As part of his Labor Day message to workers in the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday re-upped his call for the establishment of a 20% cut to the workweek with no loss in pay—an idea he said is “not radical” given the enormous productivity gains over recent decades that have resulted in massive profits for corporations but scraps for employees and the working class.
“It’s time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay,” Sanders wrote in a Guardian op-ed as he cited a 480% increase in worker productivity since the 40-hour workweek was first established in 1940.
“It’s time,” he continued, “that working families were able to take advantage of the increased productivity that new technologies provide so that they can enjoy more leisure time, family time, educational and cultural opportunities—and less stress.”
32hr week is fine, but what does he mean by no loss in pay?
The mandated work week is something a central regulator controls, and the pay is not.
The drop in productivity because of working 32hrs instead of 40hrs will be much less than 20%, that’s for sure. Maybe there’ll be no drop at all. That doesn’t always translate to no drop in pay.
If by 32hrs we mean 4 days, then it frees that day for other workers (if we imagine any job with a physical workplace). The pay is a result of the balance of interests. It will become less.
And personally I’d say 35hr week is a better idea - as in 5 days of 7hrs .
We make gains by organization not legislation.
Read the excerpts of the speech quoted in the article. All is plainly said.
No thanks! I’ll stick with The Bern on this one.
Depends on the purpose. If you want for the shorter week to be normalized - then surely yes.
And if you want that “no loss in pay” - then my idea is better to that end.
Bernie is advocating for a 4 day work week with no loss in pay, and you’re arguing against your own best interest before anyone has even objected. Why? I’m not interested in a 7 hour day. 7 hours, 8 hours, it makes very little difference. But 4 days vs 5 days is a major quality of life improvement.
Yeah, sure, and I’m advocating for long power lines with no loss in power. Bernie doesn’t explain how’s he (even algorithmically) going to evaluate which pay is “no loss in pay” and how is he going to enforce it.
That’s not really true though. The majority of workers in the US are non-exempt full-time employees, which means employers are required to pay overtime for anything over 40 hours. Lowering that threshold will mean those 8 extra hours are more valuable and will hold wages steady.
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They do that anyway, but the whole wage market shifts upward because of the non-exempt regulations. The whole reason we even had a middle class to loose was the labor laws established from union strikes and labor reform in the early 20th century. The only reason you have a weekend is because of those laws. Regulation like this is the first step toward improving labor down the board.
ofc we should also raise min wage and/or establish universal benefits to head off automation and other productivity improvements, but those are bigger reforms.