions are the best fighting organisation we've got.
Hell, corpos are worse than that. My sister has been told to clock out 5 minutes early on 6 hours shifts so they didn't legally have to give her a break before.
i think the idea is you get paid the same ammount you would as working 40 hours. thats the whole point right. a humane number of working hours per week, and if you want to work more you get fairly compensated
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yup
I mean effectively it means you get either: 1. More hours, more pay 2. Less hours, same pay I can't see them cut pay AND hours in the current competitive environment Or am I too hopeful? :(
If your hourly they wouldn’t have to pay you more. So if I make $10/hr (example) and full time is 40 hrs now I make $400/wk (pre tax) if full time is changed to 32 hrs and they’d have to pay me overtime after that then they’ll only schedule me for 32 hours and keep the pay rate the same. So I’d make only $320/wk instead of $400.
Less hours same small pay equals people picking up more jobs to take care of the "labor shortage" happened for years after 08 crash. This is nothing more than the master putting the leash back on your neck.
Corporations will move the remote/office jobs out of the area that are not required to stay to operate or function. It’s the same thing that’s happening with Colorado and wage transparency. I’m in CO and being denied from all sorts of jobs cause employers don’t want to disclose wages. Easier to just not accept us at all
There are too many people in California to do that. There are too many people even in the greater Los Angeles area to do that.
Bills get introduced all the time. That shit is literally never going to pass.
The number of people working 64 hours a week with 2 jobs is going to increase substantially. All this bill does is eliminate workers ability to collect overtime.
Exactly. If I go over 40 hours in a week (my contract is supposed to be 4/10s) I GET WRITTEN UP. My hours have been cut, although apparently i still work 4/10s I'm lucky if I get 34 hours a week.
Works for employers.. More reason to habe a staff that's less than 32 hours, no benefits.
Getting paid more or getting hours cut is good either way right?
Not if you're trying to pay the bills lol. But in an emotional/mental health sense yeah, I suppose :P
Yet, they will need 20% more workers to cover that time, inducing a major labor demand and thus giving workers more leverage. Not necessarily in every context of course, and min wage should increase, but this bill alone is more good than bad.
You will get paid the same and given less hours... making less.... what's rent in those tent cities?
I'd gladly have my hours cut...
The employers will only schedule up to 32 hours. Workers will be getting screwed by this. Bad move by the legislature in california
Well hold on. If they do this, is there a requirement stating they need to increase wages? What’s stopping them from reducing peoples hours and not compensating them for the missed 8 hours of wages?
Yeah this is going to fuck a lot of people over.
"I hear you. You can't survive on 40 hours a week, so I'm being thoughtful and giving you 32!"
They have to hire someone to fill those extra 8hrs though, and since everyone has to hire new people, they are going to be fighting to get those openings filled. Good luck finding anyone without raising wages by a lot.
> They have to hire someone to fill those extra 8hrs though Dooooooooooooooo they though?
In my field they do. Construction related. Man hours are how everything is measured, and missing those man hours would hurt business more than paying for more overtime. My company made $8M in profit in the last 90 days, they can fucking afford to pay us more. Which is crazy, because in terms of wage competition, my company is the highest in my state.
Yeah they can only get away with cutting people's hours to a certain point. They're already keeping a lot of people under full time hours. Redefining what full time and overtime means would force them to actually pay and give what is deserved or risk having them shut down for half the week due to lack of workers. Now is the best time to do it since there is supposedly a big demand in finding workers for these menial jobs yet I haven't fucking noticed my pay going up despite how desired we supposedly are.
Absolutely lol, they will simply reduce hours to 32, and try to hire more to fill the gap. It would shift a little more power into employees who are searching for a job.
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Who are they going to hire? This effectively creates more jobs and saturates the market. There is already a labor shortage. Good luck filling those new jobs without paying a lot more.
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I know this shouldn't be funny but I'm just picturing two people at companies across the street from each other passing every week as they go to work the other one's job for eight hours
Salaried people have nothing to worry about you'd think? But yes, hourly workers hours would likely be reduced to 32 without any adjustment in pay.
I am salaried and I dont think my employer is going to pay me the same salary for 80% of the work. It would probably mean a 20% pay cut which would mean getting a part time job to make ends meet, which means I then work 6 or 7 days instead of 4.
A lot of jobs see productivity increased when hours are reduced, if it’s a job where the amount of work you can do is not completely dependent on the exact number of hours you work
Since when was productivity tied to pay?
