"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."
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.
When we had our son, I had 2 weeks time off from work. HR sat me down and told me "by law, we can't fire you until you take one day over the 2 weeks of unpaid time off. You are so lucky! You used to get zero time off. I remember when we had our baby, I worked until midnight while my wife was in labor."
Then I was fired 3 months later for "subpar performance" and they noted I seemed fatigued and frequently forgot things. Like, no shit I had 3 hours of sleep per day for months.
We pay about 25-30% in taxes IIRC but health insurance bleeds you dry. We just incurred $4500 medical debt because my wife had to go to the hospital. $100,000 student loan debt. $35,000 child birthing costs, of which $8500 was out of pocket.
Yeah, all of those expenses would've been covered by the taxes where I live. Even the student debt - we get about $900 per month while studying and education is free.
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.
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.
In Europe, 4 weeks is the absolute minimum, many countries have higher mandated minimums and people get often extra on top. There are many things wrong in Europe, but the vacation policy is decent.
I don’t know why you throw the unicorn in there as if the rest of your comment is some crazy idea. Most of Europe functions extremely well under the work conditions you described, why is America somehow incapable of having the quality of life our European cousins have?
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.
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
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.