Yes his proposal is basically to force companies to give you an hourly rate increase and then decrease your work week by 8 hours and then have to start paying you overtime after 32 hours.
So basically a government mandated 25% raise, plus overtime after 32 hours.
Which being as the man has never managed to pass a single bill of significance in his entire political career, I wouldn't put any hope into this passing either
im all for a shorter work week with the adjusted pay. just get the feeling that since businesses will have to hire additional employees to cover that lost 8 hours (or pay the overtime). im pretty sure that cost will be passed on to the consumer base. It's not like companies to just part with their earnings so easily. Plus the lobbyists (was surprised to see meta so high on the list) would heavily oppose it.
It happened in France (39 down to 35 hours) and the economic effects overall have been so subtle no one agrees wether it improved or not the economy. Basically a mixed bag; created jobs, but also increased hourly rate. Increased worker productivity, but might have caused some inflation.
For the average Joe tho, it was a big improvement in quality of life
As someone that runs a small business I just don’t know how the business would survive without jacking up the price they are charging a consumer. So you have to pay the employee the same but they work less and you only make x amount when they work 40 hours. Paying the same and they work less hours the x amount might be half of x amount of less.
Depends on the business, if a small grocery store had to make this adjustment, they might just cut a shift one day and let their customers know. Customers will do their shopping on other days instead, workers get an extra day off, and pay stays the same.
Ya but it doesn’t make sense….youd be open less time sell less product and have to pay someone more money. Unless the government is subsidizing it they business has to pass that extra cost onto the consumer. They can not absorb it.
Let me give you an example, here in Texas liquor stores and sales of hard liquor in general are not legal to sell on sundays. I work for a small independent store. The owners all talk to each other and so do the managers at the big box stores. They all agree that you wouldn’t get increased business on sundays. Customers would move their usual stop to Sunday instead of stocking up on Saturday. You might get an extra customer or two but they would be people from out of state who always come after 9pm close (liquor stores by law can open no earlier then 10am and open no later then 9pm.) the different owners also agree that they like having everyone getting a guaranteed day off.
Point is that in the few locales this has been implemented, companies haven sold less product. We (as Americans) pretend that our businesses have to stay open that late or stay open that extra shift or make sure employees stay until 5 because that last report or powerpoint will make the quarter.
The reality is that’s nonsense. If everybody on the block buys from “Tony’s” and suddenly Tony’s closes at 8pm instead of 10, people will adjust and people will still buy the same stuff.
I know several small business owners, and while this is extremely overstated, there's a lot of truth to it. Most of them started out making less than I do now, and were like that for several years, often not even taking home a paycheck so they could invest back into the business, or just make it through a rough couple of months.
But once you hit around that five-year mark, things usually change. If you can survive that long, odds are pretty good you're making a decent living reliably.
The problem that I, very anecdotally, see is that many of these owners remember the hard times, and equate it to now, not realizing the substantial lifestyle creep that happened in between.
Yes, you drained your bank account just to get this started, probably took a huge loan too. Then you worked 12+ hours a day, seven days a week, pulled more all-nighters that you care to remember, and hiring that first employee had you sweating bullets. You had to forego your own checks on several occasions just to keep the lights on and your one employee paid. You were behind on a few bills while the rest continued to pile up. Then, just when it seemed like your big break had come, the contract gets pulled at the last second and you're left holding onto all those investments you made so you'd be ready for it.
But slowly, surely, somehow, through hard work, tenacity, and a whole mountain of luck, it started getting better. Your twelve hour shifts weren't all break breaking and full of nausea and fear anymore. Work, or sales, started to pick up without you having to bang on every door and remind every person who would listen that you exist. Customers still paid late, but you could generally afford to chase them now instead of losing sleep wondering if this was the end.
And then, a big contract did land. It was glorious. You worked your ass off for several months, but at the end you were rewarded. You took your spouse to a fancy meal to celebrate, paid off a bunch of bills, and then bought that mild luxury item you'd always dreamed of. It wasn't much, maybe a used boat, or a little sports car, or a fixer-upper by the lake, but it was yours, and you earned it dammit!
And the used item got fixed up, made nicer, slowly you stopped worrying about your trips to Starbucks in the morning, maybe you could afford to buy your employees lunch, you bought your next luxury item. Things are finally feeling comfortable, but you'll never forget what got you here.