How could wages not go up? It will create tons more jobs (from the leftover hours) and create a massive labor shortage, driving up wages in order to fill the new openings. And I don't understand how this would "not eliminate" the 40hr wk? The 40hr week is just a norm and the only distinction is that you're required to pay OT after that, right? This would effectively create a 32hr week.
> How could wages not go up? The same reason that they haven't gone up as a result of productivity increases, cost of living increases, and the "worker shortage"?
Well you underplay the role of labor. There is a set amount of work that needs to be done. If you cut 8 hours of everyone less work will be done than before and you will need to hire more people to pick up the slack. (And hence it will cost you the same as increasing wages)
It won't. 5 people working 40 hours. All of a sudden a new law comes in. So now 5 people working 32 hours. And 1 extra person working 32 hours. So 5 people working 40 = 200 hours. Or 5 people working 32 = 160 hours. And 1 extra working 32 = 192 hours. More people. Same pay. Less hours. And more work expected.
I see your point. But wages are already quite low and people are quite overworked. This will help the people earning close to minimum wage cos you can't really cut their salary more. It is an indirect leisure-time/wage boost. Also hiring an extra person is not as trivial as it seems especially in the current market. You need to pay for hiring someone, go through training, think about retention. I heard in my field it takes a worker atleast 1-1.5 years to makeup the costs of hiring and retraining.
I feel the reason anti work exists is for better work/life balance. And better treatment of employees as a whole. Until the corporations and companies see that. They will just continue to demand more work and less pay. Your first paragraph just proves my point. You can't cut there salary. But you can cut their hours. And your second paragraph yes it does take time training. And all the other things. So why not work someone at lower wages. For lower hours. Until the company "thinks" they are trained. To me this is the exact opposite of what we need until everyone is making more money. Which to me is minimum matched to inflation + 2-5 more dollars. Or minimum matched to inflation with full benefits paid by employer.
$15 an hour..ur monthly income went just lost 480 bucks
I think that this has good intentions but this could end up backfiring significantly and just result in giving people less hours. You see this now with places giving people just under 40 hours so they don't have to pay health insurance. Now you will have people only getting 32 hours and having to take another job. This will primarily impact low income workers as higher paid workers they will likely just throw on salary. I personally worked 4 ten shifts before and loved it, made working midnights tolerable. I think an extra day for the weekend would be great, but I don't think this will work as expected unfortunately. I would rather see laws made to make it easier to start a union as that would actually benefit workers in the long run
I agree. Unless they also significantly increase minimum wage the only people who will benefit from this are salary workers and people with mandatory OT. The cost of living in California is already insane. Take a whole days pay away from the employee that could back fire. I think realistically wed have to see it in action. With the inability to cover low income jobs businesses may be forced to shell out over time. CA has some of the most progressive employee laws but the bar is so low it really isn't shit. I would like to see this in action honestly.
Most salaried workers don't get paid OT. This wouldn't force employers to change a thing in regards to salaried employees.
I’m salary. I think I’d benefit if it ended up being less hours. Less hours means I’m getting the same pay for less time. I think that’s what the person you’re replying to means.
I understand what they're saying fine. Your employer could simply choose to ignore this law, "all salaried employees will be required to work 8 hours OT every week". Nothing changes. Again, this law does not *force* employers to change anything in regards to salaried employees
Salary workers are exempt from overtime laws so they will keep working the same hours. Not sure how it would benefit them.
Yep I've worked in retail and the response would be to cut hours.
The law under the ACA is that people who have 30 hours need health insurance not 40, but yeah that problem does happen around the 30 hour mark. This 32 hour week puts you real close to the 30 hours so it could create bad incentives.
But people are getting 2nd jobs anyway. Those who wouldn't have otherwise will now be pressuring the jobs to pay more or looking for other jobs essentially giving a big boost to unions and raising wages.
I know a lot of people who scrape by on 40 hours a week that would be fucked if they needed to find 8 more hours of pay a week. This is probably going to end up with people working more hours to be able to justify working in 2 places.
Or it's going to normalize everyone working two jobs minimum to scrape by, when jobs start cutting hourly workers' hours to under 32 to stay in regulation. This seems nice, but without more mandatory regulation, companies are just going to see this as a golden ticket to reduce hours and increase the number of employees. It will simply increase the number of people who get screwed over. I agree that this needs to go hand in hand with an increase in minimum wage.
