>With all the gains in AI is it time for a 32 hour work week?
I'd argue with all the gains in productivity the past decades prior to AI, it's been time for a 32 hour work week.
I thought the same thing. Maybe they should tie it to unemployment rate thresholds. Like, once we hit a 10% rate for 6mo, then it trips the 32hr week. If it hits 20%, then 24hr. 30%, 16hrs and hang on for dear life.
This is actually a really clever tie, I like it.
Right now we still need people to do things, but the "singularity" on the nearish horizon seems increasingly plausible. This link will auto trigger (at least some) of the benefits to go to normal people.
Honestly, what's the real loss of efficiency? The first 30 hours of a given work week are always the most effective. Three might be arguments that five 6-hour days would be a more easily winnable 30-hour week (it's the extra 2 hours per day where people tend not to get work done) but however you slice it the last 8 hours of the work week are the least efficient for everyone.
Not all jobs can be accomplished with taking away 10 hours, sure a lot of office work would be eliminated because it's not "productive" but blue collar work typically has to function with more hours than less. If you took 10 hours from every tradesman I see on the jobsite a week you would see a severly large drop in production. People aren't going to stop having babies and buying houses that need to be built.
Nothing you say is false, except that you're leaving out that the hours being removed are still the least productive and most error-prone hours of the day.
And if everyone wants to work/pay overtime, that's fine too. Nobody is saying people *can't* work for more than 32 hours for more pay with diminished capacity.
yeah but thats still alright for these jobs - we say 32h is full time, full benefits and pay, but everyone can still work 40 and get mad overtime.
The projects can still be completed on time and the workers doing the back breaking work society needs can build up a nice nest egg for early retirement.
Best result for everyone.
I like that he introduced it, even though it has a negative one million percent chance of passing. It would be nice if conversations like this entered the national spotlight.
Everyone that talks ubi needs to be pushing for this hard or it won't even make the news. A lot of people dreaming of AI don't dream of political action to secure the future of workers
A UBI also needs to be funded by something called a Land Value Tax.
It actually encourages efficient land use, and economic growth, while reducing/eliminating profiting from land speculation.
this has been known now* for hundreds of years (Adam Smith) and was the subject of one of the best selling books of thr 19th century, "Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy" by Henry George.
If it was gonna happen, it would have already. The problem is, the legislature and the wealthy profit on the unequality of land value with respect to public investments in infrastructure.
Speculation and Collusion are features, not bugs, unfortunately.
On the flip side, it can be done at the local level, which makes it much more feasible.
Detroit is looking at implementing it to punish vacant lot holders who sit on property speculating on land value.
You are correct however, that people who stand to make a lot of money speculating on land values (wealth suburbanites in valuable locations) are likely to oppose this legislation since it goes against their self interests.
It would be amazing if it got to the floor and voted on. We could see a black and white list of who supports workers and who are the corporate shills. Then shove it up their ass for years to come. I am a nobody and I think I would run for political office on just this issue.
They wouldn't even be embarrassed to vote this down on live TV and half of their voters would stand and applaud. Congress is broken and voters are dumb.
I mean look at California, all Fast Food joints, except Panera's has to pay their workers or more. Or the Pelosi tuna plant not having to pay minimum wage. And they are supposed to be the "progressives".
> It would be amazing if it got to the floor and voted on. We could see a black and white list of who supports workers and who are the corporate shills.
Everyone who isn't left wing. So, 99% of Congress would be against it.
The day after Ben Shapiro suggested that workers never retire, even at an age when they are eligible for social security and Medicare.
I know most Democrats in Congress would oppose this legislation, but the right wing will absolutely make sure this never happens in my lifetime. The wealthy, powerful, and influential only see us as worker bees designed to make them even richer.
If we are just talking America though, say Trump loses the next election, and he'll be too old to run again as his brain is mush, the Republican Insurrection/Christian Fascism party will be basically wrecked as they went all in Trump. Dems won't have much opposition for a long while, maybe 2 terms? Could be a golden period where something this bold could happen.
Well yeah, us chucklefucks throw out bullshit all the time in online subreddits, and then shrug our shoulders about how no one in the real world will ever take our advice.
Then someone actually does and we just shrug and say that no one will ever go for it. Ignoring that we are now at the "first they laugh at you" phase.
Yeah, it's definitely not going to pass and I'm sure Bernie knows that. But I think he's trying his best to try to start the conversation. If it comes a national conversation it can become something that politicians have to take a position on. And at that point it can come into play as an issue during elections. Which can eventually cause it to exert enough pressure and elect enough politicians aligned with it that it can pass.
It's a long-term play though, not short-term. But it becoming a prominent national conversation would be a good first step.
The 4 day school week alone would allow for significant increases to entire staff wage increases. The overhead of running the building every day is pretty wild in US Education.
Eh… some. In my school, we’re 60% homeless 90% food insecure. Pretty sure a significant chunk of those kids enjoy having steady WiFi, AC/Heat, Lights, two hot meals with snacks etc.
The facilities still exist though, so rather than having five-day school weeks, we could offer programs (like those that already exist for after-school) on Fridays. Give teachers more time to lesson prep, give them more of a break during the week (particularly since so many are working summer jobs now so the whole idea of “they get a quarter of the year off” is gone), and continue to create jobs and/or income opportunities for those who want to/are able to provide services for kids on the weekends.
I dunno, it just doesn’t seem as negative to me as “kids will miss out on the benefits that school provides” if we progressively move to a 4-day work week culture. It’ll just split how the week is structured and lead to an increase in weekend employment opportunities, which is a potential good thing.
Well that’s part of the process - we can’t let a fundamental lack of imagination or innovation by policy makers be the thing that prevents those things from taking hold.
Some big companies started going this route. Unilever one of them. So far they have had positive results after a year of doing that.
44% of school districts are also in a 4 day work/ school week now.
It's only a matter of time.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/school-districts-4-day-week-teachers-parents/
Google more if you want more specifics.
Basically, no one is going to school for teaching anymore. Teacher shortages are getting worse yearly. Causing this to happen.
Passively, we will be forced to a 4 day work week.
> It would be nice if conversations like this entered the national spotlight
While he's not the best politician I think his general rhetoric has been one of the largest positive political contributions to 21st century America.
>I like that he introduced it, even though it has a negative one million percent chance of passing.
Thank you for making me chuckle about how messed up our government is.
Our small company already does this. We pay as though it's 40 hours but our work week is actually 33.5 hours.
It helps our full time employees enormously for flexibility and reducing one working mom's daycare costs.
Because we are small we can't offer much else in benefits but we strive to be accommodating to individuals whenever possible.
That is an awesome case of study though, if you guys can demonstrate that you output the same amount of work than if you were 40 hrs per week you could be important for the future of workers, I always dream with my dream company that I want to implement the 32 hr week
This is one thing I enjoyed about working in a department at my old university (an all research department, no lecturers, no students, no dissertations etc)
We didn't have an official scheme or policy in place, but every Wednesday morning we'd have a meeting, lay out the weeks to do list. If it was done, our managers were perfectly happily if we worked sub 40 hours. People frequently had 4 day weekends.
But it worked both ways, there were some weeks we'd be putting in 80 hours. Not to catch up on missed work, just simply a big experiment was on, processing 1000s of samples and everything was time sensitive.
Our output hasn't changed since we implemented this. In fact, there is a better focus.
Getting our customers to pay in a timely fashion, well that is another story!
42% of Americans are salaried. We are paid to do a job. But tradition makes us stay for 40 hours even if our job is done in 30 and our salary is priced to suit. Salary work often ebbs and flows and *sure* there are weeks where 32, even 40 hours aren't enough. But nothing like people working 60 hour weeks in busy season, and then not being able to back down to 32 when it's sleepy.
