Bernie Sanders unveils 32-hour workweek bill with no loss in pay for workers
Bernie Sanders unveils 32-hour workweek bill
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13099372
I would suck multiple dicks in a row to get 32 hour work weeks instead of this bullshit global random work hour salary shit. No I don't want to fucking hop on a call at 3am.
Sucking dicks is always an option. If your vocation is your vacation, you'll never work a day in your life!
Monetizing your passion can really suck the joy out of it though
Unfortunately this wouldn’t really affect most salaried employees at all. Being on salary in most situations specifically excludes you from overtime pay, and this is just changing that threshold for people who are eligible for overtime pay (generally hourly employees and those with strong unions). I’m all for it, but a different push needs to be made to ensure that being on salary doesn’t just mean “your life is ours whenever we ask for it”
I mean, the 32 hour work week is a nice bonus to the usual Friday night, sure.
My union is entering bargaining soon, we're already starting to leverage this as a talking point
Unions are good for all workers. If you guys can make it happen, then other employers will have to compete with that benefit to get decent workers. People will accept the best deal they can get and will reject shitty deals when they know they can do better, so if employers want some better workers, they will need to up their offerings to attract better applicants. If you guys win 32, other unions will win 32, and then lots of non-union places will need to at least offer 36 to remain relevant.
From all of us, good luck!
Does anybody have a breakdown on how this bill works? I love the idea but I don't understand how it can guarantee no loss in pay for the long term. Companies could just stagnate the higher wages until inflation dilutes the buying power, right?
I also rather selfishly am curious about how this might affect a work schedule like mine. I do rotating shift work, 12 hour shifts. I stagger between 36 and 48 hour weeks. I kinda wonder if my company or entire industry might transition to either more crews locked at 3 12s per week or maybe move to 8 hour shifts and have 3 shifts per 24 hour period. Or maybe my schedule stays the same but the OT kicks in after 32 hours instead of after 40?
Major win for the working class, but I'm cautiously optimistic. If this passes, I'm concerned what bullshit loopholes or exemptions might be included in the final draft.
Companies could just stagnate the higher wages until inflation dilutes the buying power, right?
As opposed to what they already do?
Fair. I just mean that I don't understand how the "with no loss in pay" part can truly be enforced. For salary workers, that seems pretty self explanatory but there will just be no merit increases or cost of living increases for a few years and the budget will balance itself. For hourly workers (like myself) does that mean cutting hours but raising pay? Does it mean keeping the same hours but just lowering the OT threshold? If this goes into effect and then a company claims that they're struggling, can they cut hours without violating this? For example, today there are people who work 40 hours per week at McDonald's on an hourly wage; after this bill passes, is it the expectation that those people will then work 32 hours and get the same paycheck, receiving a 25% raise? Or will they start getting OT at 32 hours and keep working 40? And if it's that second option, when will the manager cut their hours to 32 and what will happen to the manager/business legally as a result? And to that point, what happened to people who are being scheduled 35 hours per week for example? Overnight they go from part time to full time plus OT, or their hours are cut and they get a raise?
In a capitalist economy, companies' top priority is maximizing profit. There are only two viable ways to do this: overcharge customers and/or underpay labor. This bill has eyes on reducing underpaid labor. Companies are going to be shitheads to find ways to continue underpaying labor. I'm just curious what this bill is gonna do to our asshole boss in terms of loopholes and in terms of consequences for violating this. I'm honestly a little worried that there's gonna be some bullshit tacked onto this that drives a wedge between blue collar and white collar workers, so typical Monday-Friday office workers get help but eSsEnTiAL workers get left behind yet again, and then people are tricked into fighting over crumbs on the floor instead of noticing the bountiful meal up on the table. I want this bill to work for every kind of worker and I'm trying to figure out how it can accomplish that because I'm not smart enough to know how to write a bill that helps everybody.
How about eight 3 hour shifts per day and you work 3 consecutive? Or twenty four 1 hour shifts and you work ten. I don't know if you're medical, but shift changes are one of the most dangerous times, so maybe staggered shift changes is better for everyone anyway.
I'm a power plant operator. 12 hour shifts is pretty standard, but standards can change. We typically have 3 operators on site 24/7, but some extra support on weekday day shift or when shit goes sideways. If we change hours to suit a bill like this, we will need more than the 4 crews of 3 that we currently have. It seems like the options are either to pay us OT for more of our hours and keep the same schedule, move to 36 hours per week every week and hire an extra crew, or move to 8 hour shifts and hire maybe 2 extra crews? I certainly wouldn't mind more time at home with my family, especially without a reduction in pay.
IMO pay should be by the week not by the hour, set minimum wage at $1,062.50 a week for up to 32 hours of work, then another $2,656.25 for up to 64 hours of work, then $6,640.63 to an absolute maximum of allowed work in one week of 96 hours.
Makes hours the check against the employer instead of their check against the worker, caps the maximum allowed work in a single pay period, and most importantly I think, turns overtime into something that is more expensive to the employer than hiring an additional worker, putting a financial penalty in for riding your workers until they break instead of properly staffing for the work required.
You can still bring someone in for extra work if you absolutely need to get a crisis set aside, but it's unfeasible to build your business strategy on just continuing to do that forever.
I like the concept but I don't like the hours. Nobody should ever work 96 hours in one week. That's either seven 13.7 hour days or six 16 hour days. Add morning routine, commute, meals, chores, errands, etc. Seven 12 hour workdays (84 hour week) should be the absolute maximum and it should be extremely costly to employers to ever get close to it. I say that as somebody who has done many 84 hour weeks in his life. It's not fucking safe. Really anything past 50 hours gets really unsafe really quickly.
There should also be federal legislation that requires OT pay past a certain number of daily hours (preferably 8, but I'd accept 10) AND guarantee some amount of PTO for workers. The US is one of the only developed countries that has no minimum paid time off requirement for employers.
96 hours are plausible if you work on a remote site (e.g. oil rig) and are practically always on the clock. Just because it is insane from a normal person's pov doesn't mean it does not exist.
It's meant to be an absolute cap that you're a lunatic for even needing to get in range of, because any time past the 64th hour gets you that 2.5^2 multiplier, not the full extra 32 hours
Like I said, the time is the worker's check in this system, it's not the maximum they can juice you for, it's how much they can get out of you before you get to juice them.
It would just make my overtime pay start earlier. We seldom get away with only a 40 hour week and we work 10s. I mean, I'd take it, but unless they make legislation banning mandatory overtime this only benefits office people.
At this point he's basically rubbing it in our faces what we could have had if they had let him run.