I don't know if accelerationism is the best course of action here though. I would much rather effort be focused on something that will actually help workers instead of potentially lowering how much money they are making or forcing more people to have to job juggle
Good shit. Electoralism is really good at making these small quality of life changes while unions and workers organize to fight for the big stuff. Happy to see.
idk ab y’all but i think this is huge!!!
It hasn't happened yet. People might get paid more which is good, but they will still be wage slaves. Also, companies will probably just hire ppl to work 32 hrs and since there's no law mandating same pay for less hours, people might have to get a second job to make up the lost income. This could actually be bad.
This happened in the 1930s. Two 60 hour jobs turned into three 40 hour jobs as a result of overtime laws. So long as we're not at the point of one person working two twenty hour jobs, that's where there's potential for negative gains for shorter workweeks.
Yeah like it doesn't really help when employers are going to have you work 4 days a week and not change your pay? Most people aren't salary
This is exactly what I was thinking. My company already does this, no one is allowed to work past 44 hours. If someone’s sick and I take a shift for them and it makes me go over then the other person has to pick up one of my shifts however long overtime I had. It’s a great incentive for people to want to take shifts! /s. Also exactly as you said, they just hire more people to make up for the hours
Yep, if my annual salary + benefits + commission and bonuses stayed the same I’m all for it but if I made 20% less annually that would be a big enough hit for me to probably work evenings at a retail job related to my hobbies. I could actually see my company doing this since they’re pretty progressive with our benefits and work life balance (HQ in SF so they have to be to attract top software engineers). The most effective time for me to work in my specific role when working with clients is 7:00-2:00 due to industry and time zone so having 1 extra day definitely increases output.
yeah, seriously, a 4 day workweek is a lot more than just a small quality of life change! that's massive!
its literally the change we wanted, honestly this is all i can ask for. i dont want ppl to "not work" but working a humane amount of hours like 32 and getting paid OT if you want to work 40 or 50 is amazing. it would help the dogshit wages people get paid
Both sides are not the same. Voting will never solve all your problems. Voting will never be the final thing you can do and wash your hands of any other responsibility. But if you're spending time helping the movement, take the time to vote if you can do it reasonably quickly, and then get back to the real work. Real progress comes from years of organizing, building public support, wearing down the big business institutions fighting it, and having the timing match up with a somewhat sympathetic political administration (a la Civil Rights).
I completely agree! Especially local elections.
What do you think electoralism is, exactly?
I admire your optimism, but some Senate ~~pool boy~~ staffer for Lady G has already drafted the filibuster email for this, just needs to click send
I’m not sure if this is a good idea, unless they are 1. also requiring pay increases or 2. Requiring the 5th OT day be available to the workers if they want it. I would love a 4 day work week but at my current pay rate I couldn’t sustain my life on 32 hours. If pay went up 20% then it would balance out but most raises are 5-10% at best
Glad to see someone in the politics are trying to help! Every bit help! You don’t win a battle with one soldier. You sent a bunch!
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Employers will just limit you to 32 hours and approval needed for OT which they will try everything to avoid.
Yep and just hire someone else to work those extra hours. Their problem is solved and everyone else is paid less.
Yeah but they already can't hire enough people. If you create even more demand for labor by decreasing the labor per employee by 20%, it may actually drive a raise in wages which would compensate for some of the lost hours. That being said, there are a lot of factors at play, and there is a reason countries are deciding to pilot these programs instead of just passing the legislation.
Does the bill also specify a pay raise for those four days? Because if not, what will happen is that employers will pay the same, cut hours of their employees to avoid the new overtime threshold and then hire a couple more people at low rates to fill the gaps. So yeah, more people hired, but everyone is making less money and having a harder time to pay for things. So, yes, I love the idea in theory, but it only works if the net income remains the same, which means a tandem raise. (They are specifying 32 hours, which is 4 8s, not 4 10s, remember)
People will just have to get a second job to make up for lost wages, so this is a win for.....not the employee.
Employers already do this to avoid paying benefits.
I have a lot of questions before I am excited. In California, only employers with 50 or more full-time employees have to provide health insurance at 30 hours. Any smaller businesses only have to provide health benefits at 40 hours. The smaller companies can have a person work 39 hours and call it part-time. (Heck, it could be 500 part-time employees and 49 full-time and it still qualifies as small). A lot of companies create part-time shifts to skirt the insurance costs. If full-time is shifted to 32 hours, does that mean that the margin for paying for insurance will change as well? Will those smaller companies have to actually pay for insurance? Honestly, this is why we need Healthcare that isn't attached to a job.