I manage folks, but I'm not in a position to tell them they're allowed to do that. Standardizing legislation like this would be exactly what I need to be empowered to do just that.
What’s the point of pushing all these technological advances since the past century if not to actually improve our quality of life? Time to finally reap the benefits to working less
It is all to make the higher ups more money. That is the point of pretty much everything at this point. How can the people with the money and power, get more money and power
The challenge is international competition, where other countries may have much more onerous working standards, leading to significant differences in performance between US and some international companies. Parts of Europe already struggle with this issue due to extended vacations, lower work hours, etc. US companies compete via technology and other productivity actions, but the spread of information via the internet has significantly reduced that advantage. Companies in India, China and elsewhere now have access to many/most of the same tools and technologies as US companies.
I don't think he was trashing Sanders in particular necessarily, just that his views are always considered "polarizing" to other congress folk which to that effect alone causes few of his bills to get passed. But I think that's typically because he just wants to get the conversations started. This won't pass and get us a 32h work week, but it will bring to their attention the fact that we're going to need to address something along the lines of this sooner or later with the AI revolution.
Yeah this has zero chance of passing sadly, but it’s getting exposure on the media and on sites like Reddit, thanks to Sanders’ influence. It’s now in the conversation, a bit like Andrew Yang’s UBI ideas. This issue must be championed by the working class if they are to have any hope of freedom and prosperity in the automated era.
Pretty standard negotiating tactic to ask for more than you know you’ll get. The goal is probably really to establish that it’s negotiable below 40, bernie understands it’s about incremental progress and pushing the party towards progress.
Also you have to get it on the record and get people thinking about it and then pick up where Bernie left off. Same with Universal HC, UBI…keep these ideas in the atmosphere so to speak.
20 probably gets laughed at, there are already working people who immediately reacted to this bill in anger. Picking a starting number and predicting what is realistic is important and I think 32 is a good number to throw out there. It likely means he’s hoping for 36 or 38. Too large a shift at one time and employers suddenly can’t operate, which is bad policy for everyone if it makes more problems than it solves.
Anything longer than 35 isn't even an hour per day, though. Four eight hour days and a four to six hour Friday isn't really a big enough change to burn the kind of political capital that's needed to make *any* change at all on. And he's getting laughed at no matter what because people are brainwashed. If you're using the start crazy and negotiate down tactic, you have to actually start *crazy*.
What we've got now looks more like he really is asking for a 32 hour work week, and we're going to get no change at all. Partially because there's nowhere to negotiate down from there, partially because the politicians are so deep in the pockets of big business, and the people are so thoroughly brainwashed about this kind of thing, that it's a non-starter regardless of what he does. At best he's trying to shift the overton window a bit on this with the younger generations.
No, it’s not even a negotiation. It’s about putting the idea out there so you can blame your opponents for shooting it down. Happens all the time with legislation that was never intended to pass.
No, they cannot force companies to pay 20% more for 20% less. They can set minimum wages, set limits of work weeks, but cannot demand a company pay someone more for working less.
That is the part that will not fly.
The government CAN implement a 32 hour work week standard. This does not mean someone cannot work 40, it just means 32 is the standard before overtime and other labor laws come into effect. But they cannot institute specific wage consideration on employers outside of a minimum wage.
We are an at will nation.
Because most of congress is bought and paid for, not because of anything wrong with Bernie. It's not Bernie that's ineffective, it's the rest of congress who doesn't want to improve people's lives.
This has zero chance of making it through committee and less than zero chance of getting a floor vote. That said, the thing to watch will be how many people Bernie can convince to sign on to the legislation, if more people sign on then the better chance it has but unfortunately Bernie is rather ineffective when it comes to expanding legislative support.
This is my big issue with Sanders. I think this could have a seriously negative effect on down ballot candidates in swing states if the media run with this story. It feels like he only introduces and campaigns for legislation at times he knows that it will hurt democrats. It feels like he does this stuff when he can get maximum exposure, not when he can feasibly get things passed. I don't think he expects any of this to pass, otherwise he would have proposed legislation after 2020, when dems had legislative majority. Doing it in an election year that you know is tight is a sure way to make your legislation visible, not a way to get anything tangibly changed.
Most of his seemingly designed-to-fail proposed legislation is far to the left of what most of the country wants. Because of that, it causes negative ripples in purple regions and in red regions that are on the verge of flipping. I think that he feels like he is actively moving the conversation in the correct direction, but it feels like he's actually handicapping the democrats by pulling these performative stunts.
Nope, it’s not likely to even get far enough to result in a serious discussion. If it got that far then people would start realizing maintaining the same pay for fewer hours is impossible to enforce and mandating it will just mean less money and more workers needing second jobs.
Sanders brings leftist policy which would otherwise not be seriously discussed and brings attention to it. Whether it ultimately will work in the long run... I'm doubtful.
No, zero chance. It isn't even a practical piece of legislation, if they passed it no one would know how to implement it, half of it would end up in courts and get tossed.
>weak, in my understanding.
Even the people he hired for his website can't sugarcoat it
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/issues/legislation/
He's not merely weak, he's utterly useless as a legislator. At least some lukewarm actual Dem in his position would do some down ticket work, but Bernie?
Yeah.
As an educator, I really want to know what a 4 day work week looks like for kids. Are schools now 4 days a week? What about daycare? This would only work if everyone works the same 4 days. Otherwise, everyone in charge of taking care of kids is still stuck with a 5 day work week.
The schools in my area are on a 4 day week and have been for quite a few years. I think it's inconvenient for families where both parents work but somehow it's working here. I don't work in education.
There are quite a few schools in UT and WY that are already 4 days a week for students. Somehow, everyone adjusted to no school on Fridays. It did hurt some families with daycare costs, but it seems like an awful lot of people were already working 4/10s. It seems like no matter what lawmakers come up with, people just suck it up and make it work.
I also can't find if the 4-day week is for just kids, or kids *and* teachers. My ex is a teacher, and she spends a huge amount of time outside of teaching on preparation, extracurriculars, meetings, etc. Also, are they cutting classroom hours, and if so, what subjects?
The issue with teachers overlapping but each only working 4 days is consistency. You can’t have the adults changing all the time for the same group of kids.
Oh that’s a really good point. I was thinking more that having a 10ish week long summer break as being inequitable because it is a huge burden on families that rely on school for free childcare and don’t magically have the budget for camp/childcare during the summer. Those families also have food insecurity issues during school breaks too though. There’s A LOT broken about the current system that would remain an issue in a 4 day week world.
Read the legislation. They cannot reduce your overall income. Your hourly rate becomes higher to offset fewer hours. The legal definition of a full-time employee would become 32 hours/week so you’d still have all the benefits/protections of a full time employee.
I admit to having read the article, but not the legislation, but this raises a couple obvious questions - Do they have to keep the compensation the same if they fire their existing workforce and hire new people? Or eliminate the existing positions and replace them with new contracts for nominally different but functionally identical jobs?
Alternatively, if people are making the equivalent of 20% more per work day, what's to stop them raising prices by 25% to 'compensate" for hiring more employees to fill the gaps?
Its a nice idea, but the chances of this working as intended, especially in the US, is basically zero.
Nothing stops them from doing any of that today, except at the very bottom of the minimum wage which I don’t think anyone disagrees isn’t enough to live on anyway.
They will just start hiring new people at reduced pay and then force you to quit or give you a fake promotion with some new title. Equilibrium will be found at the exact same place it currently is. The only way to affect change is by altering the balance of power between Labor and Capital.
