None of this is the business of the federal government to regulate, but, that doesn’t stop people like Bernie Sanders from pushing it. Probably for votes
Bernie Sanders pushes bill to establish a four-day workweek
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., held a hearing Thursday on a bill he introduced to reduce the standard U.S. workweek to four days without loss of pay.
The bill, titled the “Thirty-Two Hour Work Week Act,” would reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours over the span of four years, including lowering the maximum hours required for overtime compensation for nonexempt employees. It would also require overtime pay at time and a half for workdays that last more than eight hours and overtime pay that would pay workers double their regular pay if their workday is longer than 12 hours.
A press release on the bill described it as an “important step toward ensuring workers share in increasing productivity and economic growth driven by technological advancements.”
“Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” Sanders said in a statement. “Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change.”
This is the Joe Biden Work Week: work 30 hours a week or so and then take the weekend off. Unless the Democrats take over Congress and control the White House, this has zero chance of passing. Democrats might not even vote for it if they do have control. Businesses would need more employees to be able to make it through the week. They aren’t going to go for that. And businesses will invest even more on automation to replace employees.
This is not the 1940s, and I’m pretty sure many were working long hours to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan. And here’s what you could be looking at
1. Fewer Hours Means Less Time to Get Things Done
While studies have shown that a 4-day workweek can enhance productivity, it also presents a challenge. With fewer hours in the week, there may be limited time to accomplish all necessary tasks.
This makes the 4-day workweek impractical for certain industries, including:
Healthcare and emergency services that require 24/7 coverage
Retail and hospitality businesses that have direct client interactions
Large enterprises with complex operations
There would be the stress of working harder than before to get things done in the shortened time frame. Things like training, trust, team bonding, and others would crop up. Customer satisfaction could take a big hit.
And if Comrade Sanders thinks the pay and benefits will stay the same, it won’t. There are many who work 50+ hours a week to be able to get things done. No company will be paying overtime when people hit 33 hours a week. Small businesses which cannot afford to do the workarounds will go out of business, meaning more out of work. Slackers will not get jobs. Automation will skyrocket. In some cases, those 4 days may be 10-12 hour mandatory shifts, not 8 hours.
It really is not the government’s business, and, again, how much of this is a patronizing idea to get the younger folks to vote Democrat? Even though they were going to vote D anyhow?
Big talk from a Brooklynite that has never worked a day in his life, at least he isn’t advocating the Sanders workweek, which would be ZERO hours per week.
Worthless human, Senator, Representative and beyond worthless Burlington Mayor, still costing the property owners of Burlington, Vermont at least $50/month.
Is just an old corrupt commie like are one and only Elwood Dowd. Neither know anything about business and all think they’re experts on everything. And that commie Sanders looks like Mr. Burns in The Simpsons.
Oh Brandon! You’re as obsessed as your corrupt Nazi lil buddy!
Senator Sanders is a democratic socialist. You still appear not to know the meaning of communist.
The corrupt Donald Trump looks like the poisonous Puss Caterpillar (Megalopyge opercularis).
Sorry to inform you but it is you, blinded by your propaganda who has the inability to distinguish between socialists, communists, nazi’s and such. What the hell is “democratic socialism”? Is that where the majority get to vote away the property rights and personal freedom of the minority? Cause that’s what America is becoming now. And if there’s “democratic” forms of socialism is there also democratic nazism, communism and such?
Once again you jump in and declare your greater knowledge than anybody else on any subject including this. How many PHD’s do you actually have? You seem to know everything about everything or is that just your ability to Google quickly?
I’ve had trouble myself trying to determine whether you are a communist or a Nazi. The two philosophies are so close and so similar in their execution no pun intended that when you write you can either sound like Stalin or Hitler depending upon the subject and what kind of a mood you’re in. When you start calling every single republican conservative and supporter of trump names that’s when you lose it all and sound like a Nazi. When you start telling everybody what they believe in like what Christians believe and you know what religions believe as well as the goals and objectives of every political entity in America then you sound like Stalin. Sometimes it’s very confusing to read what you write. And I know my craft is confusing because I don’t write anymore I dictate and sometimes it doesn’t come out correctly. But hey that’s life it’s easier than hitting the keyboard.
Brandon queries: What the hell is “democratic socialism”?
Most Western European nations have some version of democratic socialism, as do New Zealand, Australian, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Canada and Israel. You likely notice these are the most successful nations with the happiest citizens. Even some of the Middle Eastern petrostates are trending in this direction.