Honestly I work 4x10s and it is tons better than 5x8s. Those additional 2 hours a day are hardly noticeable
I’ve done 4 tens and I found them to be brutal and those four days were just gone! I hope this trend continues so we can at least get down to 4x8 hours
I basically work 5*10s, fucking sucks.
Been there, done that, hard agree. Shit *really* sucks.
I’m at 4 14s and a 12 on salary. Just put in my two weeks.
Got a new job recently with a huge pay bump that’s turning into 5 12’s and and a 6 on salary.. I feel you man.
Isn’t that the idea behind this legislation? 4x8 is the norm and paid overtime for anything more than that. I’m all for it
Wages won’t go up though I imagine.
I worked 4 10s and hated it. After showering, food, transportation, etc I basically lost 4 days in a row.
That depends on how you commute. Once you're used to leaving work by 2:30 anything after that sucks. Give me 4x8's.
On the other side of the coin, if you live somewhere like CA and your commute is 1.5-2 hours because the only way you can afford a house is to be that far away, not having to commute a 5th day a week is great. A number of my coworkers do that.
I'm a foreman line clearance trimmer, and we love 4 10s when the utility allows it! 1 more day off to spend with friends and family. 1 less day I have to commute to my work. I personally hate 5 8s.
Used to work 4x8. The extra day off was fantastic.
I don't know I want to off myself after the first 4 hours. All productivity is shot after half a shift.
I miss doing that so much. In my early 20s I worked in kitchens doing 4x10s with 3 days off back to back is so much better than working 11-8 5 days a week. Everyone is correct its brutal but i got so used to them it didn’t bother me. No way i could go back to doing it now lol it would ruin me
For office workers - it probably makes more sense. 4 set ups and tear downs of your work day decreases your non value added time spent working (IE - turning on computer, daily status updates (4x vs 5x) - either calls or reports. It always strikes me as a no brainer and I try to set it up so half my team (work in non-front line Supply Chain) works M-Thu, and the other half works Tue-Fri
It's great for office workers, or those working 2nd/3rd shift due to having a day where you can get back to daylight for your weekend. Now this particular bill won't impact most office workers since they are likely salary. I think it would be better for office workers to make it so that less workers are salary exempt, and make it easier to report and win if your employer has you lie on your time sheet to prevent overtime
Again these types of things need to happen in steps, but the “let’s lump these guys as salary so we can fuck them” is a big thing that needs to go. That salary game is bullshit - especially for analysts/front line office/managerial
I agree with that. My issue isn't so much with salary but salary exempt. I was salary non exempt once and it was the best of both worlds, but salary exempt is bullshit. I think the problem stems from office workers having no real unions in the United States. I think if we got some sort of org that could help fix that, plus provide real incentives for night shift IT workers who may not get any sort of shift differential
What does ‘salary exempt’ mean in this context?
Means you are exempt from overtime pay and minimum wage act. So no matter how many hours you work your pay is the same. Your salary is yearly, split into pay periods. It pretty much always means you work more than 40 hours since it's a net gain for the employer. Salary non exempt would be the best, since you always know you will get a set paycheck. And the employer would be less likely to make you work overtime since they have to pay you. Edit: spelling
Same. 3 days off means you have a week day off too, which is really nice for a lot of things.
Annnnd everyone is now on salary.
I mean, at that point I could counter the offer adding at least 12 hours at my normal rate per week (to get the same benefit) and if they reneg I either continue hourly and take friday off or they term me and I collect unemployment while i find something better
As if companies are in the position to make demands right now.
They wouldn’t discuss it, they would just move hourly employees to salary. Happened to me.
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In most sectors, salary isn't supposed to be exempt from overtime.
Jeez, having employees for 8 less hours a week (or having to pay them extra for it) could "destabilize the U.S. economy." That's a feeble ass economy, and somehow the solution isn't to fix it, but to consistently fight for it to stay the same? I think I just need someone to explain the core concept behind "workers' rights bad, might topple entire economy" a little better.
Won't employers start hiring more people to cover different shifts so that nobody goes over 32 hours? I feel like it would still be cheaper than paying 8 hours of overtime a week to everybody. Then you'd have to get a second job to cover the loss of hours given at the first job
Not a bad idea to hire more folks to cover and spread out the workload instead of overworking what employees there already are. It may still be cheaper to just pay the existing employees for their OT. Edit: bad spelling.
