14 ms·

California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

98 points by jader201 5y ago

qzx_pierri 5y ago
It’s not like anyone actually does anything on Friday anyways. Fridays for me are mostly catching up on work I put off during the week and lurking reddit until it’s time to log off.
- mango7283 5y ago
  Must be nice. I'm in it operations so Fridays are just like Mondays except I get to see my weekend melt away because the infra and the operating environment is 24/7. Bah.
  - Ancalagon 5y ago
    I hope they pay you well. I wouldn’t last long in that position if what you described was a regular occurrence.
- pm90 5y ago
  It would be good to formalize it though. The best teams and managers I’ve worked on have had an unofficial understanding that Fridays are a slow day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jader201 5y ago
Curious why this isn’t bigger news? Seems like every other day, HN has some front page article about dreams of a shorter work week. It’s finally a possibility, and seems like HN is pretty apathetic about it (e.g. this article is from 5 days ago). Is it that we’re still not optimistic it will actually take hold?
- baby-yoda 5y ago
  sounds like this would only apply to hourly employees, considering the mention of 1.5x pay in excess of 32h.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > sounds like this would only apply to hourly employees, considering the mention of 1.5x pay in excess of 32h. As with the existing 40-hour overtime rule, it would apply to non-exempt non-union-contract workers regardless of hourly or salary pay basis; unlike the 40-hour rule it would apply only to large employers.
  - jader201 5y ago
    Possibly, but even if so, seems like it'd be a step in the right direction (at the very least).
    - baby-yoda 5y ago
      my initial reaction is this is gov't overreach however considering the current state of healthcare-attached-to-employment, this policy will probably be zero sum in the long run. this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits. of course mega corps are simply going to re-organize their benefits package to cut out the marginal increase in healthcare and labor costs somehow. those who were scheduled 35h to stay below the cutoff will now only have work for 30h. the "more true" solution, IMO, is decoupling healthcare and other benefits from employment rather than trying to band-aid the symptoms of this poor system with Sisyphean policy like this.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits Not directly, it doesn't. The full time for mandatory benefits (30 hours) is not changed by the threshold for mandatory overtime dropping from 40 hours to 32 hours. (Of course, if an employer wants to avoid overtime and has the same number of hours of work, but otherwise minimizes headcount, it will need 25% more 32-hour workers qualifying for benefits than it had 40-hour workers qualified for benefits, so it will mean more total workers getting benefits.)
la6472 5y ago
- azinman2 5y ago
  What’s wrong with the airport?
  - la6472 5y ago
    I meant the city
    - azinman2 5y ago
      I figured as much, but that you chose SFO made me think you don’t actually live here. Is that true?
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
mark_l_watson 5y ago
What business is this of the California government? I am 71 and a large fraction of my work life has been 32 hour work weeks, negotiated with my employers (I usually got 80% salary and 100% vacation and benefits). It boggles my mind that this would be made a law though. Individuals and their employers should work out any deal that makes sense for both parties.
- jader201 5y ago
  There are currently laws built around a 40-hour work week, so it seems to make sense that if this were to change, it would _have_ to change at the state/federal level.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Your skills must have been uniquely valuable, and you must have been well compensated to be able to afford living on 80% of a full time salary.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Unless you are starving, it is a matter of tradeoffs. At least half of people could take some sort of pay cut, as demonstrated by the fact that 50% of people do in fact make less.
  - IMTDb 5y ago
    "Marketing manager" go for around $140k / year. That's a job that requires some skill but definitely not in the realm of "uniquely valuable". 80% of that is $112k / year or 1.6 times the US median salary. Enough to comfortably live with, especially since the job is not physically demanding, allows remote working etc.
    - pc86 5y ago
      What does marketing manager have anything to do with anything? The GP's profile shows they certainly aren't a marketing manager and probably make quite a bit more than $140k/yr.
hw-guy 5y ago
Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work week meant nothing if there was a crisis or schedule slip that required putting in many extra hours. The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. Also, it's weird that it only applied to companies with >=500 employees; wouldn't this be a strong incentive for smaller companies to resist hiring the 500th employee?
- lolinder 5y ago
  > The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. It also assumes that non-exempt employees are spending 8 hours a week in unnecessary meetings. Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative?
