11 ms·

Progressive Caucus’ Endorsement of 32-Hour Workweek Act

102 points by nithinj 5y ago

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Not going to pass, but solid effort to get the idea out there to give it time to simmer as the electorate and representatives churn over time. Expect progressives to add this as a talking point during future election cycles.
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  and virtually NONE of the congress want it to pass, Dem or GOP...but the Dem congress know that joe manchin will not vote for it, and so it will not pass...so they figure now is the perfect time to create bills like this...the Democratic congress campaigned on this sort of legislation, even though they don't want them to pass...they promised their voters they were genuine progressives/leftist...so they need to prove it...but their corporate lobby paymasters would be displeased were this sort of legislation to be passed...but joe manchin has given the signal that he will be the convenient "villain" that will stop any populist leftwing bills...it's a kabuki dance...
  - NoGravitas 5y ago
    Eh. This is a true picture for the Democratic Party as a whole: they don't want this to pass any more than they want Medicare For All to pass. The Progressive Caucus members are probably sincere about pushing it, though.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    "Oh no, if it weren't for the dastardly other party we would've delivered what we promised during the campaign! Unfortunately only the political donors get what they asked for this time around, vote harder next time kid." - Every American politician until the heat death of the universe
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    This is a writing style I see every so often and I don't quite understand it. Using so many sets of ellipses within paragraphs and sentences makes for a very bizarre and difficult to understand cadence. It's very difficult to read and honestly comes off as immature, as if the writer has an incredibly limited grasp of English sentence and paragraph structure.
    - JasonFruit 5y ago
      I don't think it's hard to read at all. Probably the person who wrote it is uncomfortable with punctuation, especially when they want to connect related thoughts that they're not certain form complete sentences on their own. If you look at the top-level commenter's history, they seem to use it to separate elements in what they see as a chain of reasoning.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        Many of the fragments could be combined to form coherent sentences with minimal or no modification. At the moment it's one long run on sentence with a bunch of ellipses spread throughout.
      - RappingBoomer 5y ago
        i actually have a degree in english and a former english teacher...I use ellipses because they save time and separate sentences well, making them easier to read
        JasonFruit 5y ago
        Convenience is another possible explanation, I suppose…
    - NavinF 5y ago
      That’s a long winded way of saying “ok boomer”. Seriously tho, google “boomer ellipses” and you’ll find many theories for why people do this.
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    That is absolutely the truth: see also the continued legality of abortion despite decades of Republicans winning elections based on their "opposition" to it. Why eliminate something that consistently wins you elections?
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      In the 50 years since Roe, Republicans have won a lot of elections. Democrats have won somewhat more elections. So, first, it's hard to criticize them for not doing what they've never had the power to do, and second, if it's their strategy for winning elections, it's not quite a winning strategy. It seems to me that Republicans have opposed abortion more consistently than either party has acted on any other policy position. (Not totally consistently, but more consistently than on anything else.) It's hard to view that as hypocrisy. You can oppose it, hate it, whatever, but they do seem to be following through on their position. And, what progress have they made? They went from a 7-2 liberal Supreme Court majority in 1972 to a 6-3 conservative majority today. That's where they made progress on defeating abortion.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    As far as the left is concerned, the GOP has a 52-48 advantage in the senate. They’re pushing bills like this to say “vote the DINOs out of the party.”
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Pushing bills like this may lead to much of the country saying "vote anyone on the same side as these nutcases out of Washington". The Democrats may wind up with a purer party. They also may wind up with fewer seats. In other words, you may be right about their strategy, but it may not be a smart one...
      - wayoutthere 5y ago
        Many on the left are done compromising with the center because they don’t have to worry about the right doing so either. Personally I’m fine if the democrats get trashed in the midterms; maybe it’ll break the gerontocracy and give the left a fighting chance in 2024. Because with the current center-right bend of the DNC, I don’t have a dog in this fight.
        AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Your choice. Realize, though, that the number of people "on the left" (defined as significantly left of the DNC) are not enough to win enough elections to be able to have any say in things. Trying to pull the DNC marginally your way is the only lever you've got.
        wayoutthere 5y ago
        Right now the DNC panders to us during elections then forgets we exist after they win. So let them lose a few; maybe then party leadership will be open to some new ideas. The last two elections have proven the dems can’t win without the left.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    It’s quite funny you are getting downvoted. I worked in DC lobbying for years and this is precisely, 100% how things work in DC. There’s even a name for it, “messaging bills”, bills voted on just to let your supporters know you’re giving it the ole college try. The tactic is very effective too, look at all this press and cred is being gained all over a complete fantasy of a bill. The press has also been courted and managed by the confessional media relations staff and K Street lobbying firms. The “corporate paymasters” also represent a valid stakeholder in the process as they represent their employees, customers and shareholders. Much of politics is theatre. I’m not advancing some jaded, cynical conspiracy theory. This is simply a mechanic of modern American politics, same as how a phone app operates on a structure that most users are unaware of. I say this not to sway you to one side or another, just be aware that like you have your professional hidden world, politics has its as well.