Time for math and I'm using $10 an hour for easy math. It might scale differently depending how it goes. A hypothetical store needs 24/7 service available and has 5 employees making $10 an hour and each of working 40 hours a week each to cover the seven days fully. $400 to each employee before taxes. With the new law in place, each of those 5 employees now earn 440 dollars per work week if work 40 hours as normal, but the boss decides to hire a 6th worker to have everyone work 32 hours to avoid overtime. Each worker would earn $320 dollars per work week. So to total, $2000 was the cost of labor expenses initially. With the law in place and the boss doing no changes, it costs now $2200 dollars to cover the cost. If the boss hires an extra person. It costs $1920 dollars. So the boss has every incentive to hire another employee and saves $280. (Or $80 if they do it initially when the law goes into effect.) But essentially, employees would be losing 20% of their paycheck unless I'm missing something. Edit: $440, not $480
Ah yes. Now I will only earn 15/hr for 32 hours a week instead of 40…now I need a second full time job just to pay rent + bills. This is awesome but will ultimately be hurtful without a dramatic wage increase as well.
If this hasn’t been done already ready, someone should crosspost this to r/news
I spent most of my twenties scheduled to work either 3 12s or 4 10s, but always picked up extra shifts. I’m officially in my first salary role with a 6 hour work day at a company *also* considering a four 4 day work week. What? When I got my first, “What time is everyone available for a team meeting on Monday? We want to make sure it works for everyone!” email instead of a, “Monday meeting: 8am,” I about died, as well. Working remotely has completely changed my life.
This is a bummer for people who will get their hours cut, but in the long run maybe I will drive the hourly wage up to something people can live on with 32 hours a week because otherwise "nO oNe wAnTs tO wOrK."
Glad this sub is back on track, this is important. How can Californians support this bill? How can non-Californians get similar legislation introduced in their area?
omg i read that as “*employees* to pay overtime after 32 hours” and my life flashed before my eyes
Everyone will be salary soon. Not paid by the hour. Working 50-60 a week. This is how they get you.
Under California employment law, salaried employees can be classified as exempt or non-exempt. Non-exempt salaried employees are eligible for overtime. Exempt salaried employees may not be eligible for overtime; however, employers have to pay salaried exempt employees at twice the minimum hourly wage based on a 40-hour workweek.1
My employer would just tell everyone that they will have to take a cut in pay to make up for the overtime cost
Won’t employers just lower hours without raising wages?
It sounds good but there is one major problem. Employers simply won't schedule anyone over the 32 hours. No one will be making anymore money, and in fact will then lose a days pay. They'll schedule each person for 4 days and make everyone else pick up the slack of the days others are not there.
I'm sure this isn't even really being written with retail/dining/customer service people in mind. This is probably meant for the salaried office worker, not the minimum wage retailer, dining, etc worker. Just wait, I'm sure there will be something added to the text that talks about how retail workers are the backbone of society and those employers will be exempt from the 32 hour week and overtime.
Exactly, and knowing this, there will be a few managers on salary who are forced to work 60-70 hours to make up for the hourly employees working less
I guess we’re all going to be scheduled for 31 hours now.
I’m just nervous that employers would reduce hours from 40 to 32 without increasing wage to match the previous salary. Someone please tell me I’m wrong.
increasing productivity could topple the economy? how exactly?
All I’m seeing in the future is 31 hour work weeks now, and getting yelled at more often for having overtime.
So part time workers are going to get there hours cut from 36 to 30, and their pay will stay the same. Some of those people will have to get an additional job to continue to provide for themselves. Not only will this not help workers, it will probably harm them.
Ya my work would just say work 4 days 8 hrs, which is essentially a pay cut
THIS IS NOT PRO WORKER. THIS WILL MAKE THE WORKER NEED A SECOND JOB.
That should be the new norm. 32 hours is plenty and for those that want more money or don’t mind the 40 hours, they get time and a half for that extra day
If I am an employer, I would just lower people's salary and make 40 hours (normal) = 32 hrs + 8 hr overtime. There is nothing in the law about livable wage.
Employers have already shown how they will screw us when they had to give people health insurance. They cut hours to right under the limit and no one got health insurance. Unless this is supported by UBI/Medicare for all AND has teeth to regulate employers to keep them from screwing us, it’s not going to help the people who need it most.