  - shagie 5y ago
    > Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co... > However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. If you're a computer programmer making less than $27.63/hour (and I have been that situation living in low cost of living area), you are a non-exempt professional worker. I got 1.5x overtime, and since the company had it as policy, working evenings or weekends got a shift differential too.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. NB: California has a much higher exemption threshold for the industry: $47.48/hour or $8,242.32/mo on a salary basis.
_fat_santa 5y ago
Obviously this will depend on the industry and work environment, but I feel like the "4.5 day workweek" is already a thing for many office workers. What I'm talking about is the culture around slacking on a Friday. At least at my company, it's an unwritten rule that you never schedule a meeting after 12PM on a Friday. You can see from slack statuses that folks most all leave early and take longer lunch breaks. And any calls usually end with "lets finish hashing this out monday". Again just my personal experience, but where I've worked I've noticed that's consistently been the culture.
- usrn 5y ago
  That's actually a written rule for us, complete with the "no meeting" meeting scheduled in Outlook.
  - chrisjc 5y ago
    Same... however, it's also the time that I actually get a chance to do things without being interrupted.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  I would say that .5 is more like .75 - still gotta go through traffic to get to work, and people are still in a place they (apparently) rather not be. Eliminating the day entirely is still quite valuable compared to leaving it as-is.
  - fnordpiglet 5y ago
    Of course by this logic it’s not 4.75 but 5.75 - you still get a .25 for the prior 4 if you are unfortunate enough to be office based.
- nimbius 5y ago
  more like 'california considers codifying that which is already known' many of the largest employers like amazon, walmart, and fast food already restrict their employees to <40hrs to conspicuously avoid paying any benefits to employees. salaried employees wouldnt be affected by definition. what good does this serve? i guess it squeezes reprehensible companies by forcing them to pay healthcare/benefits, but the reality is likely that companies will just further divide and conquer the employees workday.
dghughes 5y ago
I see various websites show Canada as having an average of 32.5 hours per week for working hours. I don't think that is accurate. Most business here use a 40 hour week and most government departments have a 37.5 work week. Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. I wonder if that is accurate as well. I do see videos of people from the US living in various European countries who say people are less stressed from work. They say most people want to go out after work compared to the US where everyone is so stressed they just crash at home after work.
- tokai 5y ago
  >Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. Which countries? The EU average is 37.2. I don't know of any that is under 30.
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. I wonder if that is accurate as well. This is clearly not the case. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Hours_of_work_-_annual_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- pc86 5y ago
  "low 20s" is such an outlier you need to provide sources that "most European countries" are in that range or people should take this comment as an outright lie meant to deliberately deceive.
  - dghughes 5y ago
    The aggressive wording in your comment seems sudden and misplaced. My comment wasn't meant to be bound by law or cited in professional works. Anyway it's from any of a dozen statistics websites easily Googled like: https://business-review.eu/future-of-work/which-eu-countries-have-the-longest-average-working-week-220545 https://business-review.eu/future-of-work/which-eu-countries...
panzagl 5y ago
First get rid of exempt status for most non-equity dependent positions- unless you're receiving a significant share of the profits there is no justification for an engineer, much less a teacher, to be forced to work unpaid overtime.
dbg31415 5y ago
Australia has a 35-hour work week... but so many breaks too. Morning coffee. Lunch. Afternoon tea. Like it really paced out the day nicely. Not sure if the breaks were mandated or just cultural. Thing is, it never felt like we lost that much productivity. Spent a lot more at the local coffee shop though, that's for sure. But also, such better coffee than we have in the US. I think 32 hours is weird. Like 32 / 5... 6 hours 24 minutes a day. Just strange way to slice it.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  > Australia has a 35-hour work week... but so many breaks too. Morning coffee. Lunch. Afternoon tea. Like it really paced out the day nicely. I can understand that some people (particularly extroverts who want some time to socialize and mingle) might like this lifestyle a lot, and once in a while yeah you can use a break of course, but personally speaking I'd rather work hard straight through the day and have a larger uninterrupted block of time available in the evening for my own activities outside of the work environment.