    - Wiseacre 5y ago
      Legalized gay marriage was also called a fantasy by critics when it was proposed.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - Aloha 5y ago
        It had a natural constituency, one with money, who fought for decades to make it a reality. Thats how you effect change, you fight like mad for 40 years to make changes, the less money you have, the longer it takes.
        RappingBoomer 5y ago
        also, those sort of divisive culture war issues are much beloved by the media and their corporate advertisers because it distracts voters from the real hardcore economic issues that have the potential to hurt fat wallets
        5y ago
- mlyle 5y ago
  Yah-- it's exciting to see this in the discourse. I feel like 32 hours is too big of a step, but 36 hours is an idea I've been advocating for awhile. It's a hedge against automation; it should push up the price of labor by reducing supply; and it just makes life significantly better for everyone.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    > It's a hedge against automation; it should push up the price of labor by reducing supply; and it just makes life significantly better for everyone. This wouldn't be a "hedge against automation", it would be a catalyst for further automation. You'll reach the point where the only sensible thing for a company to do is to automate. It may make life better for those who are still employable in a market where it's cheaper to pay a few engineers to design automation than to pay all the overtime you'd otherwise need to be shelling out. And in the long run (100 years out) we'll probably be better off for the automation. But in the short run intentionally making people harder to employ doesn't make any sense to me.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > This wouldn't be a "hedge against automation", it would be a catalyst for further automation. You'll reach the point where the only sensible thing for a company to do is to automate. If it's inevitable that x% of jobs are going to be automated in the next decade, reducing the supply of labor by x% is a reasonable hedge. Yes, it may mean that x+y% (where y is something significantly less than x) are actually automated, but IMO we are still better off. The thing is, there's some jobs that are very resistant to automation, and this will tend to spread them over more people and push their wages up by reducing supply. > But in the short run intentionally making people harder to employ doesn't make any sense to me. Right now there's a lot of talk about increasing minimum wage. I think shortening the work week is better, because it spreads the higher skilled jobs around more people and doesn't exclude people whose current labor value is less than a higher minimum wage from the work force. The 40 hour work week has been good for everyone. Do you believe 40 is the ideal number, and can't be improved upon by moving it in either way? I think that: - looming issues that may reduce demand for labor - increased productivity that the benefits of have almost all accrued to capital instead of to labor - other developed countries doing OK at 36 all argue that 40 hours may have been ideal for 1940 and something more like 36 hours is ideal for now.
clavicat 5y ago
I like the idea, but now, in the midst of labor shortage?
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  It’s less of a labor shortage and more a surplus of garbage jobs that don’t pay enough.
  - Proven 5y ago
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  So try to extract concessions while labor power is at an upswing.
  - mwigdahl 5y ago
    This is exactly it. This wouldn't have a ghost of a chance in a buyer's market for labor.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Perhaps moving to standardized 4-day work weeks or 6 hours days will intice some of the elderly who have retired to return to the workforce?
  - honkycat 5y ago
    This was my understanding as well. People under 55 have extremely high labor participation, but a LOT of people retired. Do you have a citation for this information? I was looking the other day and was unable to find the right search terms.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      This is in Canada but my spouse (aged 55) has scaled back their workweek to three days. I think the 40 hour grind (lets face it - almost nobody works 9-5 anymore, paid lunches are a thing that most companies have jettisoned) wears folks down and once you hit your middle years your priorities really shift. Providing a healthier work schedule is really to everyone's benefit now.
JamesBarney 5y ago
This seems like an odd time to introduce an act like this. You think you would want to introduce this when unemployment was high.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  Unemployment u-3 is low, but workforce participation rate (u-6) is high.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    Uh oops I mean the rate of people _not_ working who are of the age range to work is high
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  On the contrary, workers need to extract concessions when they are strong, so it's obvious that you'd see this type of legislation proposed only in such times. If workers are already competing for jobs, they can't force corporations to accept anything.
Proven 5y ago
[dead]
ren_engineer 5y ago
is there any actual research to support this? I'm always wary of arbitrary numbers being mandated by the federal government. Seems like the result would be like the healthcare bill, just more people forced to work multiple part-time jobs
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The alternative is a universal basic income, which is even less likely to pass.
  - honkycat 5y ago
    At this point I think UBI is the best solution we have. I would prefer other things, but UBI is simple enough that I think it could work. EVERYWHERE online, people are complaining about the epidemic of houselessness. it sucks for everyone. For the businesses that have to deal with the people our society has abandoned. For the people being forced to live on the streets. At this point we have a choice. Give the unhoused access to subsidized healthcare and housing, or accept the permanent shanty-towns like we live in a 3rd world country.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      I favor both. Let's knock the work week down to 36 hours, and let's replace some of our social programs and tax credits with a (small, to start, but universal) UBI. This works the problem from both ends: it supports employment and wages by reducing the supply of labor, and it still betters the situation for those who are most negatively impacted by shortened work weeks.