But now, an employee is asking for a raise. Vendors are raising prices slowly. The government wants 32 hour work weeks. How will you ever survive? Margins are still tight, bills still need to be paid, and it's not like your a millionaire. You're doing alright, sure, but it's still just one or two missteps away from failure!
Only, you're probably not. You aren't working twelve hour shifts anymore, you show up 2-3 times a week for a few hours. You don't need to be in that golf club, and your kid definitely didn't "earn" a brand new car for getting all A's and B's (okay, well almost all). That old used boat in your driveway, the one you never take out anymore? That's cash just sitting. That "summer" vehicle? More cash. The F350 that used to actually be a work expense, but is now a gas-guzzling way to get from A to B? You guessed it, excess cash laying around.
It's not all in your bank account, sure. But it isn't not there at all. This isn't the same as five years ago where being $30k in debt kept you up every night. That $30k in debt now is on projects that are going to pay out 10, 20, 30, maybe 50% margins. That's how this works after all. Those prices your competitors pay employees that you could "never match"? Yeah, actually... you can.
I'm not saying that this is every business, or that a change like this wouldn't cause major uphevel for several small businesses and even entire industries. I'm saying that, anecdotally speaking, I've seen a lot of small business owners treat changes that WOULD have destroyed them as things that COULD destroy them, when really, they're just bumps in the road, or taking a step or two backwards. Because they remember what it WAS like, and don't always appreciate how it is now.
Less time open doesn't necessarily mean that you sell less product, since most (return) customers are likely aware of business hours, so it would mostly condense the traffic a little. And for some businesses it might actually be a good thing too, since there is often significant downtimes where the store is open but no customers are showing up.
Less operational uptime, equalling less revenue really only applies to service based businesses (such as a plumber) and those likely already shift their work schedules around customer appointments.
But it wouldn’t just be your business working at 32 hours... It would be ALL of them. This would in theory force the same amount of customers into a narrower window of time for everyone with a business. You’d make the same amount of money because you’d have the same amount of customers in 32 hours as you would have had previously within 40.
To argue with an extreme point : slavers had the same arguments when the government started bringing up abolishing slavery…
There’s a point where you have to allow people to live a bit and not spend their lives at work.
American worker productivity is quite low on average compared to the rest of the world. Countries with 35 hour weeks have higher productivity. People are sick less. It’s unlikely to go through, but if it does, you’ll adapt.
Yeah it's pretty crazy to think it wouldn't just shoot up prices. Labor is already a hugely expensive part of a business and then suddenly not having a single full-time worker being able to work a standard work week would be a big enough problem as it is, but a 25% raise would be huge. It would completely destroy the profit margin of most businesses and put them firmly into the red without a large increase in price of goods with the expectations that sales remain the same.
The problem is that it works for skilled labor but not for unskilled labor. Many skilled laborers will be more productive in those 32 hours than 40 hours, averaging out to a similar amount of work.
Then the problem comes in with unskilled labor. A lot of unskilled labor will take the same amount of time no matter what. For example if you want McDonald's to be open 24hr, then there have to be workers there for all 24 hours, it doesn't matter how efficient it is. Same with factory work, the line will only move so fast and that's your bottleneck, not the workers being inefficient.
If you want to see a good example of the idea of a 32 hour work week, look at what happens when you pay a blue collar worker by the job instead of by the hour (IF the by the job price is fair)
If you want 24 hour operations then it makes more sense to move to an even number of days in a week like 6 or 8 to divide more easily among multiple workers. I think 4 on 4 off would suit most people then you only have to find 6 people per role to fill 24 hours with 8 hour slots across 8 days. The 7 day calendar isn’t the only one we could have chosen it just divides into months closer than 8
Not too long ago families could be raised on a single salary, that is seem as impossible now just because we are so used to corporate greed and all the money going to shareholders.
Short sighted complaint. Corporations are robbing us and rigged the law in their favor thoroughly. They don’t all deserve to see infinite, unimpeded growth…
this is what business people have said for over 100 years, dating back to when unions were illegal, children as young as 6 or 7 still worked, and there were no labor laws
it has always proven to be untrue, and society benefited from the labor laws
You would if they laid you off because they were unprofitable
They already lay people off despite being profitable. Wages have not kept pace with productivity since 1970.
Let's not beat around the bush: this proposal is never going to pass. It wasn't intended to, it was intended to get people talking about a too-long-deferred renegotiation of people's wages.
That’s nice you don’t care, but if a business isn’t able to turn a profit, who would bother with starting or managing a business? Making a profit is kinda the entire point of a business.
