Bernie Sanders Champions 32-Hour Work Week With No Loss in Pay
Bernie Sanders Champions 32-Hour Work Week With No Loss in Pay
"Needless to say, changes that benefit the working class of our country are not going to be easily handed over by the corporate elite. They have to be fought for—and won."
As part of his Labor Day message to workers in the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday re-upped his call for the establishment of a 20% cut to the workweek with no loss in pay—an idea he said is "not radical" given the enormous productivity gains over recent decades that have resulted in massive profits for corporations but scraps for employees and the working class.
"It's time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay," Sanders wrote in a Guardian op-ed as he cited a 480% increase in worker productivity since the 40-hour workweek was first established in 1940.
"It's time," he continued, "that working families were able to take advantage of the increased productivity that new technologies provide so that they can enjoy more leisure time, family time, educational and cultural opportunities—and less stress."
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Why does it feel like it’s only ever Bernie Sanders that is pushing for life improvements.
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Cause he's one of the few that actually give a shit. Its why the DNC did everything in their power to scuttle his primary run. Can't have a president that actually wants to help the common American cause then the corporate overlords might lose their stranglehold on them.
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If we got rid of the Republican party, he might be able to run as an independent.
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TL;DR: Corruption and capitalism
Any kind of socialism (even relatively-speaking weak social democrats like Bernie) is severely underrepresented in US politics due to the influence of private money/capital in the government and in elections. The two party system/first past the post voting doesn't help matters either.
The people with money actively want to supress socialism by any means necessary. Look at Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare if you want an example in US history that still affects us today.
Also Reagan with deregulation and Bill Clinton with "triangulation" (effectively becoming more economically right wing by finding the middle ground between right and left, while the right is constantly pushing right. See: the Ratchet Effect)
Bernie is one of the extremely few principled politicians who doesn't take corporate money, but he also lacks power as he is one person.
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Why does it feel like it's only ever Bernie Sanders that is pushing to bring the US inline with Europe?
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As someone from Europe I would absolutely love a 32 hour work week without any pay cut. In my previous company I bargained myself a 32 hour work week with a pay cut and it was excellent, it felt like I had so much free time to do other things.
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Because he's popular, so he gets headlines
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Because he doesn’t have to accomplish anything. Does he have a plan for this? Has he done any due diligence on transition? Has he studied the impact on small business vs large business? It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear. It’s harder to implement. Studies have shown it working in other countries, but that’s nowhere near enough to just make it happen in the US.
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That’s simply not possible, I need my employees to be working more hours, not less. Last year I could barely afford my sailing trip to Aruba. If such a law passes I’m going to have to fire some people for sure or raise rents on my tenants.
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I know this is sarcastic but I can’t help read it in my literal bosses voice, who didn’t give us Christmas bonuses but did fix the sail on his yacht immediately after a storm for like £20k or some bs
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Yeah even knowing full well it was sarcasm couldn't help but hear it in the voice of my boss, who is so delusional they constantly talk about rolling back my department, the only one that actually makes money, cause our wages are too expensive (spoilers, they aren't, 1/10th of our staff is on food stamps but our boss can afford a new luxury car.)
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You've already sacrificed so much, we can't possibly ask you to sacrifice anymore. God, we've been so selfish talking about barely being able to afford rent or food to eat, when really we should've been thinking about how you felt about the whole thing. I'm so sorry we've inconvenienced you in any way. You know, go ahead and skip paying me for a bit and take that submarine trip on OceanGate you've always wanted to do, everyone has been talking so much about it lately.
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username checks out
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If such a law passes I’m going to have to fire some people for sure or raise rents on my tenants.
If gov't intervention makes both those options impossible--might I suggest constant verbal and psychological abuse?
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Its funny how schizophrenic your posts are from thread to thread.
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Thank you
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Or, y'know, you could just skip the sailing trip to Aruba.
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This goes against what Republicans want. They're literally removing child labor laws so kids can get into the work force while they're in middle school. Start a kid working at 12 years old and they can get about 50 years of labor out of them. Chances are that kid will be working 60-70 years and won't be able to retire.