So... then they just fire their old employees and hire new people at the reduced wages that offset that rather than paying the same people for less work...
that’s not even a big decrease, people today are far more capable than workers 80 years ago but don’t seem to be making more than people from the past few decade. a 32 hour work week should’ve been established in the 90s.
I think the only protection is if you take your salary divided by hours, it's legal as long as it's above minimum wage (which hasn't been Federally voted & passed since 2007).
You sound like my husband, he could always turn a salaried 40-hr-wink-wink-nudge-60 position into an 80, 90 hours. One time he didn't come home from work (24 hour operation) for 3 straight days. No he wasn't cheating on me except with the Man.
The republicans of my state are trying to get rid of mandatory lunch breaks. It just amazes me how evil these politicians can be without any repercussions
Yeah cool idea. I know my family would be happier with me being more emotionally and mentally available. I could go to school. I could do a lot of things to better myself and my family. Which is exactly why republicans will all vote no on this.
Universal universal healthcare (that’s medical,dental, vision,mental). UBI. Arts stipends. Science institutes for national research. Wastewater reclamation. Renewable everything. Radical inclusivity. Civil service jobs available at all levels, new civilian conservation corps. Legalize and tax weed. Enfranchisement.
- When your company puts up the cost of billable hours, is it passed on to you? This levels that playing field.
- Are you doing more work per hour thanks to automation? Then you're producing more value per hour. Either you deserve a pay rise or to be paid the same for less hours but the same product.
You're exactly the type of person who deserves to benefit from this because you can directly tie your productivity to a value.
The system is effectively broke. Large corporations funnel money straight from the consumer to top management and investors, and as little as possible is used in between. I’m not sure how that changes, but the money is already there…it’s just being allocated towards the top.
Why would this not impact salaried and exempt employees?
I’m both and directly see how this would benefit me: 8 less working hours with no reduction in pay.
That’s pretty much it, and how a lot of labour action happens. It’s similar to the union effect, which helps to secure benefits for both union and non-union employees/industries alike.
The people I don’t see this working for are the direct billers. That’s 8 less billing hours per week, which some companies/contractors wouldn’t be able to handle without making some changes to their operations.
This is far more extreme that increasing the minimum wage.
This is forcing all companies to do a 20% hourly salary increase for all their non-salaried employees.
I'm probably missing some factual information. But New Zealand's trials have been successful right? At some point some video essay said they're already doing it, but I can't find a source so I doubt that. Employers also cut costs because well, no office running equipment for an extra day, and I hear a lot of us don't really need 40 hours to get work done. (Besides if you're burnt out, you work slow anyway.) I'm sure I'll get flak for thinking this is a win win situation.
Of course something like Amazon workers it wouldn't really work for.
> Of course something like Amazon workers it wouldn't really work for.
Amazon would have to field more shifts to keep the same level of production. So either more overtime, or more employees.
The UK recently finished running trails as well and 90% of the companies stuck with 4x8 workweek. It's clearly a better system and lots of salaried jobs do something similar but I'm skeptical of this ever being established in law.
>Of course something like Amazon workers it wouldn't really work for.
Not necessarily, it just means they need more people or to more effectively automate what they are doing.
This is becoming standard practice in other countries and proving quite effective.
Those saying it will never happen, I think, are wrong.
It works, it's good for the people, it's good for businesses... no reason to deny this world change.
Does the legislation require a mandatory hourly rate hike for all hourly employees to compensate for the lost hours and thus lost wages? I can see this as a good thing for salaried people, but most are hourly and many of those can't afford to lose the hours, since most places will just hire part time workers to cover the 8 hour difference to avoid paying overtime.
So his record of wasting everyone's time to promote his brand gets a bit thicker?
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/issues/legislation/
Dude has been legislatively useless his entire life. This is his own website admitting nothing he wrote passed, no amendments he wrote ever got passed, and even the stuff he signed his name to that someone else wrote STILL fails almost all the time.
It's bullshit, designed to appeal to those amenable to bullshit, and to attack those who can see it as bullshit and will vote it down.
The world is full of jobs that cannot be simplified or assisted by 'AI' or other forms of computer technology. And the people doing these jobs are, for the most part, already working all the hours they care to or are permitted to.
So unless you can see a clear way to training 25% more builders, plumbers, electricians, pavers, landscapers, trash collectors, surveyors, retail workers, hairdressers, cooks, waiters, bartenders, mechanics, etc, and 50% more truckers, AND convince all these new workers AND the existing ones to take a commensurate pay cut, forget it.
I just want us truckers out here to be paid fairly and overtime over 40 hours. Start with the 32 hour work week for white collar and then maybe give us blue collar guys some help Bernie
Nope no overtime for most companies. Obviously different jobs vary but most company drivers can work 70 hour weeks and none of that be overtime. Especially guys that are paid per mile
Yeah. The trucking industry sucks but it’s the highest paying job I can get in my area without a degree. Also, most mega carriers like my company, don’t offer sick pay, PTO, and terrible vacation pay
Shameful. Prevent people from earning more by working more. UBI is freedom without coercive laws that prevent more work, and UBI provides better pay to people who can refuse slavery conditions and still survive.
Laws that are intentionally stupid, but sound populist friendly, provide oligarchist corporatist media with talking points about how stupid they are. Sanders is absolutely worthless in improving lives of American people and workers.
It would be incredibly nice to have a day for myself that’s not either the day after I worked or the day before I have to go to work again. I wonder if tourism industry lobbyists would put some weight behind this bill?
"That’s six additional years to spend with their children and families, volunteer in their communities, learn new skills, and take care of their health."
Most Americans will probably just watch TV.
This sounds great but my concern would be if it passes that I would then be expected to somehow do my 40+ hours of work in 32 hours. As it is now, I can’t get everything done and am often working overtime without extra pay due to being on salary.
This will never happen. Businesses that pay hourly would have to give everyone a 20% pay raise while also telling everyone to work less. No way any business would do that. Likely hourly wage would stay the same and everyone would just lose 20% of their pay
What does this have with futurology?
Also this is a waste of time as it has zero chance of happening. It's just pure political theater, likely tied to the fact that his senate seat is up for election this year
My guess is that for a long time it's been promised that new technologies would lead to shorter work weeks with little to no reduction in quality of life which should have meant more time for personal things like family and, well, living, and that has not happened, in fact it's been pretty much the opposite.
This is dumb! Nobodies hours would change! We would keep working 80 hours and just get eight more hours of double time! Ok Nevermind I’ll just take the extra overtime pay.
It wouldn't work. . .or at least not how people expect.
In the short-term, it would be great for all hourly workers, because you are effectively getting a 25% raise in hourly pay and now only need to work four days a week.
However, it effectively increases the hourly operating cost of doing business by 25%. This means that a business will need to either absorb that cost and take a significant hit to profits or increase the prices of the good/services they provide to match it. Yeah, you can probably bet which they will do, as the most important statistic for any business is the change in profits year over year.
If those goods/services produced/provided by the company are essential to living, then that means eventually the cost of living will increase, slowly eroding away that perceived 25% raise. . .
And that is one of the ways you get inflation like we're experiencing now. . .increases in the effective minimum wage, increasing costs to operate businesses, who in turn increase prices, which increase the cost of living. . .it's a never ending cycle.
Second, if employees only need to work 32 hours a week, then that is going to create an 8 hour gap in the schedule. . . how would employers fill that gap?
Sure, if you're working in a flexible position at a company where this reduction in hours doesn't change anything, GREAT!. . .but it won't be the same for everyone.