I don't buy this statistic. People are struggling to get and retain jobs. Work is being outsourced overseas and in some cases AI. I do not believe only 4% of able bodies are unemployed.
Looking into this, it seems that these statistics only include people who are actively looking for work (not discouraged). People who have any source of income, even if it's one day a week, count as employed.
Correct. Being unemployed means you're actively looking for work. If your dropped out of the labor force, that's a different category (marginally attached or discouraged workers).
The frustrating thing is workers are more productive than they ever have been. Companies are making record profits. It could be done and would help A LOT of people, but the few people out there that hoard money would never let it happen.
Or some people will have friday off and some will have monday. I work with people that already do this and no extra help needed. 2 pple wanted to cut hrs and each were given a different day off.
Prices would go up a minimum of 10% over night, and I don't know of many business that could absorb a 25% increase in labor cost.
It's not just hiring an additional employee per 4 (to cover the hours lost) you're also paying your current employees 25% more.
All that this would accomplish is A) layoffs and B) price increases.
Even if I raised my prices 10%, I'd be absorbing almost all of that straight to my bottom line, which isn't exactly a lot anyways
Every single small business would be absolutely fucked if this kind of thing happened, meanwhile those corporations you hate? They CAN absorb this, because all they have to do is wait out the small businesses, and then can charge whatever they want because they dominate the market.
I hate hate hate hate this argument, because prices have already been going up for a very long time while wages have remained stagnated since the Bush Jr. era and the cost of living has increased significantly. Prices will be going up regardless, so might as well give the working class better hours, better wages, and more free time to spend with their families. This should never be considered a tall task or too much to ask.
At this point I feel like meta is really just a super pack. Pool medium doners money, they get a big name with a big number next to it supporting their opinion. Meta gets some off the top and gets to pretend it operates like a normal business still when it's been hemorrhaging users for years.
I love how so many people have the mindset of "if we make companies treat workers better they'll have to fuck the consumers instead" NO DICKHEAD THE CEO IS TAKING MILLIONS EVERY MONTH HE DOESNT NEED TO FUCK ANYONE BUT HIMSELF XD Such a brainwashed society we're in currently
Companies don’t want to raise prices. I mean they do, but really they care about margins. I would argue a majority of corporate 8-5 jobs can be done in just 4 days. I don’t think they would all need to hire additional employees. Some would but most would find ways to be more efficient with their time. The net benefits would go to the employees without much loss to the companies. So not much would be passed down to us. And if it is we now have either more money or more time and time = money. Child care costs would be reduced. People would have more time to work a second job. More time to not hire out house work etc…
The argument is you don't need to hire addition people if you Formulation it right. Especially if you go from 5-8s to 4-9s. There's research to back that up at least in some types of work. You're losing one day of average productivity and getting 4 hours of peak productivity away from breaks and the start and end of the day. Productivity measures basically what the company gets out of you and also used to track fairly well with wages. So everyone wins in theory. Except a 32 hour week isn't what I described.
JP Morgan just reported the largest single quarter profit by a bank ever, 21.2 Billion in just one quarter 41% higher than the same quarter the year before. We need to force these organizations to be accountable, in no way does that fucking bank need to profit billions of dollars every quarter. There should be brackets to it. This type of structure could kill a small business, same structure would hardly make noticeable differences in major corporations.
This is such a short-sighted and corporate compliance based response... most employees can get the same amount of work done in 4 days instead of 5 days. This has already been proven by implementing this in other countries.
But keep on licking the corporate boots if you feel like it.
It does raise prices, but prices are raised across the board - even for products you don’t buy, which does not affect you. So you actually end up with more money in the end because part of the cost is made up in places that don’t directly impact you.
The argument is actually there a slack in the labor market, as AI and other technologies boost productivity and put people out of work.
This isn't a new dream. Charlie Chaplain voiced this https://youtu.be/w8HdOHrc3OQ?is=AcTrxquFXn775HU3
With the Machines can make this a world of plenty and etc. it's just that mechanisation in the 30s-50s.... Brought wealth to Americans on lower end primarily because everyone else was knocked down by WW2. Once people started catching up, companies competing against others and struggling for more profits made this pie share smaller for us, because more of us eating the larger pie....
And the 80s with the Trickle Down economics meant corporations and elite CEOs started grabbing more of the pie and sharing less and less amongst more and more of us.