    - syshum 5y ago
      The way to get UBI is to first replace all Social programs with the negative Income Tax. You solve the social problems, you stop the welfare trap, and you put the economy on the Path to a UBI. Until we replace all social programs with something better, less corrupt, UBI will never work
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
k4c9x 5y ago
Not that I think it'll pass but would that make healthcare eligibility at 32 hours too? Seems like this would just make places cut hours to avoid it. I'd really love to see healthcare completely separated from work in my life time. A few years ago I ended up having to get my own and it's real nice to be able to choose what insurance I want instead of having one forced on me and then changed every year. It actually influences my thoughts about expanding my business to the point were it would be required because so far everyone is happier with a salary bump to cover the cost and being able to choose.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  This definitely isn't me. While I want to be able to choose my own insurance because I think I could select a better one, my HSA with my company costs me either $0 or like $2 a month. The PPO is like $100 / month. If I got my own, personal insurance, it would easily be $600/mo. Now, I can afford this; but people who make less than a software engineer absolutely could not; and, they're not going to be getting an 8k / year raise (taxes) to compensate for that. It'd be nice (edit: if) they were; but, they won't.
  - Glyptodon 5y ago
    It goes without saying that severing the employer insurance relationship should come with premiums being pushed back into salaries. What exactly that should look like is a pretty open-ended question, though.
    - texasbigdata 5y ago
      Correct. You'll have a employer and employee deduction per period to Blue Cross or your insurer of choice. Same for dental, workers comp, etc. OP has an interesting point, but at the societal level it's not fair to do comparisons with an unpriced externality in one of the alternatives.
      - syshum 5y ago
        More and more companies are direct insurance, meaning even if they use an "insurance company" to manage the group, that is just for the administration of the group. The companies are paying the medical costs of the employee directly.
xyzzy21 5y ago
That's nice. That won't change how many hours I work... And because that I'm be ahead of anyone stupid enough to take a 32-hour week. 100% Ok with that.
MrZongle2 5y ago
A 40-hour workweek doesn't bother me. Shitty healthcare and the rising cost of everything, does.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
So how's this supposed to work? If I work 32 hours a week instead of 40, is my employer still going to pay me the same amount of money? Or only 80%? If only 80%, does the Progressive Caucus think that everyone's going to be thrilled at having to take a 20% pay cut? Or do they think employers are going to pay the same out of the goodness of their hearts? Or are they going to require employers to pay the same? If the employers have to pay the same for less work (= less stuff produced), is there any realistic scenario where that won't be inflationary? If companies have to pay the same for less work, that's a higher hourly rate. Won't they simply lay off those who don't produce enough per hour to cover their cost? Is there any way this doesn't have very negative second-order effects? So: Is this just a publicity stunt by the Progressive Caucus? Or do they really not understand second-order effects (and basic economics)?
- deltree7 5y ago
  Progressives -- Driving every moderate/independents into the hands of GOP
- mlyle 5y ago
  > If only 80%, does the Progressive Caucus think that everyone's going to be thrilled at having to take a 20% pay cut? In general, when the supply of something (labor) falls, the price per unit goes up. There's a whole lot of non-exempt employees working 50 hour weeks now; the employer pays overtime for 25% of their hours. If this changes to paying the overtime rate for 36%, this really increases the pressure to train up more people into these occupations to reduce the overtime overrages. > If the employers have to pay the same for less work (= less stuff produced), is there any realistic scenario where that won't be inflationary? It's certainly a little inflationary, but it does more to affect how much of the share of productivity goes to labor vs. to capital and brings it closer to historic balances.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    > In general, when the supply of something (labor) falls, the price per unit goes up. That could happen. That turns into raising the price by supply and demand, rather than by legislation. It could work out that way. The problem is that businesses are not bottomless supplies of money. Not all businesses can just raise prices; not all can simply take less profit. Some will fail. (If everything works out just right, that will be the least necessary businesses, and will add up to 20% of hours worked. If everything works out just right.) > > If the employers have to pay the same for less work (= less stuff produced), is there any realistic scenario where that won't be inflationary? > It's certainly a little inflationary, but it does more to affect how much of the share of productivity goes to labor vs. to capital and brings it closer to historic balances. Don't think in terms of money. Think in terms of the economy of stuff (both goods and services). There's 20% less stuff produced. That's 20% less stuff available to consume. I strongly suspect that most of that missing 20% is going to be missed by workers, not by capital. Could this move "closer to historic balances" by hurting capital worse? That's possible. I suspect it's going to hurt small businesses the worst; they may be "capital", but they aren't what people usually want to target when they target capitalists. And, "closer to historic balances"? Historic when? 1950? That was a very unusual time. 1890? That was also an unusual time, but in the other direction. What's your definition of "historic balances"?