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I got a job at 16 and worked part time through college and have been full time since. 1/3 of my adult life (6 years) was doing 60 hour weeks. I'm by no means the most responsible with my finances but I don't buy tons of frivolous stuff. Haven't been on a real vacation since 2014. Haven't taken off unless I've gotten sick (I caught COVID 3 times).
I don't expect to be able to retire. I expect to starve to death when I can no longer work.
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For like 10 years my work didn't want to pay as many pharmacist hours so offered 30 hour full time roles for the slower stores. I rode that wave as long as I could. It's a really stressful job, but at 30 hours it felt like I had a rough job. At 40+ hours it feels like I have a rough life. I'm fully in support of this 32 hour workweek. Those extra few hours won back can be magical for physical health, mental health, hobbies. I even got an extra degree in computer science.
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I tell people time and time again that work starts at 9 and end at 3pm, everything after is shuffling paper and killing time.
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I started working a 6:30am-2:30pm job and it's life changing. The first hour is just getting settled, I spend lunchtime organizing my calendar and Emails, and I still have time for a full day of activities after work.
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Well, jobs are different. It's just that sometimes you get too tired to do anything effectively an hour or two before your work technically ends.
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But what about the poor billionaires?
"I've got one hobby space program yes, but what about second hobby space program?"
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"What about my yachts? I need to see them slaving their lives away for my holiday!!!!!!!!!"
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Unfortunately, thanks to Democrats and Republicans, the four-day work week is an impossibility in the USA.
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Democrats and Republicans
read: Corporations
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Only impossible because the voters keep choosing corporatists rather than representatives.
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Do you know any representatives?
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Of course workers gain nothing by asking elites.
All depends on organization.
The speech excerpts from the article say the same.
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This would DOUBLE my effective free time. It would improve my life so much.
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I'm hoping the push for a 32 hour week gains enough traction that we could actually feasibly negotiate a 9-day sprint (2 week period) as the "middle ground", at least until the next wave of negotiations pushes further.
Gimme every other monday off, that way I'm always working toward either a long weekend or an early weekend
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I just negotiated one Monday a month off and it's nice. Two would be better, of course. Three day weekends should be standard. It's like that meme said: "One day for chores/errands, one to day to socialize, one day to stay in bed all day like you've got some Victorian wasting sickness."
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that's exactly what I work, and my employer has been pushing to remove that in our pay negotiations. they backed down to making it "optional" but it sounds like all new hires wouldn't be on the 9 day fortnight system.
sad how things are getting worse not better
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Do you all have the Congress app installed on your phone?
Can you name your House of Representative member?
Can you name your Senators?
This will go nowhere the same way that smart gun control went nowhere, despite the vast majority of the citizenship wanting it, despite even after a room full of elementary school kids were killed. Lobbying stops what the vast majority of the citizenry want.
The only way to affect change is to lobby Congress, that's what the corporations do. Corporations lobby Congress, so you have to as well.
You need to get involved, you have to let your Representative and your Senators know that you want a four-day work week. You should even throw some donation money their way for their next election cycle.
Just commenting about it on an Internet forum isn't enough. Just waiting for somebody else to do the work isn't enough.
You are the citizen.
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only way to affect change is to lobby
Don't want to be pedantic, but not American and don't really have much else to add here.
This is one of the few times when the correct word is "effect", not "affect". "Affect (v.)" means to alter, or have an impact on. "Effect (v.)" means to produce, and to create an effect (n.) of.
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This is one of the few times when the correct word is “effect”, not “affect”. “Affect (v.)” means to alter, or have an impact on. “Effect (v.)” means to produce, and to create an effect (n.) of.
Change is to alter something, not to create/produce something.
I wrote it as wanting to affect how Congress does things, to change what Congress does, to have an impact on Congress, which is what lobbying does.
I stand by my usage of the word affect, over effect.
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Working within the system will never give us what we need. The system is made for them. All we get are concessions that then get taken away when we're no longer a threat. No company, no matter how much popular support, is ever going to allow this. You'd have far bigger chances of making far bigger changes if you joined an org. Any org.