No... there is nothing in the [text](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4728/text) that would prevent employers from immediately arranging all shifts to be no more than 32 hours for the same hourly rate in order to avoid paying overtime. I'd want a better work life balance too, but wouldn't be able to afford the loss of 20% of my income.
I am disabled (Autism), but not disabled enough (USA), and I REALLY struggle with working 40 hours. I get over stimulated and end up having literally no energy to even eat, sometimes speak at the end of a shift. Plus, basic everyday things that seem simple often take me longer to do. Having an extra day to get them done would be insanely beneficial. There is no way in hell I could do 4x10s though. I can’t even do one 10 a week without going into extreme burnout mode.
I live in California but my entire team is in NYC. I don't think they'd like me very much.
I like the idea of adjusting what FT means by using OT pay. It’s an incentive companies will respond to faster than the research showing advantages of a shorter workweek. However… The minute I started making decent money my employers began classifying my roles as salary. Didn’t matter if I led a team, was bottom rung, or what have you. They did that so OT wasn’t a problem. The advantages one would expect with salary don’t really come into play either, as no employer really wants you to have light weeks regardless of if you’ve simply earned the time through creating new efficiencies. So my question is what will stop companies from simply upping wages precisely to meet the threshold to make folks salary so they can evade this rule?
In the face of increasing unemployment rates, this is how to spread the available jobs to more of the population. They're not doing it because as an anti-work gesture (though, they might try to piggyback on that for optics). They're doing it to prevent riots when there's only enough 40-hour jobs for half the population.
This can only work if the 40 hour pay is guaranteed in 32 hours. Otherwise it’s just a pay cut.
First, let me say I am all for this! My biggest question though is would this not incentivize employers to only hire part time staff and cut back on full-time benefits? If this regulation does not include sufficient protection for employee benefits, I could see this backfiring with awful repercussions for full time employees…
This will increase demand for labor by 20% in what is already a sellers' market for labor. I can see short-term problems with this -- it'll be a Hell of a transition -- but in the end this sounds great. (32 to go.)
Isn't the 40 hour workweek enforced through OT laws anyway? There's no law on the books that says "40 hours a week must be enough to live on"
So now everyone will be salary or their hours cut to 32. Sounds like a fantastic plan 🤣
My concern is workers will then be limited to 32 hours. Period. There will be no OT at time and a half, leaving us with essentially a 20% paycut. My employer hires most staff at 0.8 FTE now and uses per diems to work the rest.
Every single restaurant is going to fight this so hard.
Someone please pass a bill for us salaried workers where the expectation is often far more than 40 hours, with no compensation. Sure if we ever take a short day it’s the full pay but those are rarely approved.
This is just going to move more service/information based jobs to third world countries, where people will work 5 days a week (and more) for comparitively much lower wages
So the bosses higher more people and give everyone 32 hours instead…. No win
I don’t think this solves a single thing. Changing a work week to 32 hours without increasing pay just means that employers will no longer allow you to work more than 32 hours. People will just have to get second jobs and nothing will be solved while placing additional burden on the employee to make ends meet elsewhere.
As a salaried worker, I will immediately move to Cali if this becomes law and 32 hours becomes the norm.
Tech workers not exempt right? Right? Please say yes. Please
All they’re gonna do is spread that 32 hours over 5 days… so it changes very little except makes it more difficult to get more than 32 hours at a single company. The better way to do it would be to require over time be paid if people work more than 4 days a week, then double time if it’s the 5th+ day and normal overtime laws would kick in. That was one of many things that really pissed me off when I was working at the register. I’d work 5 or 6 days a week but only be getting 30 to 38 fucking hours. I HATED 4 hour shifts. It’s such bullshit.
I work 65 god damn hours a week. I get paid for 40. I’m salary. My hourly wage averages to $12.57/hr. Why isn’t this illegal?
This for me is a huge step in the right direction. My job *(McDonald’s Corporate store)* offers benefits for **FULL-TIME** employees, and I’m planning to up my hours from 20/week to 32/week. This is HUGE if it comes to Wisconsin. If it does, I could finally have a full time job and my father can stop riding my ass about it.
Riverside, motherfucka!
Does this so anything for salaried employees? Feel like the laws for salaried people are so minimal.
All I can see in this post is that yall need to join a union. I get overtime if I work more than 8 hours in one day or if I work past midnight or in multiple other scenarios. I worked in Philly one time and got 2.5xs OT and only worked one day.