dqpb 5y ago
Speaking for myself, this would almost certainly increase the total value I produce and the amount of money I spend.
abeppu 5y ago
Aside from the "this won't pass and isn't seriously intended to" thing, I think the other big question for me is, of non-exempt employees, who actually works a 40 hour week? My understanding is that the most recent stats put median weekly earnings at just about $1k and the exemption line is $684/wk, so certainly less than half of workers are non-exempt now. Of the non-exempt workers in the US, how many are working, for example 3 different 20 hr/wk jobs, or 2 30 hr/wk jobs? How many are working 90 hours of mixed gig-economy "jobs"? I get that the pandemic changed a lot about the labor market, but previously the trend seemed to be towards workers having to stitch together multiple things to support themselves, and it's not clear that the proposal really has caught up with the idea that a lot of work isn't done by "full time employees" any longer. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime
aiisahik 5y ago
The sad reality is that 32 hour work week only makes sense for certain intellectual and creative workers where 1. productive output doesn't have a strong correlation with input hours 2. have the competitive labor market to have any productivity loses absorbed by the employer. For the typical worker this is designed to help, this would just be a 20% reduction in productivity. Employers would either reduce pay, increase prices, or hire non CA workers where possible (either remote or open an office outside CA).
- pm90 5y ago
  I don’t agree. Employers would either have to hire more workers or pay overtime to workers to work extra hours.
  - 988747 5y ago
    Both of which would give them strong incentive to lower the salaries first: this way they can afford to hire more workers, or pay overtime at the same total salary budget.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      It's a labor market. If you gotta higher more people, that doesn't help your negotiating position. You are right that the labor market is not a econ 101 efficient, historically, and this minimum wage laws didn't have all those econ 101 effects people thought. But let's not carry that premise to the far: shrinking the work-week and tightening the labor market makes it more normal. So yes business hates this at first, as distributing the work more evenly costs them more money, and lots of unproductive small bossiness will be stuck. But this is good. Eventually, paying more people will create more demand, so the bigger productive businesses, now with less small business competition, might actually like this situation. Perhaps. This whole "we are going to dock pay" scenario would basically require cartel action, which doesn't exist for small businesses. (They don't have cartel power, they have political power to e.g. ensure lots of undocumented immigrants and what-not.) People will quit and find other jobs. The bigger corps will provide some of the other jobs. That said, I do think coupling with UBI to smooth over the transition with more demand to ensure the small business don't even try some funny business would be good.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This seems to be the key part: > This legislation would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours by lowering the maximum hours threshold for overtime compensation for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). It doesn't mean we're all suddenly working 8 fewer hours. It doesn't mean anything at all for exempt employees (like most of us engineers). It would only mean that hourly, non-exempt workers would be paid 50% more for hours 33-40 every week. It's a symbolic bill, though, so it's not actually intended to pass.
- Buttons840 5y ago
  It would mean the expectation has changed though. A bunch of potential hires who scoff at the idea of working more than 32-hours a week would start to put pressure on the company to adopt the same.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    The current workweek expectation has been 40 hours for my entire life, but certain companies have never hesitated to completely ignore it. I don't honestly see how this would change the situation.
- waiseristy 5y ago
  So that just means employers will cut hours to no more than 32 a week to avoid paying OT. Aren't progressives already complaining about people working multiple jobs to get by?
14 5y ago
Here we simply don’t have the staff to go to 32 hours. The only thing this would effectively change is that after 32 hours they would have to start paying us overtime. We are hiring any qualified care workers but we continue to be short staffed every single day.
ejb999 5y ago
shelves are empty, ships not getting unloaded, not enough deliveries being made by truck - 10M open positions that can't be filled - who is the genius that thinks knocking 20% off the work week of people already doing those tasks is going to make things better?
- waiseristy 5y ago
  But but but, automation! Americans have a very difficult time understanding how much blood sweat and tears it takes to get their food on the table, gas in their cars, planes in the air, etc. Increasing the cost to employ Americans in these jobs will only result in the jobs migrating south / overseas. Completely moronic pandering driven by these idiots trying to get re-elected on overall unpopular platforms
pzo 5y ago
It's interesting that not typical western country is the first one reducing typical 40h workweek but UAE [1] If we would really want to, we could move to 32h workweek long time ago as long as companies are not obsessed to make each quarter the biggest revenue by all means. Reducing 5 day workweek to 4 day workweek would reduce production of good no more than 20% (in practice probably much less since lots of production is automated). If each GDP is increase lets say 2% that's just equals sacrificing 10 years of those 2% increases. In practice I don't seem it coming globally since companies compete with companies globally as well, e.g. in China many people work 996 (12h, 6days) so it's sort of unfair advantage. I think the only reason we have 40h work week in western world is because at the time when Ford popularized it USA was already a big economy without much competition in other countries (Europe just healing from WWI) [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062435944/uae-work-week-change-saturday-sunday-weekends-global-markets?t=1640028603000 https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062435944/uae-work-week-chan...

