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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 correl

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.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
margalabargala 5y ago
I don't think there's anything CA-specific in this bill, aside from the fact that a rep from CA happens to be the one making this statement.
runarberg 5y ago
This claim is testable. Work hours have been shortened hundreds of times in dozens of industries over dozens of countries either by union contracts or by state laws. If your claim is correct, surely you would be able to back it up with some data. In fact if it were correct, the dozens of legislative assemblies across the world which keep shortening the working hours for various industries would know about it though the literature. Usually when work hours are shortened it comes with a guarantee of same pay and a clause for guaranteed compensation for overtime. If an industry relies on 40 hour work week the workers should then simply be paid more to compensate. If not then workers will enjoy the extra free time without any losses in pay.
Ericson2314 5y ago
This should hit some service workers who cannot be outsourced to other countries, that is good. I think it would also help other countries make similar moves, in Europe or rich east Asia. It certainly wouldn't make them less likely to do that. There is no reason to think we need as many low end job labor hours is currently cheap to hire. We should always be shrieking the workweek and doing more UBI to figure out where the bottle necks are, and then fixing those bottle necks with technology. There is no way this economy will reduce labor hours on it's own. Captialism has many self-regulating features but this is not one of them. It therefore must be done politically.

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.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

margalabargala 5y ago

I don't think there's anything CA-specific in this bill, aside from the fact that a rep from CA happens to be the one making this statement.

runarberg 5y ago

This claim is testable. Work hours have been shortened hundreds of times in dozens of industries over dozens of countries either by union contracts or by state laws. If your claim is correct, surely you would be able to back it up with some data. In fact if it were correct, the dozens of legislative assemblies across the world which keep shortening the working hours for various industries would know about it though the literature. Usually when work hours are shortened it comes with a guarantee of same pay and a clause for guaranteed compensation for overtime. If an industry relies on 40 hour work week the workers should then simply be paid more to compensate. If not then workers will enjoy the extra free time without any losses in pay.

Ericson2314 5y ago

This should hit some service workers who cannot be outsourced to other countries, that is good. I think it would also help other countries make similar moves, in Europe or rich east Asia. It certainly wouldn't make them less likely to do that. There is no reason to think we need as many low end job labor hours is currently cheap to hire. We should always be shrieking the workweek and doing more UBI to figure out where the bottle necks are, and then fixing those bottle necks with technology. There is no way this economy will reduce labor hours on it's own. Captialism has many self-regulating features but this is not one of them. It therefore must be done politically.