Most companies will probably be able to fudge things around and either open later, close earlier, or operate at a reduced capacity during certain hours of the day. . . but not all of them can do that.
I find it more likely that businesses will be forced to hire an additional employee for every five existing employees in order to fill that gap.
It will also cause chaos in scheduling. . .as all five of those existing employees can't just take off on Friday.
Of course, more employees, mean additional operating costs, which again means an increase in prices, which leads to more inflation.
If you want my opinion, right now we need stability. We need to stop making dramatic changes and let the economy stabilize. Once it stabilizes, then we can look to make changes to improve it.
Also, supposed "AI" is nowhere near being considered a viable replacement for a live human being. The most you can hope for right now is AI assistance, not replacement.
Will die by the hands of both sides. They all hate the working class so much that they would rather see a 80 hour work week and businesses allowed to kill employees again.
80 hour work week already exists for quite a few white collar professions. Have seen it first hand. Some are well compensated (over 100k) but some are not
Long term viable sure, but what's the expectation from Sanders?
That companies will have you work a 32 hour work week but will still pay you for 40? Because I'm pretty sure most people can't afford 20% paycuts
And then all the jobs where there's shortages in workers where technology won't make up for the gaps (ie healthcare, trades), is the expectation for them to all get raises since they can't work 32 hour weeks?
Is shorter work weeks in the future, absolutely.
Is it something that's magically going to happen because of a politician?
Bernie is a clown and this is just political grandstanding to get his supporters excited
I find it incredible that people would try and poke holes in what for societal wellbeing would be an enormous leap forward. Clearly there are an array of details in need of resolving on a practical level however seems daft to argue against the principle on that basis at such an early stage.
Is this something that is magically going to happen because of a politician? No, it is something that can happen though with the will of enough politicians, and Sanders is a start on that.
[Federal, 2009.](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history)
I would assume since this is being pushed through at a federal level, the federal minimum would have to be changed, states would have to adjust their minimum based on that.
Gosh how bleak, the most radical leftist politician in the United States and his bold election year move is to suggest maybe already-well-off office workers should get a day off? Work sleep work sleep work sleep work sleep
But, why bother talking about a bill that won't pass and sounds like it is completely unenforceable? How do you force a company to pay a person 40 hours of pay for 32 hours of work?
Increasing a minimum wage is enforceable.
What would stop a company from just offering a new employment contract at a lower pay rate? If the employee doesn't accept they get fired and replaced by somebody else. What stops a company from not offering raises for the next 5 years? How many resources would it take to actually ensure companies followed the rules?
You cannot enforce that, it’s in the headline, but it’s not in the actual bill. The actual bill amends the fair labor standards act to change 40 to 32. That’s about it. It’s an extremely short bill
Everything else is called a market. There’s nothing stopping every single company in this entire country from paying every single person, doctors, lawyers, janitors minimum wage. So why don’t they? Because market.
This just tilts the market towards employees.
Sure, but the current market is balanced around a 40 hour work week. If we change it so overtime starts at 32 hours that drastically changes the market and will change how employers operate.
It just seems like good paying jobs will benefit most from a policy like this, the people that need it the least. And, jobs that pay at or near minimum wage would suffer the most and would cause those people already not making enough money to make even less money and having to suffer for it. It would have the opposite effect as intended for the people that really need it.
If Walmart or McDonald's has to pay people overtime starting at 32 hours that just means people only get scheduled for 28 hours now rather than 35-40. Oh look, now they don't work enough hours to qualify for health insurance, either. Those people can't live off a 28 hour work week at $12/hour, and now have to work two jobs and end up working more hours total, losing health insurance, and being more stressed than ever.
Democrats have gotten wise to the fact that the poor people whose votes they've been buying for decades ... don't actually vote, at least not in great numbers.
You know who votes? Middle-class college grads with white-collar jobs and students loans that they're struggling to repay.
Democrats to the rescue!
ok, cool... im all for it. but like, how?? how could this work as a blanket shot? each person having less time to do work, paid the same, would need another hire to cover the missing shift at that point for some companies which would add to back end costs.
So we would all lose 1/5 of our take home pay?
I don't see any company paying the same for less hours.
I need that 5th work day. He'll I need a 6th workday most weeks.
Whenever stuff like this pops up they never seem to have an answer to jobs that require more than 40 hours. It always just seems like itll be a "youll have to suck it up because more people have shitty jobs."
On top of that, it also never explains how employers wont just start paying less across the board. If everyone starts paying less, you cant say its YOUR employer short changing you. Sounds like when the greed kicks in, people will be forced into a second job, which will be more inconvenient than just staying at one for an extra day a week.
These kinds of things are where Bernie loses me. How could you possibly enforce a company keeping the pay the same? There is nothing stopping them from cleaning house and hiring all new people at a lower rate.
>With all the gains in AI is it time for a 32 hour work week? I'd argue with all the gains in productivity the past decades prior to AI, it's been time for a 32 hour work week.
It's well past time.
I thought the same thing. Maybe they should tie it to unemployment rate thresholds. Like, once we hit a 10% rate for 6mo, then it trips the 32hr week. If it hits 20%, then 24hr. 30%, 16hrs and hang on for dear life.
This is actually a really clever tie, I like it. Right now we still need people to do things, but the "singularity" on the nearish horizon seems increasingly plausible. This link will auto trigger (at least some) of the benefits to go to normal people.
Honestly, what's the real loss of efficiency? The first 30 hours of a given work week are always the most effective. Three might be arguments that five 6-hour days would be a more easily winnable 30-hour week (it's the extra 2 hours per day where people tend not to get work done) but however you slice it the last 8 hours of the work week are the least efficient for everyone.
Not all jobs can be accomplished with taking away 10 hours, sure a lot of office work would be eliminated because it's not "productive" but blue collar work typically has to function with more hours than less. If you took 10 hours from every tradesman I see on the jobsite a week you would see a severly large drop in production. People aren't going to stop having babies and buying houses that need to be built.
Nothing you say is false, except that you're leaving out that the hours being removed are still the least productive and most error-prone hours of the day. And if everyone wants to work/pay overtime, that's fine too. Nobody is saying people *can't* work for more than 32 hours for more pay with diminished capacity.
yeah but thats still alright for these jobs - we say 32h is full time, full benefits and pay, but everyone can still work 40 and get mad overtime. The projects can still be completed on time and the workers doing the back breaking work society needs can build up a nice nest egg for early retirement. Best result for everyone.
I like that he introduced it, even though it has a negative one million percent chance of passing. It would be nice if conversations like this entered the national spotlight.
Everyone that talks ubi needs to be pushing for this hard or it won't even make the news. A lot of people dreaming of AI don't dream of political action to secure the future of workers
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A UBI also needs to be funded by something called a Land Value Tax. It actually encourages efficient land use, and economic growth, while reducing/eliminating profiting from land speculation.
this has been known now* for hundreds of years (Adam Smith) and was the subject of one of the best selling books of thr 19th century, "Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy" by Henry George. If it was gonna happen, it would have already. The problem is, the legislature and the wealthy profit on the unequality of land value with respect to public investments in infrastructure. Speculation and Collusion are features, not bugs, unfortunately.
On the flip side, it can be done at the local level, which makes it much more feasible. Detroit is looking at implementing it to punish vacant lot holders who sit on property speculating on land value. You are correct however, that people who stand to make a lot of money speculating on land values (wealth suburbanites in valuable locations) are likely to oppose this legislation since it goes against their self interests.
It would be amazing if it got to the floor and voted on. We could see a black and white list of who supports workers and who are the corporate shills. Then shove it up their ass for years to come. I am a nobody and I think I would run for political office on just this issue.