102 points by nithinj 5y ago

Not going to pass, but solid effort to get the idea out there to give it time to simmer as the electorate and representatives churn over time. Expect progressives to add this as a talking point during future election cycles.

RappingBoomer 5y ago
and virtually NONE of the congress want it to pass, Dem or GOP...but the Dem congress know that joe manchin will not vote for it, and so it will not pass...so they figure now is the perfect time to create bills like this...the Democratic congress campaigned on this sort of legislation, even though they don't want them to pass...they promised their voters they were genuine progressives/leftist...so they need to prove it...but their corporate lobby paymasters would be displeased were this sort of legislation to be passed...but joe manchin has given the signal that he will be the convenient "villain" that will stop any populist leftwing bills...it's a kabuki dance...
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  Eh. This is a true picture for the Democratic Party as a whole: they don't want this to pass any more than they want Medicare For All to pass. The Progressive Caucus members are probably sincere about pushing it, though.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- willcipriano 5y ago
  "Oh no, if it weren't for the dastardly other party we would've delivered what we promised during the campaign! Unfortunately only the political donors get what they asked for this time around, vote harder next time kid." - Every American politician until the heat death of the universe
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  This is a writing style I see every so often and I don't quite understand it. Using so many sets of ellipses within paragraphs and sentences makes for a very bizarre and difficult to understand cadence. It's very difficult to read and honestly comes off as immature, as if the writer has an incredibly limited grasp of English sentence and paragraph structure.
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    I don't think it's hard to read at all. Probably the person who wrote it is uncomfortable with punctuation, especially when they want to connect related thoughts that they're not certain form complete sentences on their own. If you look at the top-level commenter's history, they seem to use it to separate elements in what they see as a chain of reasoning.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Many of the fragments could be combined to form coherent sentences with minimal or no modification. At the moment it's one long run on sentence with a bunch of ellipses spread throughout.
    - RappingBoomer 5y ago
      i actually have a degree in english and a former english teacher...I use ellipses because they save time and separate sentences well, making them easier to read
      - JasonFruit 5y ago
        Convenience is another possible explanation, I suppose…
  - NavinF 5y ago
    That’s a long winded way of saying “ok boomer”. Seriously tho, google “boomer ellipses” and you’ll find many theories for why people do this.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  That is absolutely the truth: see also the continued legality of abortion despite decades of Republicans winning elections based on their "opposition" to it. Why eliminate something that consistently wins you elections?
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    In the 50 years since Roe, Republicans have won a lot of elections. Democrats have won somewhat more elections. So, first, it's hard to criticize them for not doing what they've never had the power to do, and second, if it's their strategy for winning elections, it's not quite a winning strategy. It seems to me that Republicans have opposed abortion more consistently than either party has acted on any other policy position. (Not totally consistently, but more consistently than on anything else.) It's hard to view that as hypocrisy. You can oppose it, hate it, whatever, but they do seem to be following through on their position. And, what progress have they made? They went from a 7-2 liberal Supreme Court majority in 1972 to a 6-3 conservative majority today. That's where they made progress on defeating abortion.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  As far as the left is concerned, the GOP has a 52-48 advantage in the senate. They’re pushing bills like this to say “vote the DINOs out of the party.”
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Pushing bills like this may lead to much of the country saying "vote anyone on the same side as these nutcases out of Washington". The Democrats may wind up with a purer party. They also may wind up with fewer seats. In other words, you may be right about their strategy, but it may not be a smart one...
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      Many on the left are done compromising with the center because they don’t have to worry about the right doing so either. Personally I’m fine if the democrats get trashed in the midterms; maybe it’ll break the gerontocracy and give the left a fighting chance in 2024. Because with the current center-right bend of the DNC, I don’t have a dog in this fight.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Your choice. Realize, though, that the number of people "on the left" (defined as significantly left of the DNC) are not enough to win enough elections to be able to have any say in things. Trying to pull the DNC marginally your way is the only lever you've got.
        wayoutthere 5y ago
        Right now the DNC panders to us during elections then forgets we exist after they win. So let them lose a few; maybe then party leadership will be open to some new ideas. The last two elections have proven the dems can’t win without the left.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  It’s quite funny you are getting downvoted. I worked in DC lobbying for years and this is precisely, 100% how things work in DC. There’s even a name for it, “messaging bills”, bills voted on just to let your supporters know you’re giving it the ole college try. The tactic is very effective too, look at all this press and cred is being gained all over a complete fantasy of a bill. The press has also been courted and managed by the confessional media relations staff and K Street lobbying firms. The “corporate paymasters” also represent a valid stakeholder in the process as they represent their employees, customers and shareholders. Much of politics is theatre. I’m not advancing some jaded, cynical conspiracy theory. This is simply a mechanic of modern American politics, same as how a phone app operates on a structure that most users are unaware of. I say this not to sway you to one side or another, just be aware that like you have your professional hidden world, politics has its as well.
  - Wiseacre 5y ago
    Legalized gay marriage was also called a fantasy by critics when it was proposed.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Aloha 5y ago
      It had a natural constituency, one with money, who fought for decades to make it a reality. Thats how you effect change, you fight like mad for 40 years to make changes, the less money you have, the longer it takes.
      - RappingBoomer 5y ago
        also, those sort of divisive culture war issues are much beloved by the media and their corporate advertisers because it distracts voters from the real hardcore economic issues that have the potential to hurt fat wallets
        5y ago
mlyle 5y ago
Yah-- it's exciting to see this in the discourse. I feel like 32 hours is too big of a step, but 36 hours is an idea I've been advocating for awhile. It's a hedge against automation; it should push up the price of labor by reducing supply; and it just makes life significantly better for everyone.
- lolinder 5y ago
  > It's a hedge against automation; it should push up the price of labor by reducing supply; and it just makes life significantly better for everyone. This wouldn't be a "hedge against automation", it would be a catalyst for further automation. You'll reach the point where the only sensible thing for a company to do is to automate. It may make life better for those who are still employable in a market where it's cheaper to pay a few engineers to design automation than to pay all the overtime you'd otherwise need to be shelling out. And in the long run (100 years out) we'll probably be better off for the automation. But in the short run intentionally making people harder to employ doesn't make any sense to me.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > This wouldn't be a "hedge against automation", it would be a catalyst for further automation. You'll reach the point where the only sensible thing for a company to do is to automate. If it's inevitable that x% of jobs are going to be automated in the next decade, reducing the supply of labor by x% is a reasonable hedge. Yes, it may mean that x+y% (where y is something significantly less than x) are actually automated, but IMO we are still better off. The thing is, there's some jobs that are very resistant to automation, and this will tend to spread them over more people and push their wages up by reducing supply. > But in the short run intentionally making people harder to employ doesn't make any sense to me. Right now there's a lot of talk about increasing minimum wage. I think shortening the work week is better, because it spreads the higher skilled jobs around more people and doesn't exclude people whose current labor value is less than a higher minimum wage from the work force. The 40 hour work week has been good for everyone. Do you believe 40 is the ideal number, and can't be improved upon by moving it in either way? I think that: - looming issues that may reduce demand for labor - increased productivity that the benefits of have almost all accrued to capital instead of to labor - other developed countries doing OK at 36 all argue that 40 hours may have been ideal for 1940 and something more like 36 hours is ideal for now.