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Louis Rossman on YouTube hired a lobbying firm to help farmers to be able to repair their own tractors and won, so there's proof right there it can be done.
If there's grassroots lobbying of politicians by regular people, change can happen.
That's what corpos are really afraid of, being out lobbied.
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But for the love of god, don't not vote. Us not voting is a major part of that system that's made for them.
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Congress app?
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I believe they're talking about 5calls? https://5calls.org/
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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sunlightlabs.android.congress
If that link doesn't work, just search for the word Congress in the Google Play store.
If you're using an iPhone I'm sure there's an iPhone app equivalent. Basically any app that lets you monitor the votes that your representative and Senators do.
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As a quick follow-up, I wish Lemmy and other online services had a bot where you can type in a one-line command that takes your zip code and then it replies with the contact information for your Senators and your Representative.
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They have this on the official House website, but it only shows your house representative.
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Nah, the vast majority don't want gun control. All you city slicking fools who don't value personal self defense and think someone else will save you.
You can piss your rights away I'll keep mine.
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100%
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You've already pissed enough of my rights away thanks.
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They don't need someone to save them, because cities have less gun violence per capita then rural areas. All those guns don't save you. And I say this as someone from a small town.
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Dude should have run on this vs the the 15 dollar minimum wage.
This would have garnered him more support. I would have door knocked for the old bastard.
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Would this include a 25% increase to hourly minimums? Because otherwise it only benefits salaried employees.
And what about workers who are paid by productivity and not time? Salespersons on commission, servers receiving tips, ride-share drivers?
I'm all for a 32-hour work-week; that's what I have myself. But let's not pretend this would be enough, or that the main beneficiaries are he working class.
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"No loss in pay" as far as I can interpret it would mean getting paid the same for working 32 hours as you would have for working 40, yes
The autoworkers union the article refers to as an example is seeking a 46% pay rise to coincide with the transition to 32 hours.
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My concern is the small business owners.
Massive corps - absolutely. Small mom and pop stores, 3-5 employee business... less inclined.
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While I like this idea, this is not the argument union leadership should be making to achieve this goal:
Our union's membership is clearly fed up with living paycheck-to-paycheck while the corporate elite and billionaire class continue to make out like bandits," said Fain in a statement last week. "The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs
A change in hours does nothing to address pay discrepancies and you need to pick one lane and fight for it and get it, then attack the other direction.
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This. Too many different issues get conflated and then focus is lost and nothing changes
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I would absolutely love to only work 32 hours a week instead of 40, 45 or 50.
I would also love four weeks vacation a year, full healthcare coverage and a unicorn in my backyard please.
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Except for the unicorn, your last paragraph is my reality. Oh and it's five weeks vacation, actually. My wife even has six. Sick days not included. Those are all part of the universal health care we have.
38h work week btw. Rarely overtime.
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I have 35 days on my current job but it's the first time. Normally it's been 30. I'm in Sweden.
And we don't work no 40 hours here. People come in around 9 and leave around 16 with an hour lunch break and a lot of talking and slacking during the day. This is in IT and it's been like that on every IT job I've ever had.
Nobody can or want to focus for 8 hours per day their entire lives, that's madness. We are humans. I usually focus for maybe 4 hours to get something done but I don't push myself to work more then necessary. My salary doesn't go up with more work produced.
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Man that sounds so great. Currently work weeks are varying between 40,45 and 50. PM. I'm up to about 2 1/2 weeks vacation a year working for a small business. But at least they let me take it, unlike my friend who works at AWS who hasn't had a vacation in 5 years.
Family also pays $2400/month in health insurance payments, although 2/3 of that is covered by our employer. $6,000 deductible.
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Apart from the mystical horse, those aren't fantastical things. France has a 35 hour work week, many countries have 4 weeks vacation as the norm, and most rich countries have full healthcare coverage. These are policy choices, not impossible dream worlds.
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The vacation period is a minimum standard in the EU.
