Which will be struck down almost unanimously because the US government is a cesspool of liches and ghouls.
I mean, yes? That’s kind of the point. This is how we shift the conversation and put pressure on politicians. Put these bills forward and make people vote them down on the record, so those votes can be used against them.
And how’s that been working out for you guys so far?
Honestly? Pretty well, relative to the “cry about it and do nothing” strategy.
Being realistic about the situation your country is in will make it easier to create realistic solutions. Pretending this did anything other than show that the left has absolutely zero power in the states is counterproductive to improving your country.
I am being realistic. Are you? Putting forward bills and forcing the corrupt and right-wing legislators to vote against them on the record is literally one of the biggest things that leftists have been calling for, for decades, that capitalist Democratic leaders have been suppressing, because it hurts their control of the party. Not doing this is exactly what right-wing Democrats want. Doing nothing is not a realistic solution to anything.
Is that why your current “left” party, that’s in power has pumped more oil than any country to ever exist, has twice the migrants detained in cages than when trump left office, breaks strikes, and bends over backwards to supply arms to a country engaged in genocide?
I think you should be more honest about how well its working.
I’m sure all these things you just wrote definitely have no nuance or context to them
I’m sure you’re fine with it as long as it’s slightly better than the republicans lol. This is what decades of lesser of two evils politics gets you: evil.
Well it wouldn’t make sense to be fine with the worser option would it
And I’m not fine with it, but what’s the realistic alternative?
I’m not from the US btw, I just have a morbid curiosity watching it from afar
America doesn’t have a left party, what are you talking about? Do you think Bernie won the presidency or something?
This guy gets it.
Exactly.
I mean, screwing with the Overton window has worked great for Republicans. It’s absolutely fair play to use the same tactic from the other side. Frankly, it should have been done the second it became apparent that Republicans in general were trying to push the window to the right.
I don’t see how this is a victory for the Overton window. When Biden is in power screwing with it in the other direction.
I’d argue it hasn’t truly happened yet bc half the voter base gets brainwashed by propaganda
Judging by what I’ve seen it’s well over half man.
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Those corporate liches and ghouls are going to trickle down wealth any day now. Any day.
Yeah seriously. Those fuckers barely work at all.
They literally sleep in the house or whatever you Americans call it that you have.
Yours sleep too.
Hey man, you ain’t gonna catch me sticking up for the shitshow that is Canadian politics.
Sanders also pointed to other countries that have already made the move toward shortening workweeks. France has a 35-hour workweek and is considering moving to a 32-hour workweek, and Norway and Denmark have workweeks of about 37 hours.
The problem with this comparison is that those countries have socialized healthcare, so healthcare expenditures come from the tax pool. In the U.S., healthcare is privatized so if workers don’t get burnout, injuries, diseases from stress etc. that translates to loss of revenue in the healthcare sector (but not for the companies that don’t have to pay workers if they’re out sick), and many of the decision makers in the U.S. are invested in the healthcare industry so there’s an obvious conflict of interest there when it comes to anything that benefits the health and well being of Americans. And the numbers are pretty big when you consider how much more expensive healthcare is in the U.S. than in those above mentioned countries.
Great idea, love it as a former factory worker myself. Hope it gets traction but let’s be real, it has a Republican Christian chance of getting into heaven to get enacted into law at least for now.
As a white collar worker, of love to see a bill that just sees white collar workers just get paid their equivalent hourly wage when we go over 40. Fucking crunch due to unrealistic manager bullshit schedules.
it has a Republican Christian chance of getting into heaven
Off topic, but, I love this as an alternative to “a snowball’s chance in hell”.
I appreciate Bernie and what he stands for. But, unlike pretty much every other developed country on earth, the US, aka the no-vacation nation, doesn’t even have universally available PTO. I’d start there.
May as well start somewhere and this is somewhere.