True socialism instills “we the people” with ownership of the means of production and is the opposite of complete capitalism. Communism, fascism and Nazism adds authoritarianism, i.e, dictatorship.
The United States of America is slightly to the right of those nations but has many characteristics of democratic socialism – Social Security, public schools, libraries, state parks, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, unemployment insurance, disability payments, ADA, EPA, NIH, CDC etc. – programs long opposed by American conservatives, who prefer fewer limits (controls) on capitalism, fewer services for the working class, lower taxes for the political donor class (the rich). In the US, the poor are poorer, the rich are richer. Our economy, the best on Earth today, rewards the wealthy with billions, but can’t support the working classes.
Some democratic socialists subscribe to the notion that capitalism should be replaced by state ownership of the economy but that is not happening except in communist autocracies. Advanced Western nations have strong support systems for citizens, e.g., universal healthcare, protections for labor and unions, strong public education including university, strong anti-fraud laws and overall better balance between the rich and poor in terms of wealth and incomes. Western democracies have much higher Human Development Indices (measures of health, education, income and living conditions). The five remaining communist nations, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam have lower scores.
You can find these things by reading!
Back when I was a computer tech (70s-80s) One of our customers put their IT staff on a 4 day week…. but it was 12 hour days. I don’t remember all the details, but the days somehow rotated around so that sometimes they worked 8 days straight and others they had a really long weekend. Bernie’s 32 hour week would never work in the real world.
What right does the government have in setting the work hours of private businesses, anyway. We should insist that overtime rules be revoked. If the company needs you 6 x 10 hr days then that’s what you work or go somewhere else. These worker “rights” and labor unions are why the US economy is so non-competitive compared to Russia, Israel, Hungary or North Korea.
American men used to be proud of working 60 or 70 hrs or more a week, and letting the little lady take care of the household and kids. Now, communists like Sanders want us to have 30 hr workweeks and soft work protections like they do in communist China!!
I guess that means he does not understand what a rhetorical comment is. You can fix that by looking it up.
So now you split democratic socialism into “some version” of democratic socialism.
Let me tell you something you commie pig, socialism in any form precludes individual freedom and you know it. If it doesn’t outright eliminate property rights it severely restricts them. Not one of the countries that you named has actual freedom of speech, has the right to own firearms, has the right to protest. None of these rights that we enjoy are codified by these people that’s your socialist basis mixed with democracy. Not to mention the fact that democracy is nothing more than mob rule. You should know that you’re part of it! You rule by thuggery, force, intimidation, Threat.
Every country on earth has elements that are seemingly socialistic but they are not socialist countries and that includes the United States.
Once again you start mouthing off like you’re some kind of a genius in the field which you aren’t by any stretch of the imagination without considering the fact that you were wrong to begin with because it was just rhetorical comment to begin with you moron. If you read a little you’d know that.
You and people like you are nothing but sniveling jackals in the family of humanity. I noticed you didn’t mention countries like Haiti Dominican Republic believes Mexico and several other countries that are also democratic socialist in 1° or another. Can you name any capitalist countries? How about democratic capitalist countries? Of course not because there aren’t any. The US is about as close as you would get today and we’re moving farther away every day thanks to assholes like you.
People from democratic socialist nations all over the globe are flying boating walking running to the United states. Why do you think that is because they want more socialism? You freaking morons you’re all the same you wanna make America into the country that people are running from instead of the one that they’re running to. And you hate people like Trump, Teach, drowning puppies, David7134,L’Roy, Carolanne, Jl, Dana, Professor Hale and me who think America should come first in everything and that we should be doing what we can to make America great again and then keep it great.
The very idea of America being a great country busts your stones. Just like the very idea that white, Christian men created this country busts stones.
Brandon,
You’re a belligerent dumbass. It’s been our experience that ignorance and assholery go together and that people with limited intellectual capacity quite often become violent. You and people like you are nothing but sniveling jackals in the family of humanity.
America is already the greatest, but can be better. Don’t you agree? Don’t you believe the increasing gap between the rich and poor is a problem? I hate willful ignorance and wanton cruelty. Trump exemplifies both. We get that Trump has you convinced that the “communist Democrats” are “importing” brown voters to replace you white guys. But no.
No. The states of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras are not in Western Europe and are not at all like Israel, France, South Korea, Canada, the UK, Germany or Australia.
Let me know when you return to reality.