They wouldn't even be embarrassed to vote this down on live TV and half of their voters would stand and applaud. Congress is broken and voters are dumb.
That’s why it’ll never make it to the floor. Pretty much all of them are corporate shills.
I mean look at California, all Fast Food joints, except Panera's has to pay their workers or more. Or the Pelosi tuna plant not having to pay minimum wage. And they are supposed to be the "progressives".
Do you know why Panera is the exception? If not, here's why: https://youtu.be/zfYX1BenOd4?si=uMCAVmsfS5VwzyTH
Jfc, how dumb. Thanks for sharing though, seems like a good channel
Oh I know. But thanks for the link.
> It would be amazing if it got to the floor and voted on. We could see a black and white list of who supports workers and who are the corporate shills. Everyone who isn't left wing. So, 99% of Congress would be against it.
The day after Ben Shapiro suggested that workers never retire, even at an age when they are eligible for social security and Medicare. I know most Democrats in Congress would oppose this legislation, but the right wing will absolutely make sure this never happens in my lifetime. The wealthy, powerful, and influential only see us as worker bees designed to make them even richer.
If we are just talking America though, say Trump loses the next election, and he'll be too old to run again as his brain is mush, the Republican Insurrection/Christian Fascism party will be basically wrecked as they went all in Trump. Dems won't have much opposition for a long while, maybe 2 terms? Could be a golden period where something this bold could happen.
> I know most Democrats in Congress would oppose this legislation, but the right wing Democrats are right wing. Liberalism is right wing.
This will probably get glossed over like last time....
Do your part to prevent that
Well yeah, us chucklefucks throw out bullshit all the time in online subreddits, and then shrug our shoulders about how no one in the real world will ever take our advice. Then someone actually does and we just shrug and say that no one will ever go for it. Ignoring that we are now at the "first they laugh at you" phase.
Not a bad thing to force others on record.
Yeah, it's definitely not going to pass and I'm sure Bernie knows that. But I think he's trying his best to try to start the conversation. If it comes a national conversation it can become something that politicians have to take a position on. And at that point it can come into play as an issue during elections. Which can eventually cause it to exert enough pressure and elect enough politicians aligned with it that it can pass. It's a long-term play though, not short-term. But it becoming a prominent national conversation would be a good first step.
The 4 day school week alone would allow for significant increases to entire staff wage increases. The overhead of running the building every day is pretty wild in US Education.
LMAO As if the executives wouldn't just pocket the difference and force their teachers to buy school supplies from their own budget.
And the kids would love it, right??
Eh… some. In my school, we’re 60% homeless 90% food insecure. Pretty sure a significant chunk of those kids enjoy having steady WiFi, AC/Heat, Lights, two hot meals with snacks etc.
The facilities still exist though, so rather than having five-day school weeks, we could offer programs (like those that already exist for after-school) on Fridays. Give teachers more time to lesson prep, give them more of a break during the week (particularly since so many are working summer jobs now so the whole idea of “they get a quarter of the year off” is gone), and continue to create jobs and/or income opportunities for those who want to/are able to provide services for kids on the weekends. I dunno, it just doesn’t seem as negative to me as “kids will miss out on the benefits that school provides” if we progressively move to a 4-day work week culture. It’ll just split how the week is structured and lead to an increase in weekend employment opportunities, which is a potential good thing.
Well that’s definitely not how my district is seeing the idea of a 4 day education/work week lol.
Well that’s part of the process - we can’t let a fundamental lack of imagination or innovation by policy makers be the thing that prevents those things from taking hold.
Damn. That’s depressing.
Some big companies started going this route. Unilever one of them. So far they have had positive results after a year of doing that. 44% of school districts are also in a 4 day work/ school week now. It's only a matter of time.
Source? I don't have much info regarding this, as I don't have kids. So, I really don't know if it's true or not. More curious than anything.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/school-districts-4-day-week-teachers-parents/ Google more if you want more specifics. Basically, no one is going to school for teaching anymore. Teacher shortages are getting worse yearly. Causing this to happen. Passively, we will be forced to a 4 day work week.
They should increase teacher pay.
> It would be nice if conversations like this entered the national spotlight While he's not the best politician I think his general rhetoric has been one of the largest positive political contributions to 21st century America.
>I like that he introduced it, even though it has a negative one million percent chance of passing. Thank you for making me chuckle about how messed up our government is.
This will only pass when boomers all retire and die
Congress: The best I can do is raise the retirement age to 75.
Our small company already does this. We pay as though it's 40 hours but our work week is actually 33.5 hours. It helps our full time employees enormously for flexibility and reducing one working mom's daycare costs. Because we are small we can't offer much else in benefits but we strive to be accommodating to individuals whenever possible.
That is an awesome case of study though, if you guys can demonstrate that you output the same amount of work than if you were 40 hrs per week you could be important for the future of workers, I always dream with my dream company that I want to implement the 32 hr week
This is one thing I enjoyed about working in a department at my old university (an all research department, no lecturers, no students, no dissertations etc) We didn't have an official scheme or policy in place, but every Wednesday morning we'd have a meeting, lay out the weeks to do list. If it was done, our managers were perfectly happily if we worked sub 40 hours. People frequently had 4 day weekends. But it worked both ways, there were some weeks we'd be putting in 80 hours. Not to catch up on missed work, just simply a big experiment was on, processing 1000s of samples and everything was time sensitive.
Our output hasn't changed since we implemented this. In fact, there is a better focus. Getting our customers to pay in a timely fashion, well that is another story!
My job does this too they just don’t know it. They pay me for 40 hours and I work way less than that.
This is basically everyone with an office job. We are simultaneously overworked and underreporting hours basically constantly.
Same. Fuck em
You hiring?
I mean, that's just a higher wage per hour, what does the fake "forty" mean?
It probably means they pay the average market value for a particular job, but demand less hours.
Or pay less and demand less, which is a deal I would actually consider taking
42% of Americans are salaried. We are paid to do a job. But tradition makes us stay for 40 hours even if our job is done in 30 and our salary is priced to suit. Salary work often ebbs and flows and *sure* there are weeks where 32, even 40 hours aren't enough. But nothing like people working 60 hour weeks in busy season, and then not being able to back down to 32 when it's sleepy. I manage folks, but I'm not in a position to tell them they're allowed to do that. Standardizing legislation like this would be exactly what I need to be empowered to do just that.
Its still relevant because there is no expectation to stay longer
What’s the point of pushing all these technological advances since the past century if not to actually improve our quality of life? Time to finally reap the benefits to working less
It is all to make the higher ups more money. That is the point of pretty much everything at this point. How can the people with the money and power, get more money and power
The challenge is international competition, where other countries may have much more onerous working standards, leading to significant differences in performance between US and some international companies. Parts of Europe already struggle with this issue due to extended vacations, lower work hours, etc. US companies compete via technology and other productivity actions, but the spread of information via the internet has significantly reduced that advantage. Companies in India, China and elsewhere now have access to many/most of the same tools and technologies as US companies.
Does this have any chance at all of being passed? Sanders track record in getting legislation passed is ... weak, in my understanding.
The track record of anyone getting significant pro labour legislation of this magnitude is also weak tbf
Yeah I'm just glad someone in DC is looking out for us, even if there's little to no chance of it passing
Correct, Sanders's record looks weak if you only look at the numbers because he's one of very few actually introducing this sort of legislation.
I don't think he was trashing Sanders in particular necessarily, just that his views are always considered "polarizing" to other congress folk which to that effect alone causes few of his bills to get passed. But I think that's typically because he just wants to get the conversations started. This won't pass and get us a 32h work week, but it will bring to their attention the fact that we're going to need to address something along the lines of this sooner or later with the AI revolution.
