Here's an Idea Whose Time Has Come

 

A bill has been introduced in the California legislature to mandate a 32 hour or 4 day work week for larger companies.  Fewer hours, same pay.

The bill, AB 2932, would change the definition of a workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours for companies with more than 500 employees. A full workday would remain at eight hours, and employers would be required to provide overtime pay for employees working longer than four full days.

The bill was authored by Assembly Members Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) and Evan Low (D-San Jose). At the federal level, a bill by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) is pushing for similar changes under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Reached by phone Friday, Garcia said the idea was prompted in part by the exodus of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of whom were seeking a better quality of life. More than 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.






“We’ve had a five-day workweek since the Industrial Revolution,” Garcia said, “but we’ve had a lot of progress in society, and we’ve had a lot of advancements. I think the pandemic right now allows us the opportunity to rethink things, to reimagine things.”

Comments

  1. Owen GrayApril 22, 2022 at 11:20 AM

    COVID has changed a lot of things for the worse, Mound. But this would be a remarkable change for the better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Disaffected LibApril 22, 2022 at 11:52 AM

    It does sound like a silver lining, Owen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TrailblazerApril 22, 2022 at 7:19 PM

    Perhaps we are learning that productivity is not tied in to time and motion methodology as it hs been for much of the industrial age?
    The kick back for such reform will come from the die hard conservatives who see life as those that have and the have not's.
    Selfishness will be the barrier.


    TB




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. jrkrideauApril 24, 2022 at 5:02 AM

      We’ve had a five-day workweek since the Industrial Revolution,” Garcia said,

      Uh, no. Just to be pedantic, the Industrial Revolution seems to be generally considered to have stared in Britain somewhere around 1750. The six-day week, often (usually?) at 10 or 12 hours a day, in some cases even more hours was apparently standard.

      I think there was trade union campaigning for shorter hours in the 1850's but I do not know how successful it was. There was one or two experiments in Germany in the 1880's that showed that reduced hours showed increased productivity.

      I think the British government munitions industry may have gone to a 5-day, 40 hour work week in WWI as research showed that longer work days and longer work weeks did not result in higher productivity. The longer hours may even have been detrimental.

      The 40 hour workweek is predicated on essentially relatively low to medium skilled, physical, work. I suspect that in highly complex work with a high cognitive load, we should be reducing hours even more. I cannot remember who it was, maybe Descartes, who claimed to work a half hour a day.

      Henry Ford in the USA brought in the 5-day, 40 hour week in 1926.

      Delete
    2. jrkrideauApril 24, 2022 at 5:12 AM

      Oops forgot the link to MacLean's Labor Wants Five-Day Job

      Delete
    3. The Disaffected LibApril 24, 2022 at 12:58 PM

      Thanks, JKR

      Delete

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