Start as extreme as you can, because you will end up compromising and getting less than what you asked for. The only question is: where is there line beyond which you won’t even begin to get a conversation started. Wherever you decide that line is, start your demands there, because you will have to give something up.
I try to like humans, but I hate this part of humanity more than nearly anything that isn’t an atrocity. If people would enter negotiations in good faith, and not having to play shitty games like this, I would like my fellow man far better. Then again, I also hate poker and other forms of gambling, and am probably in the minority about this.
I do want this change, but this system is built off exploitation look at the child labor laws being rolled back.
My boss just told us all how this will “remove our lunch and break times and take away all holidays” trying to scare us. Leeches, all of them.
Let’s assess the effects this change could cause on real numbers.
Note: This is a duplicate of a part of a comment I’ve written here above as a response, but I don’t want it to be buried. Hope that’s fine
I’ll take Nutrien’s 2023 audited financial statement as an example. (Numbers in brackets are what’s deducted to get what’s not in brackets)
- Sales - 29056
- Freight, transportation, distribution - (974)
- Cost of goods sold - (19608)
- EBIT - 8474
- Interest - (w/e)
- EBT - 1952
- Taxes - (670)
- Net earning - 1282
Out of cost of goods sold (2858) is cost of labour, let’s also add (626) from general administrative expenses, and just say it’s all wages.
- Effective tax rate - 670/1952*100% = 34,3% (wow, that’s a lot for where I live, also ignoring mining tax for simplicity)
Let’s see what happens to our efficiency if the changes take effect.
All of costs can be divided into Fixed and Variable ones. Labour, in this case, is Variable because we can manipulate it by employing more staff to compensate for reduction in working hours and keep the sales at the same rate. (Contract workers are usually Fixed Cost, but it’s all relative, as no Fixed Cost is ever truly fixed.)
Going from 40 => 32, we have a 20% reduction in working hours. Mind you, this doesn’t mean there will be a 20% hit to productivity. It may be more, it may be less (most likely less), for simplicity let’s say it’s 20%. So, we need 20% more workers to compensate. (2858+626)*120%=4180.8
- New EBT = 1952 + 2858 + 626 - 4180.8 = 1255.2
- New net profit = 1255.2*(1-34.3%) = 824.7. Mind you, the effective tax rate will probably be lower if employment affects deductibles and/or grants tax privileges.
So, our net profit margin went from 1282/29056 = 4.4% to 2.8%. Looks bad at first glance, but it’s also a bad year. A year prior net profit margin was at whopping 20.3%, so a decrease from 4.4% to 2.8% would be nothing in comparison.
Will it result in increased prices? Yes, but it will also lead to economic growth, because more free time = people spend more money = companies earn more = companies grow faster, but so does inflation. If they can manage the inflation, I don’t see why this couldn’t be possible.
Reducing net profit doesn’t have any impact on pricing in capitalist markets. It’s not like capitalists have some specific profit percentage they are allowed to hit (unless they’re in a very regulated industry like grid or water supply). They want infinite returns, and they’ll increase prices as much as the market allows to generate more profits.
Capitalists don’t look at a net profit of 4.4% and say “yup that’s enough”, but if it were 2.8% they’d say “damn guess we have to increase prices for customers, I really wish we didn’t have to do this”.
They might increase prices as a retaliatory measure. The same way businesses slashed hours as a result of Obamacare. They didn’t have to, but it benefited them to, and they didn’t see a downside.
They might be able to increase prices, blame it on this law, and have people who are aligned politically with them put up with it and maybe even support their business more to “stick it to the libs”. They already do this with things like inflation, blaming it on Biden and then increasing prices far more than necessary.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Price policy is a whole different topic. Only monopolies can afford to increase them just because they’re not meeting the expected quota.
Don’t know about “retaliatory measure”, it’s hard to imagine companies uniting like that over it. Usually, they just play by the rules, and those could be the new rules (strong emphasis on “usually”). In fact, if the management is competent, it’s likely that they have already accounted for it, just in case, after the news dropped.