Beyond the daily and weekly rest periods, your staff has the right to at least 4 weeks of paid holidays per year. You cannot replace these holidays with a payment unless the employment contract has ended before the staff member has used up all their annual leave.
In the UK minimum holiday entitlement is 28 days. I am always appalled at how badly the US allows it workers to be treated. I really wish the US would start thinking more about working to live and not living to work.
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If people who are negatively affected by it would stop voting for people who make it a campaign promise to never offer these things, we can't get anywhere
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I work 35 hours a week, have six weeks of holiday plus bank holidays and universal healthcare. It's not impossible.
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I have basically this in the UK
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Some of those things are possible. Why not try to get them?
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How?
I asked our company owner, and such healthcare plans simply do not exist in the US.
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Fun fact: government-based healthcare of any sort is great for employers and employees, and results in more money for both
This assumes a "worst-case implementation" resulting in UK level taxes and just a change to who manages insurance/payment, and is true for both a public option and single-payer system.
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I have 5 weeks vacation and universal health care. I'm just pushing for the 32 hrs now.
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It's depressing that you've been convinced that full healthcare coverage is as unrealistic as a unicorn in your backyard.
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Man saying two sentences about something is a pretty low bar to "champion" it.
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While I love this idea and Bernie... There's no fucking way that'll happen.
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There is no way we will get a 40 hour work week
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It will not happen if we just sit and wait, nor if we just vote, but if we build communities and unions, if we act each day to move our relationships with one another more deeply toward a real transformation, then we can build a society not for bosses but for everyone.
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Companies can afford it
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I can only see this happening hand in hand with Medicare For All and the decoupling of healthcare from full time employment.
Service jobs, which are currently 80 percent of US employment, require the same amount of hours with actual people present, e.g. you can't wait more tables, or answer more customer service calls, in 20% less time.
Removing the cost of healthcare from employers will allow them to allocate some of the savings towards employee salaries instead of healthcare insurance.
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Allow them to allocate some of the savings towards employee salaries? Why would they do that when they could pocket the difference like they have been doing to all other cost savings and productivity boosts?
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How are the employers going to pay for the additional employees to work those 8 hours, while paying the existing employees the same salary for working 8 less hours?
The money has to come from somewhere.
P.s. Not all employers have CEOs making millions in bonuses. Nearly half of employees in the US work for small businesses , including single person businesses.
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Nobody is saying you should have to do 40 hours work in 32 hours - rather the company hires more people to cover those hours.
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This only works out in 9 to 5 jobs. There are ao many people out there that work very different hours. Many career fields that work a lot longer shifts wouod not be able to simply work less. It just doesn't work that way.
Firefighters work 48 or 72 hours a week depending on the week. We can't just say, ok cool. You work 32 hours a week now.
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Removing the cost of healthcare from employers will allow them to allocate some of the savings towards employee salaries instead of healthcare insurance. Or just, y'know, keep the savings. On the bright side, it would mean you no longer depend on your job for healthcare, so people would have more freedom to quit.
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My old place could really do this.
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He's right
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For the sake of comparison…
1940 median US male salary was $956. Women earned about 62¢ on the dollar to men.
Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $21,800.
Median US income (overall) in 2023 is $42,800.
You mean to tell me productivity has gone up 4.8x, and I don’t even see 2x the increase in salary.
Put otherwise, if my hours are worth nearly 5x to you, why aren’t they even worth 2x to me?
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This only works if your pay doesn't get reduced, which it always does. Obama cut full-time and suddenly everyone had to get two jobs to pay rent
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Apparently you didn't even read the headline.
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I'm old enough to know what the end goal of this is, corporations cutting peoples hours to "trim the fat" and getting away with it like always
Only a complete idiot actually believes this crap. Companies are not going to keep your wages if they can cut them, and they will. So a 32 hour work week will do absolutely nothing but reduce take home pay in the end
This is the same as Obama forcing workers to get 2 jobs just to make ends meet and this is all these policies wind up doing, giving less to the people and taking away more from them
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I think he is taking too big of a chunk off. If this were to be phased in with 4-day work weeks at 10 hours a day with 2 breaks could be a starting point. Companies get the same amount of production hours and save 20% on building costs, energy, etc.