  - dbg31415 5y ago
    Eh, you do you. But I'm guessing this is perceived as anti-social behavior and will hurt your career a bit. It's always good to build relationships. Results matter, but promotions always tend to go to friends. And the connections you make at one job will continue to pay off long after you cash the final paycheck from that company. Hard to think of any job where being social with your coworkers isn't the right play. Think of it like contributing to your 401k, or going to the gym. Putting in time to build out your network will make life easier down the road.
  - spiffytech 5y ago
    I agree. If I don't get that uninterrupted time after work where I can really switch gears or do some longer activity, it starts to feel like work is eating up my whole life.
- estomagordo 5y ago
  32/4 = 8
mlyle 5y ago
I think this is hard for California to do alone, and too big of a step. Federally, we should move to a 36 hour workweek. Maybe with a long term plan of getting to 32.
- estomagordo 5y ago
  Maybe sometimes it is best to aim a bit higher than what you'd settle for. Perhaps Cali considering 32 hrs is the push the US needs for 36 hrs.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Maybe. On the other side, if California puts a 32 hour work week in place, and pays obvious costs from industry reacting to it and being able to easily move operations to other states... it may sour the country on a shorter workweek when we could have all moved together to 36 hours without much issue.
newaccount2021 5y ago
stevetodd 5y ago
So basically everyone affected will have their hours cut without a change in hourly wage. All these people are then going to have to find a second job to avoid losing 20% of their income. How is that not going to happen?
- tediousdemise 5y ago
  > There would be no cut in pay, and those who work more would be compensated at a rate of no less than 1.5 times the employee’s regular rate of pay.
  - abduhl 5y ago
    The state of California cannot mandate “no cut in pay” by employers (although I'm sure they would like to, because a 20% cut to income tax would devastate the state's budget - which is why this idea is dead on arrival). Your pay will be reduced appropriately either based on an hourly rate or a cut to your salary.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The state of California cannot mandate “no cut in pay” by employers It can specify no cut in full-time pay for an employer for substantially similar work, on both an individual and overall basis (the current text only does this on an individual level, but that's not all the State could do. E.g., “The minimum hourly wage shall be the greater of $X/hr or the 5/4 the actual wage paid by the employer to the employee on date Y or the 5/4 the average wage paid by the employer to employees doing substantially similar work on date Y.”)
      - abduhl 5y ago
        This formulation presents a host of federal (and state) constitutional problems (i.e., contracts clause, takings, equal protection, etc.). You're certainly right that California "can" specify this. California would not be able to successfully defend this type of law in court. Pedantically, I guess you're right in the same way that you can "sue" anyone for anything, provided "sue" doesn't mean "win the lawsuit."
tediousdemise 5y ago
I'm already on a 4 day workweek, but the company still wants 40 hours. It's madness.
meremortals 5y ago
How would this affect distributed companies? Would Californians receive special treatment?
- briandear 5y ago
  Yes. And it will be a disincentive to hire California workers.
lukeaf 5y ago
Considering the companies they are talking about here, wouldn't it just be better to work towards a more goal driven work agreement? Show up, do what is required and then the time is yours? If you're being paid regardless then what does it matter if you're "on the bench" for a few hours or you leave early for the day? A lot, if we're talking about employee morale. Not much if someone is sitting at their desk trying to find stuff to do. So long as there is effective communication (which I know can be a challenge) then it really doesn't (or shouldn't) matter when a person is working if the gets done. No? 40h (or 32h) work weeks make even less sense when you work remotely.
- solveit 5y ago
  It's probably easier to change the law than it is to change the minds of the hour-counters.
- brk 5y ago
  Your logic is not wrong, but I think the part you are omitting is that most managers really do not know how to manage. In most companies nobody REALLY has a good feel for how much work someone should get done in a given amount of time, or what fair compensation would actually be. This puts us into the mode of "pay the minimum amount we can, and then try to extract maximum work product". If an employee is measurably unproductive for a few hours regularly, then the assumption is that their manager has failed somehow. I agree that this is most likely not an accurate conclusion, but it is a prevalent one.
- carschno 5y ago