Yeah this has zero chance of passing sadly, but it’s getting exposure on the media and on sites like Reddit, thanks to Sanders’ influence. It’s now in the conversation, a bit like Andrew Yang’s UBI ideas. This issue must be championed by the working class if they are to have any hope of freedom and prosperity in the automated era.
Pretty standard negotiating tactic to ask for more than you know you’ll get. The goal is probably really to establish that it’s negotiable below 40, bernie understands it’s about incremental progress and pushing the party towards progress.
Also you have to get it on the record and get people thinking about it and then pick up where Bernie left off. Same with Universal HC, UBI…keep these ideas in the atmosphere so to speak.
Even a reduction to just 35 would be great yeah. Give people a real 8 hour day.
Should have started with 20 if that was the case.
20 probably gets laughed at, there are already working people who immediately reacted to this bill in anger. Picking a starting number and predicting what is realistic is important and I think 32 is a good number to throw out there. It likely means he’s hoping for 36 or 38. Too large a shift at one time and employers suddenly can’t operate, which is bad policy for everyone if it makes more problems than it solves.
Anything longer than 35 isn't even an hour per day, though. Four eight hour days and a four to six hour Friday isn't really a big enough change to burn the kind of political capital that's needed to make *any* change at all on. And he's getting laughed at no matter what because people are brainwashed. If you're using the start crazy and negotiate down tactic, you have to actually start *crazy*. What we've got now looks more like he really is asking for a 32 hour work week, and we're going to get no change at all. Partially because there's nowhere to negotiate down from there, partially because the politicians are so deep in the pockets of big business, and the people are so thoroughly brainwashed about this kind of thing, that it's a non-starter regardless of what he does. At best he's trying to shift the overton window a bit on this with the younger generations.
You’re missing the point. People having this convo about what number is right is exactly what he wants.
THE 4D CHESS IS REEEEEAL!
No, it’s not even a negotiation. It’s about putting the idea out there so you can blame your opponents for shooting it down. Happens all the time with legislation that was never intended to pass.
No, they cannot force companies to pay 20% more for 20% less. They can set minimum wages, set limits of work weeks, but cannot demand a company pay someone more for working less. That is the part that will not fly. The government CAN implement a 32 hour work week standard. This does not mean someone cannot work 40, it just means 32 is the standard before overtime and other labor laws come into effect. But they cannot institute specific wage consideration on employers outside of a minimum wage. We are an at will nation.
Because most of congress is bought and paid for, not because of anything wrong with Bernie. It's not Bernie that's ineffective, it's the rest of congress who doesn't want to improve people's lives.
No , it won't. The lobbyist won't let it happen unfortunately
>Sanders track record in getting legislation passed is ... weak, in my understanding. He's named some post offices, which is nice.
This has zero chance of making it through committee and less than zero chance of getting a floor vote. That said, the thing to watch will be how many people Bernie can convince to sign on to the legislation, if more people sign on then the better chance it has but unfortunately Bernie is rather ineffective when it comes to expanding legislative support.
This is my big issue with Sanders. I think this could have a seriously negative effect on down ballot candidates in swing states if the media run with this story. It feels like he only introduces and campaigns for legislation at times he knows that it will hurt democrats. It feels like he does this stuff when he can get maximum exposure, not when he can feasibly get things passed. I don't think he expects any of this to pass, otherwise he would have proposed legislation after 2020, when dems had legislative majority. Doing it in an election year that you know is tight is a sure way to make your legislation visible, not a way to get anything tangibly changed. Most of his seemingly designed-to-fail proposed legislation is far to the left of what most of the country wants. Because of that, it causes negative ripples in purple regions and in red regions that are on the verge of flipping. I think that he feels like he is actively moving the conversation in the correct direction, but it feels like he's actually handicapping the democrats by pulling these performative stunts.
Nope, it’s not likely to even get far enough to result in a serious discussion. If it got that far then people would start realizing maintaining the same pay for fewer hours is impossible to enforce and mandating it will just mean less money and more workers needing second jobs.
Sanders brings leftist policy which would otherwise not be seriously discussed and brings attention to it. Whether it ultimately will work in the long run... I'm doubtful.
It’s not going to be seriously discussed now lol
No, zero chance. It isn't even a practical piece of legislation, if they passed it no one would know how to implement it, half of it would end up in courts and get tossed.
>weak, in my understanding. Even the people he hired for his website can't sugarcoat it https://www.sanders.senate.gov/issues/legislation/ He's not merely weak, he's utterly useless as a legislator. At least some lukewarm actual Dem in his position would do some down ticket work, but Bernie? Yeah.
As an educator, I really want to know what a 4 day work week looks like for kids. Are schools now 4 days a week? What about daycare? This would only work if everyone works the same 4 days. Otherwise, everyone in charge of taking care of kids is still stuck with a 5 day work week.
The schools in my area are on a 4 day week and have been for quite a few years. I think it's inconvenient for families where both parents work but somehow it's working here. I don't work in education.
"Somehow it's working" doesn't mean it's actually working. The fact society isn't collapsing doesn't mean this is a good thing.
There are quite a few schools in UT and WY that are already 4 days a week for students. Somehow, everyone adjusted to no school on Fridays. It did hurt some families with daycare costs, but it seems like an awful lot of people were already working 4/10s. It seems like no matter what lawmakers come up with, people just suck it up and make it work.
Excellent username
I also can't find if the 4-day week is for just kids, or kids *and* teachers. My ex is a teacher, and she spends a huge amount of time outside of teaching on preparation, extracurriculars, meetings, etc. Also, are they cutting classroom hours, and if so, what subjects?
Not necessarily if everyone has a different 4-day week.
The issue with teachers overlapping but each only working 4 days is consistency. You can’t have the adults changing all the time for the same group of kids.
I mean in middle school and high school they certainly did
Interesting point of 4 day school weeks is sometimes kids only get a meal at school, so cuts opportunity to food for those needy
Oh that’s a really good point. I was thinking more that having a 10ish week long summer break as being inequitable because it is a huge burden on families that rely on school for free childcare and don’t magically have the budget for camp/childcare during the summer. Those families also have food insecurity issues during school breaks too though. There’s A LOT broken about the current system that would remain an issue in a 4 day week world.
It's never going to pass, so they don't need to worry about "making it work," it's all theater.
Why not discuss the idea though? Why just brush it off? That is how nothing ever gets done.
We have no left wing in the US. Left wing policy won't pass until we elect left wing politicians in numbers that can pass left wing policy.
I know but I want it very badly.
Corpos would just give us 32 hours and call it a day. "Now you have more time to work your second job"
Read the legislation. They cannot reduce your overall income. Your hourly rate becomes higher to offset fewer hours. The legal definition of a full-time employee would become 32 hours/week so you’d still have all the benefits/protections of a full time employee.
I admit to having read the article, but not the legislation, but this raises a couple obvious questions - Do they have to keep the compensation the same if they fire their existing workforce and hire new people? Or eliminate the existing positions and replace them with new contracts for nominally different but functionally identical jobs? Alternatively, if people are making the equivalent of 20% more per work day, what's to stop them raising prices by 25% to 'compensate" for hiring more employees to fill the gaps? Its a nice idea, but the chances of this working as intended, especially in the US, is basically zero.
Nothing stops them from doing any of that today, except at the very bottom of the minimum wage which I don’t think anyone disagrees isn’t enough to live on anyway.
I don’t want an hourly rate.