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Even 32 hours a week with a proportional decrease in pay would be a huge improvement.
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You shouldn't have to take a cut in pay for this. Productivity has increased and the benefits of the productivity increase has only gone to the ultra wealthy.
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Honestly as a mid-career IT person, I'd take a 30-40% cut for that extra day without a second of hesitation.
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Uh no, speak for yourself and yourself only. I don't want less money, that wouldn't be an improvement
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The issue I see with this is the prices of things, if you had to pay some one 40 hours of wages for only 32 hours of work plus having to hire someone to fill that extra hours (if you can even find someone) will mean prices will probably increase.
Don't get me wrong only working 32 hours a week sounds amazing but as someone who works 60 hrs per week and still struggles to pay bills it's not something for me
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It's exactly for someone like you. You should be able to afford your bills without working yourself to death, that's the point.
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But if I have time off I spend more money
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If you're working 60hrs per week and still struggle to pay bills, that means they are not paying you enough! Any job should be sustainable with giving only a reasonable amount of your time. (40 hours per week is not reasonable, it is unbalanced with living your life)
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I feel like $40 per hour is plenty enough. But income tax sucks when you rent out your house sooo.
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It's not something for 90% of workers, these policies only help the rich, not the poor
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32hr week is fine, but what does he mean by no loss in pay?
The mandated work week is something a central regulator controls, and the pay is not.
The drop in productivity because of working 32hrs instead of 40hrs will be much less than 20%, that's for sure. Maybe there'll be no drop at all. That doesn't always translate to no drop in pay.
If by 32hrs we mean 4 days, then it frees that day for other workers (if we imagine any job with a physical workplace). The pay is a result of the balance of interests. It will become less.
And personally I'd say 35hr week is a better idea - as in 5 days of 7hrs .
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I was with you until:
And personally I'd say 35hr week is a better idea - as in 5 days of 7hrs .
I think the idea is to free up an entire extra day, allowing travel, an extra day to run errands, etc. For many, there is basically no difference between working 8 hours or working 7 if they still have to commute, get dressed and get their brain wrapped around whatever is going on in work mode.
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Yes, with 4 days, 8 hours the idea is what you described.
With 5 days, 7 hours the idea is that you don't work effectively anyway in the last 1-2 hours, not doing many useful things, adding to depression and also obviously still using that time, so it's better to get some rest or social activity or take a walk instead.
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That's not really true though. The majority of workers in the US are non-exempt full-time employees, which means employers are required to pay overtime for anything over 40 hours. Lowering that threshold will mean those 8 extra hours are more valuable and will hold wages steady.
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I didn't consider overtime. Just what the title says - 32hr week with the same pay as 40hr week with all other things unchanged.
With this interpretation - yeah, but then Bernie's mention of "no loss in pay" doesn't make sense, it happens automatically.
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We make gains by organization not legislation.
Read the excerpts of the speech quoted in the article. All is plainly said.
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Lmao garbage take. Please never be put in charge of anything important.
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Oh wahhhh, you can't have risky sex and abort babies now. So fucking sad for your plight.
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So he calls essentially for a 25% raise across the board for everybody. In some fields this doesn't matter much. Office workers will probably achieve just as much or in some cases perhaps more in 32 hours than in 40 hours. Some other fields, perhaps less so.
If this would happen, it would directly lead to increased unemployment in some fields, and probably and increased inflation that might eat the benefit anyway in the end.
Still, even if I'm a bit skeptical, I'm all for lessening the hours we work, and all for spreading the productivity to more people and not just the top. I just think that the workers will need to take at least part of the hit to make this a realistic goal. Or perhaps robots and AI just need to take over all those jobs where number of hours correlate strongly to the amount of output.
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The extra money comes from the management not robbing their employees blind.
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You're getting down voted for expressing legitimate concerns, and nobody is giving reasons why they disagree with you. I thought we left this kind of interaction behind with reddit.