  I suppose the main issue here from a legal perspective is the definition of a goal that can even be verified externally in case of disagreement, for instance by a judge. Hours of presence, on the other side, are quite objectively measurable (although becoming harder in a remote-work setting). I would like to add more subjectively: as a company, I would also be afraid that contracts defining payment based on piece work result in an army of quasi-consultants. This might push the company towards: optimize your efforts against some agreed-upon metrics (see the previous point about goals), and go home. I suppose there is some benefit for a (software) company if its employees spend time at work "slacking" such that they might actually find useful things to do that none of their managers might ever notice.
Flatcircle 5y ago
Let the market decide, there's a labor shortage. It may not be a bad idea but to make it a law is crazy.
- j_walter 5y ago
  To make a wide reaching and vague law that doesn't fit every industry is crazy. Are Amazon warehouse workers or delivery drivers really as productive in 32 hours as they are in 40 hours? No...there is no way that is possible. This might work for some big cubicle farms...but not for manufacturing type industries.
  - fuzzer37 5y ago
    > Are Amazon warehouse workers or delivery drivers really as productive... Is this the only thing anyone is ever concerned about? How about employee general well-being? The fact that average worker wages have been absolutely stagnant while average worker productivity has soared since the 70's? Maybe it's time workers won something instead of just getting squeezed for more productivity.
    - j_walter 5y ago
      Are they productive because THEY are more productive or because tools and systems have allowed for increased productivity? Should Ford assembly line workers have been paid more because his assembly line system was easier and more productive? He ended up paying them more voluntarily, but would you really want to mandate that?
      - fuzzer37 5y ago
        Yes, I would like to mandate that, actually.
alligatorplum 5y ago
This will just result in lowered salaries across the boards no? The article mentions that there won't be any pay cuts, and that might be true for the current employees but for new employees the companies will just adjust (read: cut) pay to 32hr weeks. I am also struggling to see how they plan on keeping track of this "no pay cut".
- polski-g 5y ago
  If the currency inflates at 10% a year, just give no raises for three years and they've got their pay cut right there.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    This assumes that a company can find workers without raising wages. The labor market is a market, companies and workers need to come to an agreement on wages. And, right now, it seems that workers have the upper hand in negotiations.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I am also struggling to see how they plan on keeping track of this "no pay cut". As with other wage and hour rules, if an employee thinks it has been violated they file a complaint with evidence, and the agency investigates. Since it's typical for pay stubs to report all the relevant information, proving that the pay per 32 hours after the law was not at least the pay for 40 hours before is...not that hard.
_8j50 5y ago
I think a good addition to this would be requiring a percentage of salary to be for commute for companies that mandate going to a physical office for jobs that can be done from home and an additional tax for the strain it causes on transportation infrastructure.
shagie 5y ago
One of the questions that I thought across would be "how would this impact schools?" Would schools be going to a 4 day week? Or would California be paying all its teachers an extra 8h of overtime each week? How would that impact school budgets financed by property taxes... oh... wait... California. Or would instruction hours be reduced to 6h/day? But the total required days and instructional minutes remains the same ( https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/pa/instructionaltimetable.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/pa/instructionaltimetable.asp ) which means that the school year would be longer no matter which way its done to avoid having teachers need to get more (not saying they shouldn't, but the way this is proposal is phrased, it appears that they would need to be). How would this impact private schools? As many families effectively use school as child supervision for the work week, how would any changes to the duration a child is supervised at school impact a family that doesn't have adults working on the same schedule as the school (e.g. school went to a 4 day week with Fridays off and parents work a 4 day week with Mondays off)?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > One of the questions that I thought across would be "how would this impact schools?" Schools have mostly unionized faculty and staff, and this doesn't affect union contracts, so, aside from potentially increasing pressure on wages and working conditions from competitive options outside of schools, it wouldn't directly effect most of them.
RickJWagner 5y ago
I like the idea of a 32 hour work week (as a worker). But really, I find it hard to believe the 8 hour loss just magically disappears. I'd have to think that less 'stuff' will be produced. Less stuff produced means higher prices for the stuff that is produced. (Because of scarcity.) There's also less stuff to spread around, so society as a whole will be less prosperous. In the big picture, I imagine it'll be counter-productive.