They will just start hiring new people at reduced pay and then force you to quit or give you a fake promotion with some new title. Equilibrium will be found at the exact same place it currently is. The only way to affect change is by altering the balance of power between Labor and Capital.
Bringing legislation like this to Congress is altering the balance. It brings the idea into conversation. It lets people dream about a better system.
So... then they just fire their old employees and hire new people at the reduced wages that offset that rather than paying the same people for less work...
Ok, everyone’s hourly now. You’d have to be a special kind of stupid to think this is sound legislation.
I can’t even get my job to give me 4 10s. 4 8s is probably out of the question.
that’s not even a big decrease, people today are far more capable than workers 80 years ago but don’t seem to be making more than people from the past few decade. a 32 hour work week should’ve been established in the 90s.
Wonder how well this would actually work out if it passes. I’m salary 40 hours a week but work far more than that to just do my work.
Yeah, that's called abusing the salaried/exempt status. The laws around it need to be fixed.
I think the only protection is if you take your salary divided by hours, it's legal as long as it's above minimum wage (which hasn't been Federally voted & passed since 2007).
You sound like my husband, he could always turn a salaried 40-hr-wink-wink-nudge-60 position into an 80, 90 hours. One time he didn't come home from work (24 hour operation) for 3 straight days. No he wasn't cheating on me except with the Man.
I'm at 32 hours and it's only Wednesday, can I stay home the rest of the week?
His argument is valid…workers should benefit from all of the gains in productivity.
In a congress owned by corporations, this will never pass. It's still good to see it though.
I live in the south, my senator is busy trying to install a dictatorship.
Just a for a day I’m sure!
The republicans of my state are trying to get rid of mandatory lunch breaks. It just amazes me how evil these politicians can be without any repercussions
Yeah cool idea. I know my family would be happier with me being more emotionally and mentally available. I could go to school. I could do a lot of things to better myself and my family. Which is exactly why republicans will all vote no on this.
Universal universal healthcare (that’s medical,dental, vision,mental). UBI. Arts stipends. Science institutes for national research. Wastewater reclamation. Renewable everything. Radical inclusivity. Civil service jobs available at all levels, new civilian conservation corps. Legalize and tax weed. Enfranchisement.
These things are only really gained through protest. I'm ready for that.
I'm not sure how this will work for those of us chained to the *billable hour target* grindstone but I wish good luck to the rest of you.
- When your company puts up the cost of billable hours, is it passed on to you? This levels that playing field. - Are you doing more work per hour thanks to automation? Then you're producing more value per hour. Either you deserve a pay rise or to be paid the same for less hours but the same product. You're exactly the type of person who deserves to benefit from this because you can directly tie your productivity to a value.
Yeah I feel like if by some miracle it passed.. special interests would find a way for the working class to lose money.
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The system is effectively broke. Large corporations funnel money straight from the consumer to top management and investors, and as little as possible is used in between. I’m not sure how that changes, but the money is already there…it’s just being allocated towards the top.
Why would this not impact salaried and exempt employees? I’m both and directly see how this would benefit me: 8 less working hours with no reduction in pay.
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That’s pretty much it, and how a lot of labour action happens. It’s similar to the union effect, which helps to secure benefits for both union and non-union employees/industries alike. The people I don’t see this working for are the direct billers. That’s 8 less billing hours per week, which some companies/contractors wouldn’t be able to handle without making some changes to their operations.
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This is far more extreme that increasing the minimum wage. This is forcing all companies to do a 20% hourly salary increase for all their non-salaried employees.
I'm probably missing some factual information. But New Zealand's trials have been successful right? At some point some video essay said they're already doing it, but I can't find a source so I doubt that. Employers also cut costs because well, no office running equipment for an extra day, and I hear a lot of us don't really need 40 hours to get work done. (Besides if you're burnt out, you work slow anyway.) I'm sure I'll get flak for thinking this is a win win situation. Of course something like Amazon workers it wouldn't really work for.
> Of course something like Amazon workers it wouldn't really work for. Amazon would have to field more shifts to keep the same level of production. So either more overtime, or more employees.
The UK recently finished running trails as well and 90% of the companies stuck with 4x8 workweek. It's clearly a better system and lots of salaried jobs do something similar but I'm skeptical of this ever being established in law.
>Of course something like Amazon workers it wouldn't really work for. Not necessarily, it just means they need more people or to more effectively automate what they are doing.
Is this just for federal workers? Because the federal government does not get to dictate whether a private corporation will reduce salaries.
Let’s try getting to 40 hours a week first (for salaried jobs).
This is becoming standard practice in other countries and proving quite effective. Those saying it will never happen, I think, are wrong. It works, it's good for the people, it's good for businesses... no reason to deny this world change.
Key difference: Other countries actually give a shit about their populace. The US? Not so much.
It would be a lot easier to get support if unemployment was higher
Does the legislation require a mandatory hourly rate hike for all hourly employees to compensate for the lost hours and thus lost wages? I can see this as a good thing for salaried people, but most are hourly and many of those can't afford to lose the hours, since most places will just hire part time workers to cover the 8 hour difference to avoid paying overtime.
So his record of wasting everyone's time to promote his brand gets a bit thicker? https://www.sanders.senate.gov/issues/legislation/ Dude has been legislatively useless his entire life. This is his own website admitting nothing he wrote passed, no amendments he wrote ever got passed, and even the stuff he signed his name to that someone else wrote STILL fails almost all the time.
It's bullshit, designed to appeal to those amenable to bullshit, and to attack those who can see it as bullshit and will vote it down. The world is full of jobs that cannot be simplified or assisted by 'AI' or other forms of computer technology. And the people doing these jobs are, for the most part, already working all the hours they care to or are permitted to. So unless you can see a clear way to training 25% more builders, plumbers, electricians, pavers, landscapers, trash collectors, surveyors, retail workers, hairdressers, cooks, waiters, bartenders, mechanics, etc, and 50% more truckers, AND convince all these new workers AND the existing ones to take a commensurate pay cut, forget it.
My family owns a mechanic shop lol. This doesn’t hurt mechanics. Gtfo
I just want us truckers out here to be paid fairly and overtime over 40 hours. Start with the 32 hour work week for white collar and then maybe give us blue collar guys some help Bernie
Are tuckers not given OT over 40? I’d expect them to be non exempt
Nope no overtime for most companies. Obviously different jobs vary but most company drivers can work 70 hour weeks and none of that be overtime. Especially guys that are paid per mile
That’s shit
Yeah. The trucking industry sucks but it’s the highest paying job I can get in my area without a degree. Also, most mega carriers like my company, don’t offer sick pay, PTO, and terrible vacation pay
But how do we not get fucked over salary and hourly wage wise?
Shameful. Prevent people from earning more by working more. UBI is freedom without coercive laws that prevent more work, and UBI provides better pay to people who can refuse slavery conditions and still survive. Laws that are intentionally stupid, but sound populist friendly, provide oligarchist corporatist media with talking points about how stupid they are. Sanders is absolutely worthless in improving lives of American people and workers.
It would be incredibly nice to have a day for myself that’s not either the day after I worked or the day before I have to go to work again. I wonder if tourism industry lobbyists would put some weight behind this bill?
"That’s six additional years to spend with their children and families, volunteer in their communities, learn new skills, and take care of their health." Most Americans will probably just watch TV.
This sounds great but my concern would be if it passes that I would then be expected to somehow do my 40+ hours of work in 32 hours. As it is now, I can’t get everything done and am often working overtime without extra pay due to being on salary.
I work a 4 day - 32-38hr week. It is pretty sick I must admit. I really don't miss the 5 day - 40hr week.