clavicat 5y ago

I like the idea, but now, in the midst of labor shortage?

brtkdotse 5y ago
It’s less of a labor shortage and more a surplus of garbage jobs that don’t pay enough.
- Proven 5y ago
Apocryphon 5y ago
So try to extract concessions while labor power is at an upswing.
- mwigdahl 5y ago
  This is exactly it. This wouldn't have a ghost of a chance in a buyer's market for labor.
shkkmo 5y ago
Perhaps moving to standardized 4-day work weeks or 6 hours days will intice some of the elderly who have retired to return to the workforce?
- honkycat 5y ago
  This was my understanding as well. People under 55 have extremely high labor participation, but a LOT of people retired. Do you have a citation for this information? I was looking the other day and was unable to find the right search terms.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    This is in Canada but my spouse (aged 55) has scaled back their workweek to three days. I think the 40 hour grind (lets face it - almost nobody works 9-5 anymore, paid lunches are a thing that most companies have jettisoned) wears folks down and once you hit your middle years your priorities really shift. Providing a healthier work schedule is really to everyone's benefit now.

JamesBarney 5y ago

This seems like an odd time to introduce an act like this. You think you would want to introduce this when unemployment was high.

dv_dt 5y ago
Unemployment u-3 is low, but workforce participation rate (u-6) is high.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  Uh oops I mean the rate of people _not_ working who are of the age range to work is high
tsimionescu 5y ago
On the contrary, workers need to extract concessions when they are strong, so it's obvious that you'd see this type of legislation proposed only in such times. If workers are already competing for jobs, they can't force corporations to accept anything.

Proven 5y ago

[dead]

ren_engineer 5y ago

is there any actual research to support this? I'm always wary of arbitrary numbers being mandated by the federal government. Seems like the result would be like the healthcare bill, just more people forced to work multiple part-time jobs