98 points by jader201 5y ago

It’s not like anyone actually does anything on Friday anyways. Fridays for me are mostly catching up on work I put off during the week and lurking reddit until it’s time to log off.

mango7283 5y ago
Must be nice. I'm in it operations so Fridays are just like Mondays except I get to see my weekend melt away because the infra and the operating environment is 24/7. Bah.
- Ancalagon 5y ago
  I hope they pay you well. I wouldn’t last long in that position if what you described was a regular occurrence.
pm90 5y ago
It would be good to formalize it though. The best teams and managers I’ve worked on have had an unofficial understanding that Fridays are a slow day.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jader201 5y ago

Curious why this isn’t bigger news? Seems like every other day, HN has some front page article about dreams of a shorter work week. It’s finally a possibility, and seems like HN is pretty apathetic about it (e.g. this article is from 5 days ago). Is it that we’re still not optimistic it will actually take hold?

baby-yoda 5y ago
sounds like this would only apply to hourly employees, considering the mention of 1.5x pay in excess of 32h.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > sounds like this would only apply to hourly employees, considering the mention of 1.5x pay in excess of 32h. As with the existing 40-hour overtime rule, it would apply to non-exempt non-union-contract workers regardless of hourly or salary pay basis; unlike the 40-hour rule it would apply only to large employers.
- jader201 5y ago
  Possibly, but even if so, seems like it'd be a step in the right direction (at the very least).
  - baby-yoda 5y ago
    my initial reaction is this is gov't overreach however considering the current state of healthcare-attached-to-employment, this policy will probably be zero sum in the long run. this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits. of course mega corps are simply going to re-organize their benefits package to cut out the marginal increase in healthcare and labor costs somehow. those who were scheduled 35h to stay below the cutoff will now only have work for 30h. the "more true" solution, IMO, is decoupling healthcare and other benefits from employment rather than trying to band-aid the symptoms of this poor system with Sisyphean policy like this.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits Not directly, it doesn't. The full time for mandatory benefits (30 hours) is not changed by the threshold for mandatory overtime dropping from 40 hours to 32 hours. (Of course, if an employer wants to avoid overtime and has the same number of hours of work, but otherwise minimizes headcount, it will need 25% more 32-hour workers qualifying for benefits than it had 40-hour workers qualified for benefits, so it will mean more total workers getting benefits.)

la6472 5y ago

azinman2 5y ago
What’s wrong with the airport?
- la6472 5y ago
  I meant the city
  - azinman2 5y ago
    I figured as much, but that you chose SFO made me think you don’t actually live here. Is that true?

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

mark_l_watson 5y ago

What business is this of the California government? I am 71 and a large fraction of my work life has been 32 hour work weeks, negotiated with my employers (I usually got 80% salary and 100% vacation and benefits). It boggles my mind that this would be made a law though. Individuals and their employers should work out any deal that makes sense for both parties.

jader201 5y ago
There are currently laws built around a 40-hour work week, so it seems to make sense that if this were to change, it would _have_ to change at the state/federal level.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
Your skills must have been uniquely valuable, and you must have been well compensated to be able to afford living on 80% of a full time salary.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Unless you are starving, it is a matter of tradeoffs. At least half of people could take some sort of pay cut, as demonstrated by the fact that 50% of people do in fact make less.
- IMTDb 5y ago
  "Marketing manager" go for around $140k / year. That's a job that requires some skill but definitely not in the realm of "uniquely valuable". 80% of that is $112k / year or 1.6 times the US median salary. Enough to comfortably live with, especially since the job is not physically demanding, allows remote working etc.
  - pc86 5y ago
    What does marketing manager have anything to do with anything? The GP's profile shows they certainly aren't a marketing manager and probably make quite a bit more than $140k/yr.

hw-guy 5y ago

Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work week meant nothing if there was a crisis or schedule slip that required putting in many extra hours. The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. Also, it's weird that it only applied to companies with >=500 employees; wouldn't this be a strong incentive for smaller companies to resist hiring the 500th employee?

lolinder 5y ago
> The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. It also assumes that non-exempt employees are spending 8 hours a week in unnecessary meetings. Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative?
- shagie 5y ago
  > Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co... > However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. If you're a computer programmer making less than $27.63/hour (and I have been that situation living in low cost of living area), you are a non-exempt professional worker. I got 1.5x overtime, and since the company had it as policy, working evenings or weekends got a shift differential too.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. NB: California has a much higher exemption threshold for the industry: $47.48/hour or $8,242.32/mo on a salary basis.

