Bernie Sanders Champions 32-Hour Work Week With No Loss in Pay ( www.commondreams.org )

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.”

Deftdrummer ,

Oh wahhhh, you can’t have risky sex and abort babies now. So fucking sad for your plight.

jasondj ,

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?

EyeYamDatEyeYam ,

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.

gibmiser ,

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…

triclops6 ,

Lick that boot bud

Neflubaguzzi ,

Suck off your CEO while you’re at it!

TheCrawlingKingSnake ,

While I love this idea and Bernie… There’s no fucking way that’ll happen.

ilikekeyboards ,

Companies can afford it

gibmiser , (edited )

There is no way we will get a 40 hour work week

unfreeradical ,
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

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.

books ,

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.

MedicPigBabySaver ,
@MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world avatar

Dems would’ve torpedoed him no matter what he pushed for issues.

zabadoh ,

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.

Malfeasant ,

Nobody is saying you should have to do 40 hours work in 32 hours - rather the company hires more people to cover those hours.

Flyingostrich ,

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.

ilikekeyboards ,

You don’t understand… After 32 hours it’s overtime pay instead of after 40

GeneralVincent ,

That’s totally understandable, but the “standard” work week is 40 hours. He’s just saying to change the standard. So if you’re job isn’t standard hours, it would probably just mean a little more overtime pay. Still a benefit to those people

Mandarbmax ,

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?

zabadoh ,

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.

GeneralVincent ,

Maybe this is stupid question but…single person business just mean it’s one person doing everything right? In those cases, how would changing the standard full time to 32 hours affect them in any way?

They wouldn’t be changing their own salary or have to change anyone else’s salary unless I’m missing something

ETA: small business just means less than 500 employees, I’m sure a good number of them could still afford it. And an easy (and admittedly imperfect) solution could be just adding an exception for small businesses.

Riyosha_Namae ,

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.

vacuumflower ,

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 .

Anticorp ,

And personally I’d say 35hr week is a better idea - as in 5 days of 7hrs .

No thanks! I’ll stick with The Bern on this one.

vacuumflower ,

Depends on the purpose. If you want for the shorter week to be normalized - then surely yes.

And if you want that “no loss in pay” - then my idea is better to that end.

Anticorp ,

Bernie is advocating for a 4 day work week with no loss in pay, and you’re arguing against your own best interest before anyone has even objected. Why? I’m not interested in a 7 hour day. 7 hours, 8 hours, it makes very little difference. But 4 days vs 5 days is a major quality of life improvement.

vacuumflower ,

Bernie is advocating for a 4 day work week with no loss in pay

Yeah, sure, and I’m advocating for long power lines with no loss in power. Bernie doesn’t explain how’s he (even algorithmically) going to evaluate which pay is “no loss in pay” and how is he going to enforce it.

archomrade ,

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.

Kirkkh ,

Corporations will just cut everyone’s hours to 32 and replace the loss with automation. Ask any min-wage worker if they’re ever allowed to clock over 40. Crap most can’t even get 32 because then they’d have to give them health insurance.

archomrade ,

They do that anyway, but the whole wage market shifts upward because of the non-exempt regulations. The whole reason we even had a middle class to loose was the labor laws established from union strikes and labor reform in the early 20th century. The only reason you have a weekend is because of those laws. Regulation like this is the first step toward improving labor down the board.

ofc we should also raise min wage and/or establish universal benefits to head off automation and other productivity improvements, but those are bigger reforms.

Fraylor ,

Lmao garbage take. Please never be put in charge of anything important.

SamboT ,

Nice contribution to the thread.

Fraylor ,

Same to you?

vacuumflower ,

I’ve been responsible for some relatively important things from time to time, and that’s just as likely to happen in future.

While your reply is not very convincing and recursively makes me think I’d not entrust to you anything I really want done in a satisfactory way at least.

Fraylor ,

Well of course you wouldn’t want me making decisions, as they wouldn’t have the same garbage thought processes yours would.

vacuumflower ,

I don’t think my thought processes are garbage. They at least have evolved past the mistakes most people here do.

Anyway, you haven’t provided any argumentation, just came here and started throwing feces. I don’t argue with monkeys, at least not after I fully realize I’m talking to one.

unfreeradical ,
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

We make gains by organization not legislation.

Read the excerpts of the speech quoted in the article. All is plainly said.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

He still supports Biden…The same Biden who forced railroad workers to stop being on strike. Biden who wrote the crime bill that exploded our prison population. Biden who supports every war we’re involved in, all of which are illegal. Biden who was in favor of segration back in the day

Bernie had two primaries rigged against him in a row and didn’t say anything about it. Speaking as a disabled person, I appreciate what he has to say about a lot of things, but what good is he if he’s just going to cave in and do the same shit as the rest of them? He keeps saying that Biden is his friend. Well Bernie has some shitty friends.

hydroel ,

Could you remind me, what was the alternative to Biden again?

Armen12 ,

An actual leader who isn’t one foot in the grave

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

No matter who you vote for, the same shit happens. We don’t live in a democracy

hydroel ,

I understand the dislike of some of Biden’s choices and policies and also disapprove of some of them, but let’s not pretend these are on the same level as the buffoon’s.

Nemo ,

Abstention. Voting the lesser evil is a downward spiral.

unfreeradical ,
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

Are you rejecting a call to build organized labor across the country because you have a grudge against one man for endorsing another man?

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

He’s never actually going to fight for anything. keep a close eye on the issue. As soon as the democrats encounter on obstacle they’ll declare that they “don’t have the votes” and then say “vote blue no matter who!” and then continue to do nothing even if they win.

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

The call is to build organized labor across the country, giving workers the power to shape society toward our interests, not to expect the ruling class to offer voluntary concessions that have no benefit to them.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’ve heard all this before. It never works.

what I mean by that is that all these politicians talk about doing good things, but they never actually do anything. They just keep saying “we don’t have the votes yet” and then they give up, because they never actually wanted to fix anything.

unfreeradical ,
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

Again, I think you are misunderstanding the message.

The speech is not giving a promise that Bernie Sanders will make gains on behalf of workers.

Rather, it is giving encouragement to workers to make gains for ourselves, by building our own power against the oligarchs.

snausagesinablanket ,
@snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world avatar

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.

dx1 ,

Man saying two sentences about something is a pretty low bar to “champion” it.

Piye ,

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

Kirkkh ,

Sounds great. He should do something about it.

unfreeradical , (edited )
@unfreeradical@lemmy.world avatar

He can’t, but workers can.

Our fate rises or falls by our capacity to join in solidarity.

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

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 citizenship 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.

CosmicCleric , (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

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.

mimichuu_ ,

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.

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

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.

mimichuu_ ,

As I said, the things you don’t get by fighting are purely concessions so you shut up. When you do shut up, they get taken away. Every single fundamental working right we have was fought for with blood, not votes.

What corpos are really afraid of is us organizing. They have always been. That’s all we have to do. Advocating for people to send emails (since none of them are going to have the money to hire lobbying firms) will just feed them back into the system, the same way voting does. Makes you feel realized when it never fundamentally changes anything for good.

Riyosha_Namae ,

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.

Blackmist ,

But what about the poor billionaires?

“I’ve got one hobby space program yes, but what about second hobby space program?”

average_internet_enjoyer ,

“What about my yachts? I need to see them slaving their lives away for my holiday!!!”

WheeGeetheCat ,
@WheeGeetheCat@sh.itjust.works avatar

He’s right

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