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The alternative is a universal basic income, which is even less likely to pass.
- honkycat 5y ago
  At this point I think UBI is the best solution we have. I would prefer other things, but UBI is simple enough that I think it could work. EVERYWHERE online, people are complaining about the epidemic of houselessness. it sucks for everyone. For the businesses that have to deal with the people our society has abandoned. For the people being forced to live on the streets. At this point we have a choice. Give the unhoused access to subsidized healthcare and housing, or accept the permanent shanty-towns like we live in a 3rd world country.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    I favor both. Let's knock the work week down to 36 hours, and let's replace some of our social programs and tax credits with a (small, to start, but universal) UBI. This works the problem from both ends: it supports employment and wages by reducing the supply of labor, and it still betters the situation for those who are most negatively impacted by shortened work weeks.
  - syshum 5y ago
    The way to get UBI is to first replace all Social programs with the negative Income Tax. You solve the social problems, you stop the welfare trap, and you put the economy on the Path to a UBI. Until we replace all social programs with something better, less corrupt, UBI will never work
- Ericson2314 5y ago

k4c9x 5y ago

Not that I think it'll pass but would that make healthcare eligibility at 32 hours too? Seems like this would just make places cut hours to avoid it. I'd really love to see healthcare completely separated from work in my life time. A few years ago I ended up having to get my own and it's real nice to be able to choose what insurance I want instead of having one forced on me and then changed every year. It actually influences my thoughts about expanding my business to the point were it would be required because so far everyone is happier with a salary bump to cover the cost and being able to choose.

t-writescode 5y ago
This definitely isn't me. While I want to be able to choose my own insurance because I think I could select a better one, my HSA with my company costs me either $0 or like $2 a month. The PPO is like $100 / month. If I got my own, personal insurance, it would easily be $600/mo. Now, I can afford this; but people who make less than a software engineer absolutely could not; and, they're not going to be getting an 8k / year raise (taxes) to compensate for that. It'd be nice (edit: if) they were; but, they won't.
- Glyptodon 5y ago
  It goes without saying that severing the employer insurance relationship should come with premiums being pushed back into salaries. What exactly that should look like is a pretty open-ended question, though.
  - texasbigdata 5y ago
    Correct. You'll have a employer and employee deduction per period to Blue Cross or your insurer of choice. Same for dental, workers comp, etc. OP has an interesting point, but at the societal level it's not fair to do comparisons with an unpriced externality in one of the alternatives.
    - syshum 5y ago
      More and more companies are direct insurance, meaning even if they use an "insurance company" to manage the group, that is just for the administration of the group. The companies are paying the medical costs of the employee directly.

xyzzy21 5y ago

That's nice. That won't change how many hours I work... And because that I'm be ahead of anyone stupid enough to take a 32-hour week. 100% Ok with that.

MrZongle2 5y ago

A 40-hour workweek doesn't bother me. Shitty healthcare and the rising cost of everything, does.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

So how's this supposed to work? If I work 32 hours a week instead of 40, is my employer still going to pay me the same amount of money? Or only 80%? If only 80%, does the Progressive Caucus think that everyone's going to be thrilled at having to take a 20% pay cut? Or do they think employers are going to pay the same out of the goodness of their hearts? Or are they going to require employers to pay the same? If the employers have to pay the same for less work (= less stuff produced), is there any realistic scenario where that won't be inflationary? If companies have to pay the same for less work, that's a higher hourly rate. Won't they simply lay off those who don't produce enough per hour to cover their cost? Is there any way this doesn't have very negative second-order effects? So: Is this just a publicity stunt by the Progressive Caucus? Or do they really not understand second-order effects (and basic economics)?

deltree7 5y ago
Progressives -- Driving every moderate/independents into the hands of GOP
mlyle 5y ago
> If only 80%, does the Progressive Caucus think that everyone's going to be thrilled at having to take a 20% pay cut? In general, when the supply of something (labor) falls, the price per unit goes up. There's a whole lot of non-exempt employees working 50 hour weeks now; the employer pays overtime for 25% of their hours. If this changes to paying the overtime rate for 36%, this really increases the pressure to train up more people into these occupations to reduce the overtime overrages. > If the employers have to pay the same for less work (= less stuff produced), is there any realistic scenario where that won't be inflationary? It's certainly a little inflationary, but it does more to affect how much of the share of productivity goes to labor vs. to capital and brings it closer to historic balances.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  > In general, when the supply of something (labor) falls, the price per unit goes up. That could happen. That turns into raising the price by supply and demand, rather than by legislation. It could work out that way. The problem is that businesses are not bottomless supplies of money. Not all businesses can just raise prices; not all can simply take less profit. Some will fail. (If everything works out just right, that will be the least necessary businesses, and will add up to 20% of hours worked. If everything works out just right.) > > If the employers have to pay the same for less work (= less stuff produced), is there any realistic scenario where that won't be inflationary? > It's certainly a little inflationary, but it does more to affect how much of the share of productivity goes to labor vs. to capital and brings it closer to historic balances. Don't think in terms of money. Think in terms of the economy of stuff (both goods and services). There's 20% less stuff produced. That's 20% less stuff available to consume. I strongly suspect that most of that missing 20% is going to be missed by workers, not by capital. Could this move "closer to historic balances" by hurting capital worse? That's possible. I suspect it's going to hurt small businesses the worst; they may be "capital", but they aren't what people usually want to target when they target capitalists. And, "closer to historic balances"? Historic when? 1950? That was a very unusual time. 1890? That was also an unusual time, but in the other direction. What's your definition of "historic balances"?