_fat_santa 5y ago

Obviously this will depend on the industry and work environment, but I feel like the "4.5 day workweek" is already a thing for many office workers. What I'm talking about is the culture around slacking on a Friday. At least at my company, it's an unwritten rule that you never schedule a meeting after 12PM on a Friday. You can see from slack statuses that folks most all leave early and take longer lunch breaks. And any calls usually end with "lets finish hashing this out monday". Again just my personal experience, but where I've worked I've noticed that's consistently been the culture.

usrn 5y ago
That's actually a written rule for us, complete with the "no meeting" meeting scheduled in Outlook.
- chrisjc 5y ago
  Same... however, it's also the time that I actually get a chance to do things without being interrupted.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
I would say that .5 is more like .75 - still gotta go through traffic to get to work, and people are still in a place they (apparently) rather not be. Eliminating the day entirely is still quite valuable compared to leaving it as-is.
- fnordpiglet 5y ago
  Of course by this logic it’s not 4.75 but 5.75 - you still get a .25 for the prior 4 if you are unfortunate enough to be office based.
nimbius 5y ago
more like 'california considers codifying that which is already known' many of the largest employers like amazon, walmart, and fast food already restrict their employees to <40hrs to conspicuously avoid paying any benefits to employees. salaried employees wouldnt be affected by definition. what good does this serve? i guess it squeezes reprehensible companies by forcing them to pay healthcare/benefits, but the reality is likely that companies will just further divide and conquer the employees workday.

dghughes 5y ago

I see various websites show Canada as having an average of 32.5 hours per week for working hours. I don't think that is accurate. Most business here use a 40 hour week and most government departments have a 37.5 work week. Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. I wonder if that is accurate as well. I do see videos of people from the US living in various European countries who say people are less stressed from work. They say most people want to go out after work compared to the US where everyone is so stressed they just crash at home after work.

tokai 5y ago
>Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. Which countries? The EU average is 37.2. I don't know of any that is under 30.
throw_m239339 5y ago
> Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. I wonder if that is accurate as well. This is clearly not the case. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Hours_of_work_-_annual_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
pc86 5y ago
"low 20s" is such an outlier you need to provide sources that "most European countries" are in that range or people should take this comment as an outright lie meant to deliberately deceive.
- dghughes 5y ago
  The aggressive wording in your comment seems sudden and misplaced. My comment wasn't meant to be bound by law or cited in professional works. Anyway it's from any of a dozen statistics websites easily Googled like: https://business-review.eu/future-of-work/which-eu-countries-have-the-longest-average-working-week-220545 https://business-review.eu/future-of-work/which-eu-countries...

panzagl 5y ago

First get rid of exempt status for most non-equity dependent positions- unless you're receiving a significant share of the profits there is no justification for an engineer, much less a teacher, to be forced to work unpaid overtime.

dbg31415 5y ago

Australia has a 35-hour work week... but so many breaks too. Morning coffee. Lunch. Afternoon tea. Like it really paced out the day nicely. Not sure if the breaks were mandated or just cultural. Thing is, it never felt like we lost that much productivity. Spent a lot more at the local coffee shop though, that's for sure. But also, such better coffee than we have in the US. I think 32 hours is weird. Like 32 / 5... 6 hours 24 minutes a day. Just strange way to slice it.

