Bernie Sanders unveils 32-hour workweek bill with no loss in pay for workers

Bernie: Here’s a bill that will help literally everyone. People waste less of their lives at work, and productivity goes up massively for the corporate overlords. There is no downside here for anyone.

Everyone: Shut up, hippy.

We need this so fucking bad. As a species, not just America or the wealthy nations only. Everyone.

And this should just be a transitionary period down to a 24 or less hour work week. Fuck slaving away at shit jobs just to make billionaires.

Nonono don't do it!!
Just look how it went in Germany, they went from 40 to 35 and then last year they overtook Japan as the 3rd largest economy in the world.
But if they had kept 40 hour work week, they might have done that a year earlier.

I tell you 32 hour work week will be an absolute disaster, marriages will break because people will have time to spend together. This is why the christian right will oppose this tooth and nail, and you should too.

/s

I don’t see a path forward that doesn’t start with the US government making the change first. They are one of the only employers that don’t have market competition.

As a European libertarian, americans and people in some far eastern countries work at their jobs way too much. It's harmful in every kind of way imaginable. I don't understand why it's done.

I get that some profession may benefit from it, but having standard office personnel sit at their desk 12 hours every day? What the fuck. I refuse to believe this improves company profits in 90% of the companies.

I had a US colleague that was ranting to me (a European) that people would still take calls just before having surgery and the moment the anastatics would have worn off work again. So I asked why not root for Bernie as he wants to do a more Scandinavian model (did not use the world socialism because reasons). Answer was no, would not be able to vote for him. Well........

Sometimes I imagine what America would be like if Bernie had enough votes to pass his bills.

He also spoke earlier about Israel breaking the US law by disrupting Us Humanitarian Aid.

Incomplete article by The Hill... Actually, the more I look at it this is a bad article. The only current bill introduced to the Congress is from last year by a different Representative. Bernie put out yesterday (the 13th) that he will be introducing a bill on Thursday the 14th (2024-03-14). It's only 0600 local time Washington, D.C. so it hasn't happened yet. And it would be very strange to he is introducing another act in the same session (118th).

H.R.1332 - Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act since they couldn't even link to the bill.

Congress.gov has the sponsor as Rep. Takano, Mark [D-CA-39] (Introduced 03/01/2023).

Long title: Official Title as Introduced

To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours per week to 32 hours per week, and for other purposes.

I've noticed that I get the same amount of work done working 5 days a week as if I plan to only work 3/4 days and know I'll have some free time to enjoy life. My work is really project based so as long as it gets done no one cares.

My wife has also noticed that I'm a lot more stressed when I work 5 days a week and need pretty much the whole weekend to recover.

Bernie is an example of what a progressive politician actually looks like.

American politicians (Republicans AND Democrats) have been moving steadily to the right for the last 40 years. So now, Democrats are where the Republicans were in the 1980s, boring corporatists and friends of banks, pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

And the Republicans have moved all the way into an insane asylum. They long for the "good old days" of company towns, run by 19th century robber barons and worry that the six corporations that control all our news are the "liberal news media."

This will never pass because we aren't seen as people with families and lives. We're seen as labor. Tools to keep the machine running and making money for corporations and its executives.

While a small tangent, I agree. I used to work 4x10 each week. Had done that for over a decade. Having a 3 day weekend really helped. When I got my current position I was moved to 5x8. I'm now endlessly tired, I can't get the weekend projects done, etc. Because you're just getting out of work, or getting ready to start work again, there's no break. So if this ends up being 4x8, that would be great! Keep my hours and get my weekend back. Though I assume corporate USA will find some way to muck it up, like the RTO bullshit.

This makes the election really simple later. Vote against whoever opposed or brought any friction to this bill whatsoever...which will be pretty much everyone.

America should make Bernie their Emperor.

The only way that we can remain competitive in the global marketplace is to squeeze the workers to the greatest extent that biology will allow. If that means slavery, mind control and death-at-30 then so be it. We must remain competitive

Love the idea. But like free college and free healthcare I'm thinking it's just wishful thinking.

Written in our universes language: "Bernie Sanders released a plan that will absolutely never happen and caused literally every single person that isn't a worker to laugh until they couldn't breathe anymore."

Guess how many hours rich people have to work?

0 hours

It's not going to go anywhere, but it's good that it's being introduced regardless.

i don't even like looking at or thinking about this stuff, it's too depressing getting my hopes up

At my job (standard 9–5 office) we're on a "hybrid" WFH schedule where we each get a single WFH day throughout the week. If this passed, it would be so easy to implement for us, we'd just "lose" our WFH day and get it transferred into a weekday off-day. The inside-joke among alot of people here is that nobody is working on their WFH day anyways (which I hate the joke, people are shooting themselves in the foot with it), but it would be an easy transition.