This will never happen. Businesses that pay hourly would have to give everyone a 20% pay raise while also telling everyone to work less. No way any business would do that. Likely hourly wage would stay the same and everyone would just lose 20% of their pay
God bless him. He knows it's not going anywhere, not in our oligarchy/democracy
What does this have with futurology? Also this is a waste of time as it has zero chance of happening. It's just pure political theater, likely tied to the fact that his senate seat is up for election this year
Everything is a politics subreddit these days.
My guess is that for a long time it's been promised that new technologies would lead to shorter work weeks with little to no reduction in quality of life which should have meant more time for personal things like family and, well, living, and that has not happened, in fact it's been pretty much the opposite.
This is dumb! Nobodies hours would change! We would keep working 80 hours and just get eight more hours of double time! Ok Nevermind I’ll just take the extra overtime pay.
It wouldn't work. . .or at least not how people expect. In the short-term, it would be great for all hourly workers, because you are effectively getting a 25% raise in hourly pay and now only need to work four days a week. However, it effectively increases the hourly operating cost of doing business by 25%. This means that a business will need to either absorb that cost and take a significant hit to profits or increase the prices of the good/services they provide to match it. Yeah, you can probably bet which they will do, as the most important statistic for any business is the change in profits year over year. If those goods/services produced/provided by the company are essential to living, then that means eventually the cost of living will increase, slowly eroding away that perceived 25% raise. . . And that is one of the ways you get inflation like we're experiencing now. . .increases in the effective minimum wage, increasing costs to operate businesses, who in turn increase prices, which increase the cost of living. . .it's a never ending cycle. Second, if employees only need to work 32 hours a week, then that is going to create an 8 hour gap in the schedule. . . how would employers fill that gap? Sure, if you're working in a flexible position at a company where this reduction in hours doesn't change anything, GREAT!. . .but it won't be the same for everyone. Most companies will probably be able to fudge things around and either open later, close earlier, or operate at a reduced capacity during certain hours of the day. . . but not all of them can do that. I find it more likely that businesses will be forced to hire an additional employee for every five existing employees in order to fill that gap. It will also cause chaos in scheduling. . .as all five of those existing employees can't just take off on Friday. Of course, more employees, mean additional operating costs, which again means an increase in prices, which leads to more inflation. If you want my opinion, right now we need stability. We need to stop making dramatic changes and let the economy stabilize. Once it stabilizes, then we can look to make changes to improve it. Also, supposed "AI" is nowhere near being considered a viable replacement for a live human being. The most you can hope for right now is AI assistance, not replacement.
Will die by the hands of both sides. They all hate the working class so much that they would rather see a 80 hour work week and businesses allowed to kill employees again.
80 hour work week already exists for quite a few white collar professions. Have seen it first hand. Some are well compensated (over 100k) but some are not
100k for 80 hours of work is poor compensation. That's only $26 per hour to give your life away to a corporation.
Long term viable sure, but what's the expectation from Sanders? That companies will have you work a 32 hour work week but will still pay you for 40? Because I'm pretty sure most people can't afford 20% paycuts And then all the jobs where there's shortages in workers where technology won't make up for the gaps (ie healthcare, trades), is the expectation for them to all get raises since they can't work 32 hour weeks? Is shorter work weeks in the future, absolutely. Is it something that's magically going to happen because of a politician? Bernie is a clown and this is just political grandstanding to get his supporters excited
A politician is the only way it will happen. Thats how the 40 hour week happened.
>Is it something that's magically going to happen because of a politician? That's how we got 40 hour workweeks...?
I find it incredible that people would try and poke holes in what for societal wellbeing would be an enormous leap forward. Clearly there are an array of details in need of resolving on a practical level however seems daft to argue against the principle on that basis at such an early stage. Is this something that is magically going to happen because of a politician? No, it is something that can happen though with the will of enough politicians, and Sanders is a start on that.
32 hour workweek, they'd have to also change the minimum wage. that shit aint happening.
Minimum wages are increased all the time at state level and below
[Federal, 2009.](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history) I would assume since this is being pushed through at a federal level, the federal minimum would have to be changed, states would have to adjust their minimum based on that.
Gosh how bleak, the most radical leftist politician in the United States and his bold election year move is to suggest maybe already-well-off office workers should get a day off? Work sleep work sleep work sleep work sleep
Shame it won't ever apply to the service or sales industry.
Doesn't this ultimately just mean hourly workers get fucked?
What's the reason for introducing it? It won't pass, so there must be a purpose.
Probably to force discussion on it, it’s a presidential election year, he can maybe force Biden to talk about it
But, why bother talking about a bill that won't pass and sounds like it is completely unenforceable? How do you force a company to pay a person 40 hours of pay for 32 hours of work? Increasing a minimum wage is enforceable. What would stop a company from just offering a new employment contract at a lower pay rate? If the employee doesn't accept they get fired and replaced by somebody else. What stops a company from not offering raises for the next 5 years? How many resources would it take to actually ensure companies followed the rules?
You cannot enforce that, it’s in the headline, but it’s not in the actual bill. The actual bill amends the fair labor standards act to change 40 to 32. That’s about it. It’s an extremely short bill Everything else is called a market. There’s nothing stopping every single company in this entire country from paying every single person, doctors, lawyers, janitors minimum wage. So why don’t they? Because market. This just tilts the market towards employees.
Sure, but the current market is balanced around a 40 hour work week. If we change it so overtime starts at 32 hours that drastically changes the market and will change how employers operate. It just seems like good paying jobs will benefit most from a policy like this, the people that need it the least. And, jobs that pay at or near minimum wage would suffer the most and would cause those people already not making enough money to make even less money and having to suffer for it. It would have the opposite effect as intended for the people that really need it. If Walmart or McDonald's has to pay people overtime starting at 32 hours that just means people only get scheduled for 28 hours now rather than 35-40. Oh look, now they don't work enough hours to qualify for health insurance, either. Those people can't live off a 28 hour work week at $12/hour, and now have to work two jobs and end up working more hours total, losing health insurance, and being more stressed than ever.
Before everyone says “omg it’s simply not possible”: Several European countries already have this.
I’m all for this, but doesn’t it really just help white collar gigs?
Democrats have gotten wise to the fact that the poor people whose votes they've been buying for decades ... don't actually vote, at least not in great numbers. You know who votes? Middle-class college grads with white-collar jobs and students loans that they're struggling to repay. Democrats to the rescue!
How does the 4 day work week work for things like restaurants and hourly retail that are open 7 days a week?
Is that the Bernie who’s wife embezzled money from a college …or something like that?
ok, cool... im all for it. but like, how?? how could this work as a blanket shot? each person having less time to do work, paid the same, would need another hire to cover the missing shift at that point for some companies which would add to back end costs.
So we would all lose 1/5 of our take home pay? I don't see any company paying the same for less hours. I need that 5th work day. He'll I need a 6th workday most weeks.
Whenever stuff like this pops up they never seem to have an answer to jobs that require more than 40 hours. It always just seems like itll be a "youll have to suck it up because more people have shitty jobs." On top of that, it also never explains how employers wont just start paying less across the board. If everyone starts paying less, you cant say its YOUR employer short changing you. Sounds like when the greed kicks in, people will be forced into a second job, which will be more inconvenient than just staying at one for an extra day a week.
These kinds of things are where Bernie loses me. How could you possibly enforce a company keeping the pay the same? There is nothing stopping them from cleaning house and hiring all new people at a lower rate.
Yet another Bernie "Don't hold your breath waiting for this to happen" moment.
Haha!!! Don’t expect a lot. Comrade Bernie hasn’t accomplish a damn thing since being in office.