logicalmonster 5y ago
> Australia has a 35-hour work week... but so many breaks too. Morning coffee. Lunch. Afternoon tea. Like it really paced out the day nicely. I can understand that some people (particularly extroverts who want some time to socialize and mingle) might like this lifestyle a lot, and once in a while yeah you can use a break of course, but personally speaking I'd rather work hard straight through the day and have a larger uninterrupted block of time available in the evening for my own activities outside of the work environment.
- dbg31415 5y ago
  Eh, you do you. But I'm guessing this is perceived as anti-social behavior and will hurt your career a bit. It's always good to build relationships. Results matter, but promotions always tend to go to friends. And the connections you make at one job will continue to pay off long after you cash the final paycheck from that company. Hard to think of any job where being social with your coworkers isn't the right play. Think of it like contributing to your 401k, or going to the gym. Putting in time to build out your network will make life easier down the road.
- spiffytech 5y ago
  I agree. If I don't get that uninterrupted time after work where I can really switch gears or do some longer activity, it starts to feel like work is eating up my whole life.
estomagordo 5y ago
32/4 = 8

mlyle 5y ago

I think this is hard for California to do alone, and too big of a step. Federally, we should move to a 36 hour workweek. Maybe with a long term plan of getting to 32.

estomagordo 5y ago
Maybe sometimes it is best to aim a bit higher than what you'd settle for. Perhaps Cali considering 32 hrs is the push the US needs for 36 hrs.
- mlyle 5y ago
  Maybe. On the other side, if California puts a 32 hour work week in place, and pays obvious costs from industry reacting to it and being able to easily move operations to other states... it may sour the country on a shorter workweek when we could have all moved together to 36 hours without much issue.

newaccount2021 5y ago

stevetodd 5y ago

So basically everyone affected will have their hours cut without a change in hourly wage. All these people are then going to have to find a second job to avoid losing 20% of their income. How is that not going to happen?

tediousdemise 5y ago
> There would be no cut in pay, and those who work more would be compensated at a rate of no less than 1.5 times the employee’s regular rate of pay.
- abduhl 5y ago
  The state of California cannot mandate “no cut in pay” by employers (although I'm sure they would like to, because a 20% cut to income tax would devastate the state's budget - which is why this idea is dead on arrival). Your pay will be reduced appropriately either based on an hourly rate or a cut to your salary.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The state of California cannot mandate “no cut in pay” by employers It can specify no cut in full-time pay for an employer for substantially similar work, on both an individual and overall basis (the current text only does this on an individual level, but that's not all the State could do. E.g., “The minimum hourly wage shall be the greater of $X/hr or the 5/4 the actual wage paid by the employer to the employee on date Y or the 5/4 the average wage paid by the employer to employees doing substantially similar work on date Y.”)
    - abduhl 5y ago
      This formulation presents a host of federal (and state) constitutional problems (i.e., contracts clause, takings, equal protection, etc.). You're certainly right that California "can" specify this. California would not be able to successfully defend this type of law in court. Pedantically, I guess you're right in the same way that you can "sue" anyone for anything, provided "sue" doesn't mean "win the lawsuit."

tediousdemise 5y ago

I'm already on a 4 day workweek, but the company still wants 40 hours. It's madness.

meremortals 5y ago

How would this affect distributed companies? Would Californians receive special treatment?

briandear 5y ago
Yes. And it will be a disincentive to hire California workers.

lukeaf 5y ago

Considering the companies they are talking about here, wouldn't it just be better to work towards a more goal driven work agreement? Show up, do what is required and then the time is yours? If you're being paid regardless then what does it matter if you're "on the bench" for a few hours or you leave early for the day? A lot, if we're talking about employee morale. Not much if someone is sitting at their desk trying to find stuff to do. So long as there is effective communication (which I know can be a challenge) then it really doesn't (or shouldn't) matter when a person is working if the gets done. No? 40h (or 32h) work weeks make even less sense when you work remotely.

solveit 5y ago
It's probably easier to change the law than it is to change the minds of the hour-counters.
brk 5y ago
Your logic is not wrong, but I think the part you are omitting is that most managers really do not know how to manage. In most companies nobody REALLY has a good feel for how much work someone should get done in a given amount of time, or what fair compensation would actually be. This puts us into the mode of "pay the minimum amount we can, and then try to extract maximum work product". If an employee is measurably unproductive for a few hours regularly, then the assumption is that their manager has failed somehow. I agree that this is most likely not an accurate conclusion, but it is a prevalent one.
carschno 5y ago
I suppose the main issue here from a legal perspective is the definition of a goal that can even be verified externally in case of disagreement, for instance by a judge. Hours of presence, on the other side, are quite objectively measurable (although becoming harder in a remote-work setting). I would like to add more subjectively: as a company, I would also be afraid that contracts defining payment based on piece work result in an army of quasi-consultants. This might push the company towards: optimize your efforts against some agreed-upon metrics (see the previous point about goals), and go home. I suppose there is some benefit for a (software) company if its employees spend time at work "slacking" such that they might actually find useful things to do that none of their managers might ever notice.