Yes, please.

I'm not opposed to a 4 day work week, but I am always curious as to what jobs the studies have looked at to conclude that people with 4 work days instead of 5 do the same amount or more work.

I'm a construction worker. Despite the jokes about standing around, we work hard. I do not think that a 4 day work week would produce better results than a 5 day in my field.

Just for reference I've been doing home rehabilitations for lower income families. There's not a ton of heavy lifting, there's just a lot to do.

Also, a lot of guys in my line of work also work side jobs on their days off.

I like this as a concept, and since it has a low likelihood of passing, let a lone being bought up for a vote, i feel comfortable casting this critique:

We need a long-term solution that addresses the power imbalance of employer-employee relations, and all this does is places a temporary and incremental improvement on something that will inevitably be undermined.

I have a similar critique on minimum wage laws - while undeniably better for working class people, they fail to address the broader inequity and end up needing to be updated every couple years (which never happens).

This is one of those moments where I really wish Bernie would put a finer point on it - this is an issue driven by capital. The federal government wouldn't need to spell out labor laws if they could strengthen the working-class's position against capital more broadly. I would almost rather him propose a bill that strengthens union laws and the NLRB, since those are currently under attack.

I honestly wonder why there aren't incremental versions of this. Like why not advertise a 38 hour work week where Fridays are 6 hours long? Or 35 where every day starts or ends an hour early?

Fisher-Price offers half day Fridays in the summer and that's a big part of their pitch for why to work there. They are the only company I've ever heard of with anything like it and it's not even year-round. But it makes a lot of sense.

Can someone explain that "with no loss in pay"?

It's not like there is a magical way to know what you'd get paid if you worked a 40hr week, when everybody works 32hr week, and punish your employer if it's less.

It's not like wages are determined by the government either.

Good for Bernie Sanders.

That would be a great thing but I also had another idea, why can't a test be devised and codified into law, to tie minimum wage to. I know the main reasons why, obstructionist capitalists, but a test to find a living wage, average rent costs tied with other bill expenses and grocery costs. The companies raising costs feel free but the minimum wage will rise. Could something like this work? Tie wages and service/goods costs together to incentivize either livable/thrivable wages or lower costs. either way we need one of those two things, more buying power, or... more buying power.

Something to stop the decages long stagnation of worker compensation.

Honestly I would be happy to work 4 10s I don't need the reduced hours but I do need the 3 days off

This sounds awesome. Here's what I wanna know though:

What stops your boss from then saying "You better stop at 31.95 hours or you're in trouble." Because they don't wanna pay overtime? They already do this in a lot of jobs.

So, you'd need additional pay to compensate for less hours, but now you have a two-pronged battle because that just sounds way too lovely.

And I'm guessing a lot of the "exempt" office workers that grind themselves into dust the hardest won't be affected?

I mean hey, I'd rather it just passes and we see what happens, and keep fixing it as it goes, at least it's something! But the hardest part is blocking your bosses from weaseling around laws and screwing you anyway.

This will never be allowed to happen.

How does this help salaried? I'm generally at thirty two hours by Wednesday.

As for hourly, it might help for a while. Hourly pay goes up twenty five percent to make weekly pay the same, but then those wages get frozen forever. Give it five years and you'll start seeing companies create reasons for eliminating benefits and paying even less.

I'd love a thirty two hour work week, but I don't see any magic bullet to make it happen.

(I think my twenty five percent math was right, but I didn't sit here with a spreadsheet to prove it out. If the math is incorrect, the point still stands)

Fuck the DNC.

Nice, now you can go from two jobs to three in order to afford a house!

So let's say I run a business and I employ workers at $1000/wk and they work 5 8 hour days. Maybe I have a 10% profit margin on them and I make $1100 for each employee.

If this law passes and I need to pay my employees $1000/wk for 4 days... that means suddenly I'm losing money. Where would that extra money come from? I'd probably end up raising my prices. I'm not necessarily against this plan, I just want to understand what the proposals are to fill this gap. If I work 4 days a week but prices all go up by 20%, I'm not sure that's a good outcome.

when workers won the 40 hour week, the 8 hour day, there were basically no restrictions on the time workers could be required to work.

a 32 hour week is a 6 hour day.

This is weak.

I don't oppose this, but it should be done by employees themselves rather than further leaving this up to congress.

Tell me you've never worked a day in your life without telling me.

You dont get something for nothing, either prices have to rise, or the government is propping up companies that are that ineffient that workers are only doing 32 hours in a 40 hour work week.

seems like a crazy old man