They don’t all need to band together. They just need a few big ones to do it, then everyone else will just jump on the bandwagon.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday introduced a bill to establish a standard four-day workweek in the United States without any reduction in pay.
A press release described the legislation as “an important step toward ensuring that workers share in the massive increase in productivity driven by artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology.”
“The financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street.
“While CEOs’ wages continue to increase, our workers are finding themselves doing more, yet earning less than they have in decades,” Butler wrote in a statement.
“The Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act would allow hardworking Americans to spend more time with their families while protecting their wages and making sure profits aren’t only going to a select few.”
In the announcement, Sanders cited several pilot programs and studies that show productivity improving with a four-day workweek.
The original article contains 494 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
It’s hard to imagine how an hourly worker is going to not loose pay; going from 40 to 32 hours.
When you’re hourly… you’re, you know, paid hourly. The pay rate stays the same and you loose hours, not pay. The effect is the same, but technicalities are then soul of the legal profession.
The article literally tells you that this was done before, to give us the 40 day standard we now have. It worked before, and the article also points out that other countries have recently reduced work weeks under 40 hours. How is it hard to imagine that something that factually has happened could happen?
Then the hourly rate is to be increased
Can’t really do that,
The US government isn’t party to private contracts. Can’t dictate terms in that manner.
Unless you literally want to socialize all economic activities everywhere.
I mean, they actually can. That’s a completely facetious argument. Laws can set standards without defining everything. It’s done all the time.
That’s the need, then it’s just a matter of finding the way
The US government isn’t party to private contracts
Learn what at-will employment is and how much of the US is stuck with it
I’m fully aware of at will employment.
I fail to see how that helps with the 32 workweek. You’re not going to get a general strike, and there’s plenty of people who will happily move into that job.
If you’re fully aware of what at-will is then you’d know saying
The US government isn’t party to private contracts
Is silly when the overwhelming majority of employees in this country do not have a private contract for employment
Yes they do.
A contract is simply an agreement- in the case of employment, to provide work for payment. Even at will, that is a contract. The contract can be terminated any time at will by either party, but it’s still a contract.
Hopefully it reclassifies weekly work hour threshold to be considered for full time benefits. Either way it’s going to be a bumpy ride. At least someone is trying something
The irs already defines full time as 30 hours per week or 130 hours per month.
The ACA and FMLA also use that definition as full time.
The only change would be to require paying OT at 32 instead of 40- but that will have consequences of reducing hours, and not improving pay.
I suppose we would have to raise the minimum wage, and since neither party wants that, it’s dead in the water.
Yeah, I don’t understand how the “no loss of pay” part is implemented either.
Even if there is something in the bill that requires overtime pay, that’s just a multiplier to the base wage. What keeps an unscrupulous employer from just dropping the base rate by 20%?
It’s not even a question of dropping the base rate.
Hourly workers are paid per hour. I mean it’s pretty basic, right. The terms of employment are your paid at a rate of x per hour.
They’re just going to cut hours- not pay. And it’s a bit ridiculous to expect that companies are going to just increase effective rates when they still need the same number of hours worked.
They’re still going to be paying for that labor. have to pay someone for the hours you can’t work because paying overtime is one of the carnal sins of middle Managment.
A 32 hour workweek just doesn’t translate well to retail or anywhere that’s not white collar office jobs.
And add to that, anybody who is already salaried is just going to end up working the same 40+ that they’re already doing.
Out of all those jobs I had, only 1 gave me anything for OT, and that was just TOIL, which is nice but not sufficient when you’re the only person in your position.
I know a guy that spent 2 or 3 years with some stellar spreadsheets; he just coasted turning out the data (which was right,).
that stopped when he shared the spreadsheets with a few friends… then he kept getting asked to fix other people’s spreadsheets. which… would be a cool gig; if people weren’t so awful at spreadsheets.