Flatcircle 5y ago

Let the market decide, there's a labor shortage. It may not be a bad idea but to make it a law is crazy.

j_walter 5y ago
To make a wide reaching and vague law that doesn't fit every industry is crazy. Are Amazon warehouse workers or delivery drivers really as productive in 32 hours as they are in 40 hours? No...there is no way that is possible. This might work for some big cubicle farms...but not for manufacturing type industries.
- fuzzer37 5y ago
  > Are Amazon warehouse workers or delivery drivers really as productive... Is this the only thing anyone is ever concerned about? How about employee general well-being? The fact that average worker wages have been absolutely stagnant while average worker productivity has soared since the 70's? Maybe it's time workers won something instead of just getting squeezed for more productivity.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    Are they productive because THEY are more productive or because tools and systems have allowed for increased productivity? Should Ford assembly line workers have been paid more because his assembly line system was easier and more productive? He ended up paying them more voluntarily, but would you really want to mandate that?
    - fuzzer37 5y ago
      Yes, I would like to mandate that, actually.

alligatorplum 5y ago

This will just result in lowered salaries across the boards no? The article mentions that there won't be any pay cuts, and that might be true for the current employees but for new employees the companies will just adjust (read: cut) pay to 32hr weeks. I am also struggling to see how they plan on keeping track of this "no pay cut".

polski-g 5y ago
If the currency inflates at 10% a year, just give no raises for three years and they've got their pay cut right there.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  This assumes that a company can find workers without raising wages. The labor market is a market, companies and workers need to come to an agreement on wages. And, right now, it seems that workers have the upper hand in negotiations.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I am also struggling to see how they plan on keeping track of this "no pay cut". As with other wage and hour rules, if an employee thinks it has been violated they file a complaint with evidence, and the agency investigates. Since it's typical for pay stubs to report all the relevant information, proving that the pay per 32 hours after the law was not at least the pay for 40 hours before is...not that hard.

_8j50 5y ago

I think a good addition to this would be requiring a percentage of salary to be for commute for companies that mandate going to a physical office for jobs that can be done from home and an additional tax for the strain it causes on transportation infrastructure.

shagie 5y ago

One of the questions that I thought across would be "how would this impact schools?" Would schools be going to a 4 day week? Or would California be paying all its teachers an extra 8h of overtime each week? How would that impact school budgets financed by property taxes... oh... wait... California. Or would instruction hours be reduced to 6h/day? But the total required days and instructional minutes remains the same ( https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/pa/instructionaltimetable.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/pa/instructionaltimetable.asp ) which means that the school year would be longer no matter which way its done to avoid having teachers need to get more (not saying they shouldn't, but the way this is proposal is phrased, it appears that they would need to be). How would this impact private schools? As many families effectively use school as child supervision for the work week, how would any changes to the duration a child is supervised at school impact a family that doesn't have adults working on the same schedule as the school (e.g. school went to a 4 day week with Fridays off and parents work a 4 day week with Mondays off)?

dragonwriter 5y ago
> One of the questions that I thought across would be "how would this impact schools?" Schools have mostly unionized faculty and staff, and this doesn't affect union contracts, so, aside from potentially increasing pressure on wages and working conditions from competitive options outside of schools, it wouldn't directly effect most of them.

RickJWagner 5y ago

I like the idea of a 32 hour work week (as a worker). But really, I find it hard to believe the 8 hour loss just magically disappears. I'd have to think that less 'stuff' will be produced. Less stuff produced means higher prices for the stuff that is produced. (Because of scarcity.) There's also less stuff to spread around, so society as a whole will be less prosperous. In the big picture, I imagine it'll be counter-productive.