Anyways, any major shift will have downsides, but it doesn't mean it isn't viable in the long term.
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You’re getting down voted for expressing legitimate concerns, and nobody is giving reasons why they disagree with you. I thought we left this kind of interaction behind with reddit.
Settings => Show scores => disable ftw :)
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What about people that work in education? This is not possible to attain if kids go to school for the amount of time they currently do. Teachers, paras, custodians, IT people etc have no choice in this unless kids have less time in the classroom as well. So unless all those people get paid more to keep doing 40 while the rest gets more life back you'll be hard pressed to find people that want to work education..like anyone wants to work education these days anyways.
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Good question you raise. For elementary school make it 4 days a week, parents should have another day with their kids. For highschool, many teachers do one or two subjects which don't necessarily have to cover all five days, they can swap out.
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Couldn't you just hire several more teachers and staff to switch out certain days subjects/coverage to achieve full 5 day coverage while also cross training people to better fill gaps. Also the education system is mostly just there to turn us all into workers of some sort, so as the regular work week shortens, perhaps the school week should as well. Especially if we're trying to maximize that extra family time.
I think part of the point of a less taxing work week/environment is part of the draw that could bring people back into these sorts of jobs.
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This is not possible to attain if kids go to school for the amount of time they currently do. Teachers, paras, custodians, IT people etc have no choice in this unless kids have less time in the classroom as well.
Hire more teachers and roster them.
Next question
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Your answer is so incredibly stupid it's hilarious. Where you gonna get the magic money from? You obviously never have worked in education..some teachers are making 35k a year in America you think they wanna add more teachers? Youre fighting against a government that doesn't help our public education system enough at all. "next question"
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Not true, we could hire more school staff if needed, if we paid them a livable and decent amount... It really would be that simple of a fix
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I mean, cool, but nothing will happen because one old guy says this.
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Someone has to be an early proponent of it. Its not we could go from no congresspersons says such to suddenly one minute all of them decide to announce they support it simultaneously.
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Seriously. People must think the $15 min wage and student debt forgiveness just sprung from nothingness to have support across the party. These things start with progressives making the case and saying "this is possible".
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There have been studies showing no loss in productivity too. But rich people want to fuck us over for no reason 🤷♀️
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There is a reason. If our lives get too easy, that gives us time to enact our free will and choose to do things they don't want.
Instead they keep us focused on paying the next bill.
More time to work on your community means that people have less food bills and health bills and rent. If we help eachother out were not helping them.
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For some people it's because an old guy said it. Or because he's rich. Or whatever excuse they have to not make anything better because they fear change.
First less hours but what's next? More pay? Healthcare? HOUSING SUBSIDIES?!?! 😱 Then who will be low class enough for certain people to look down on?
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By that logic, nothing will happen because one person ever said anything.
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You're underestimating how influential Bernie is. He'll never be POTUS, but he got into people's heads in a big way.
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No.
You have to join a union or form a union.
If your workplace is already organized, then build further strength through solidarity, help other workers around you, and at every turn find ways to erode the power of the bosses.
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Yeah. We all want something for nothing. Fortunately, there are still enough adults in the U.S. who recognize that just doesn't work in the real world.
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The real world includes many other economies with a 32 hour work week and people there enjoy a higher standard of living on average than we do in the US, with higher performing metrics in education, life expectancy, healthcare, and mental wellness.
It's the rich investors who ruin business and prosperity that want something for nothing. Billionaires that got rich selling bullshit over our public use infrastructure (roads, law enforcement, firefighters, etc) but act like they somehow deserve an ROI earned by cutting our legs off.
Real asshole take you got there.
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Lick that boot bud
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Suck off your CEO while you're at it!
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Shut the fuck up. We can make the world a better place if we want to. We are just going to have to drag you and the rest of the simps for the rich kicking and screaming. And you will benefit from our efforts. And just because you will freeload off of us improving the world doesn't stop me from wanting to do it.
We have enough food and goods to go around if we would just start voting for people who actually believe we can do it. We were so close with Bernie...
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