dqpb 5y ago

Speaking for myself, this would almost certainly increase the total value I produce and the amount of money I spend.

abeppu 5y ago

Aside from the "this won't pass and isn't seriously intended to" thing, I think the other big question for me is, of non-exempt employees, who actually works a 40 hour week? My understanding is that the most recent stats put median weekly earnings at just about $1k and the exemption line is $684/wk, so certainly less than half of workers are non-exempt now. Of the non-exempt workers in the US, how many are working, for example 3 different 20 hr/wk jobs, or 2 30 hr/wk jobs? How many are working 90 hours of mixed gig-economy "jobs"? I get that the pandemic changed a lot about the labor market, but previously the trend seemed to be towards workers having to stitch together multiple things to support themselves, and it's not clear that the proposal really has caught up with the idea that a lot of work isn't done by "full time employees" any longer. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime

aiisahik 5y ago

The sad reality is that 32 hour work week only makes sense for certain intellectual and creative workers where 1. productive output doesn't have a strong correlation with input hours 2. have the competitive labor market to have any productivity loses absorbed by the employer. For the typical worker this is designed to help, this would just be a 20% reduction in productivity. Employers would either reduce pay, increase prices, or hire non CA workers where possible (either remote or open an office outside CA).

pm90 5y ago
I don’t agree. Employers would either have to hire more workers or pay overtime to workers to work extra hours.
- 988747 5y ago
  Both of which would give them strong incentive to lower the salaries first: this way they can afford to hire more workers, or pay overtime at the same total salary budget.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    It's a labor market. If you gotta higher more people, that doesn't help your negotiating position. You are right that the labor market is not a econ 101 efficient, historically, and this minimum wage laws didn't have all those econ 101 effects people thought. But let's not carry that premise to the far: shrinking the work-week and tightening the labor market makes it more normal. So yes business hates this at first, as distributing the work more evenly costs them more money, and lots of unproductive small bossiness will be stuck. But this is good. Eventually, paying more people will create more demand, so the bigger productive businesses, now with less small business competition, might actually like this situation. Perhaps. This whole "we are going to dock pay" scenario would basically require cartel action, which doesn't exist for small businesses. (They don't have cartel power, they have political power to e.g. ensure lots of undocumented immigrants and what-not.) People will quit and find other jobs. The bigger corps will provide some of the other jobs. That said, I do think coupling with UBI to smooth over the transition with more demand to ensure the small business don't even try some funny business would be good.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

This seems to be the key part: > This legislation would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours by lowering the maximum hours threshold for overtime compensation for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). It doesn't mean we're all suddenly working 8 fewer hours. It doesn't mean anything at all for exempt employees (like most of us engineers). It would only mean that hourly, non-exempt workers would be paid 50% more for hours 33-40 every week. It's a symbolic bill, though, so it's not actually intended to pass.

Buttons840 5y ago
It would mean the expectation has changed though. A bunch of potential hires who scoff at the idea of working more than 32-hours a week would start to put pressure on the company to adopt the same.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  The current workweek expectation has been 40 hours for my entire life, but certain companies have never hesitated to completely ignore it. I don't honestly see how this would change the situation.
waiseristy 5y ago
So that just means employers will cut hours to no more than 32 a week to avoid paying OT. Aren't progressives already complaining about people working multiple jobs to get by?

14 5y ago

Here we simply don’t have the staff to go to 32 hours. The only thing this would effectively change is that after 32 hours they would have to start paying us overtime. We are hiring any qualified care workers but we continue to be short staffed every single day.

ejb999 5y ago

shelves are empty, ships not getting unloaded, not enough deliveries being made by truck - 10M open positions that can't be filled - who is the genius that thinks knocking 20% off the work week of people already doing those tasks is going to make things better?

waiseristy 5y ago
But but but, automation! Americans have a very difficult time understanding how much blood sweat and tears it takes to get their food on the table, gas in their cars, planes in the air, etc. Increasing the cost to employ Americans in these jobs will only result in the jobs migrating south / overseas. Completely moronic pandering driven by these idiots trying to get re-elected on overall unpopular platforms

pzo 5y ago

It's interesting that not typical western country is the first one reducing typical 40h workweek but UAE [1] If we would really want to, we could move to 32h workweek long time ago as long as companies are not obsessed to make each quarter the biggest revenue by all means. Reducing 5 day workweek to 4 day workweek would reduce production of good no more than 20% (in practice probably much less since lots of production is automated). If each GDP is increase lets say 2% that's just equals sacrificing 10 years of those 2% increases. In practice I don't seem it coming globally since companies compete with companies globally as well, e.g. in China many people work 996 (12h, 6days) so it's sort of unfair advantage. I think the only reason we have 40h work week in western world is because at the time when Ford popularized it USA was already a big economy without much competition in other countries (Europe just healing from WWI) [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062435944/uae-work-week-change-saturday-sunday-weekends-global-markets?t=1640028603000 https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062435944/uae-work-week-chan...