5 ms·

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,

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.)
djrogers 5y ago
If this is done by the CA legislature, it likely will be written as to not apply to most of us - will probably affect only hourly workers, and be written in a way that actually screws them over (eg, the company must give $X overtime pay and $X benefits at 32 hours, meaning even McJob will be limited to 31 hours from now on). So yeah, I'd imagine pessimism is the reason HN seems to not care about this bill.
mgh2 5y ago
Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31066647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31066647
- jader201 5y ago
  Yeah, it was also late + didn't receive much attention then, too.
annoyingnoob 5y ago
Do we need laws to encourage union membership? I'm not sure that 'be stuck at minimum wage and 32 hours a week' or 'join the union' are the only two choices some folks should have.
notreallyserio 5y ago
Not optimistic -- the "considers" in the title doesn't help.
debacle 5y ago
When ACA was passed (Obamacare), it expanded healthcare benefits to millions of part-time workers based on a new definition of "full time" that meant >=30 hours. The result was simply that many employees had their weekly hours cut to less than 30 hours.
- worker_person 5y ago
  The argument on who pays for health care is the wrong question. When paying cash for an MRI is $500, and via Health Insurance it is $5,000. There are bigger issues. I used to get a weekly shot. Paid my $60 dollar co-pay. They billed insurance another $120 or so. Eventually I asked what the cash price is. $17 dollars. Was a real WTF?! moment.
  - xyzzy21 5y ago
    You aren't paying attention - critical thinking? The point is that employers can and will "adjust" in the same way on this.
    - worker_person 5y ago
      Companies started offering insurance because tax rates above a certain amount where in the 90+ percent range. To pay people more, companies had to get highly creative. Lots of "perks". Company cars, hotels, etc. Insurance was one such method. Our entire Health Insurance Industry came from companies and people avoiding absurd taxes. Now things are absurd in other ways.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  What are the numbers on that? Could one equally say that “the result was simply that many employees received healthcare benefits that they previously did not”?
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    I don't know of any job where people didn't routinely get healthcare where they do now. What I do know is that these days you'd be very hard pressed to find a job that pays less than "what a skilled tradesman makes at their first job that's better than entry level" that doesn't also cap you at 30hr whereas that wasn't the case before. So now everyone who had a poorly paid job before now has two of them. Accountants, administrative assistants, maintenance people, custodians, delivery drivers, CNAs, etc, etc, have had their hours cut to avoid paying benefits. I too would be interested in numbers. If there is any improvement it seems to be confined to some industry I am completely unaware of.
pc86 5y ago
Most employees, and I'm willing to bet about 98% of those reading HN who aren't contractors, are exempt and salaried. So "work week" in the legal sense has only a vague correlation to the work actually get done. If you're assigned the same amount of work, you don't really have much of a choice.

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.)

djrogers 5y ago

If this is done by the CA legislature, it likely will be written as to not apply to most of us - will probably affect only hourly workers, and be written in a way that actually screws them over (eg, the company must give $X overtime pay and $X benefits at 32 hours, meaning even McJob will be limited to 31 hours from now on). So yeah, I'd imagine pessimism is the reason HN seems to not care about this bill.

mgh2 5y ago

Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31066647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31066647

jader201 5y ago
Yeah, it was also late + didn't receive much attention then, too.

annoyingnoob 5y ago

Do we need laws to encourage union membership? I'm not sure that 'be stuck at minimum wage and 32 hours a week' or 'join the union' are the only two choices some folks should have.

notreallyserio 5y ago

Not optimistic -- the "considers" in the title doesn't help.

debacle 5y ago

When ACA was passed (Obamacare), it expanded healthcare benefits to millions of part-time workers based on a new definition of "full time" that meant >=30 hours. The result was simply that many employees had their weekly hours cut to less than 30 hours.

worker_person 5y ago
The argument on who pays for health care is the wrong question. When paying cash for an MRI is $500, and via Health Insurance it is $5,000. There are bigger issues. I used to get a weekly shot. Paid my $60 dollar co-pay. They billed insurance another $120 or so. Eventually I asked what the cash price is. $17 dollars. Was a real WTF?! moment.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  You aren't paying attention - critical thinking? The point is that employers can and will "adjust" in the same way on this.
  - worker_person 5y ago
    Companies started offering insurance because tax rates above a certain amount where in the 90+ percent range. To pay people more, companies had to get highly creative. Lots of "perks". Company cars, hotels, etc. Insurance was one such method. Our entire Health Insurance Industry came from companies and people avoiding absurd taxes. Now things are absurd in other ways.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
What are the numbers on that? Could one equally say that “the result was simply that many employees received healthcare benefits that they previously did not”?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I don't know of any job where people didn't routinely get healthcare where they do now. What I do know is that these days you'd be very hard pressed to find a job that pays less than "what a skilled tradesman makes at their first job that's better than entry level" that doesn't also cap you at 30hr whereas that wasn't the case before. So now everyone who had a poorly paid job before now has two of them. Accountants, administrative assistants, maintenance people, custodians, delivery drivers, CNAs, etc, etc, have had their hours cut to avoid paying benefits. I too would be interested in numbers. If there is any improvement it seems to be confined to some industry I am completely unaware of.

pc86 5y ago

Most employees, and I'm willing to bet about 98% of those reading HN who aren't contractors, are exempt and salaried. So "work week" in the legal sense has only a vague correlation to the work actually get done. If you're assigned the same amount of work, you don't really have much of a choice.