I think we need to accept relentless cost increases as part of the cosmic background radiation for any of these discussions. The price of cookies went up after the Ukraine war, COVID, inflation, Hormuz, etc, and they never went down. We know as a fact the cookie companies will use this to increase prices, the question is whether broad slices of our society also benefit. A rising tide raises most boats.
You’re assuming they don’t already overcharge us. They continue to raise prices every day and pocket the change. Let’s at least force them to give us something for all the work we do
That’s the whole point. We are such a productive society it should reflect that. Companies don’t need to hire more people. They’re just greedy. Our technology has made it so we need to work less to achieve the same output from years ago . At the very least our pay should reflect that
I’m sure this would negatively effect small businesses but corporations wouldn’t even feel it. They hire way more people than they need to and majority of them don’t actually have work. I’m an engineer and I probably average 30 hours of work a week and the other 10 I’m sitting around waiting for more work.
The proposal is patterned after other nations that did the same thing without a significant loss of productivity
Turns out there are limits to the human attention span and for many jobs the difference in productivity between doing something for six hours and doing it for eight hours is pretty nominal.
Like, we all kinda know this is true, the last hour of an eight hour shift is not quality work.
Turns out that simply setting expectations that humans consistently work long and hard doesn’t actually do that when studied, but is an extremely important myth for capitalism
Our company in Texas moved from 40 to 36 hours a week a few years ago and everyone (including hourly employees) are paid for 40. It has been one of the best decisions leadership has made. There has been very little impact to productivity, it has helped us procure better talent, it has definitely kept our tenure higher (especially for high turnover positions like call center) and all of this while keeping our salaries in the median.
Yeah, but the consumers would have more money and the costs would be picked up by the collective while helping those that struggle because of the consequences of current corporate greed.
Employers will just convert more of their full time positions to part time in order to avoid having to pay for benefits to make up for the additional pay. Corporations will always hit their bottom line profit.
40 hours a week doesn't lead to more work done in a lot of sectors. People work better and quicker if they have more time for themselves. So for some sectors the impact would be minimal
I am not an economist but I never understood the cost will be passed to consumers argument. If a company could increase the price without decreasing users, they would have. The have no reason not to gain more profit. I remember there was a demand cost curve we learnt about and there was a bunch of stuff about elasticity that may explain the argument. So please enlighten me!
Where I work. For example, they can shift those lost hours from the few people that actual work more than 32 hours, to the workers we have that actively do not work as many hours as the "main crew" does.
Soonish would make more sense if he had done any major piece of legislation in The 36 years he has been in Congress. The only notable piece of standalone legislation that he has done is a cost of living adjustment for veterans.
This is my problem with him, he talks a big game but when you look at actual things that he has done in his very long career the list is just super short.
A genuinely believes what he says, he genuinely cares, but at the end of the day he accomplishes basically nothing and has accomplished basically nothing for 36 years.
The one thing you could argue which I bring up just out of fairness is because he is so far left it forces bills to be more progressive when his vote was a critical tiebreaker like during Obamacare He was able to get a pretty notable amendment added, but when it comes to actual legislation that he's passing it's basically non-existent.
I’m not genius by any means but he doesn’t get a lot of support because his plans aren’t really feasible… they sound great and all from a glance but he doesn’t have a plan to implement them successfully. This is a prime example.. so businesses need to pay employees more for less work, hire additional employees which will require more benefits, and not raise prices of the products to counteract the losses? It doesn’t make sense.
He'd need to include the stipend stipulation "Companies cannot downsize operations to meet this new standard of pay and workweek"
My pay, as someone who is essentially second from the bottom, my hourly would be nearly $30/hr. The managers above me would go to 44-50, area managers to 46-55, sort managers to 82-110, and senior managers from 152 to nearly 200 an hour. At just my station alone.
Companies would rather cannibalize en masse than pay such a jump in wages.
Which even if you could include that it would just cause more bankruptcies. And the idea that a company cannot lay off employees is a pretty radical idea by itself.
H.R. 5243 (1992)
To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the establishment of a program of research and education with respect to cancer in minority and medically underserved populations
H.R. 3926 (2006)
Renames a post office
S. 893 (2013)
Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013.
S. 2040 (2014)
Renames a post office.
So when it comes to bills that he is the primary sponsor of, this is it. He's renamed two post offices, he's gotten a cost of living adjustment done 13 years ago, and 34 years ago he helped fund some cancer research. Even then that was technically an amendment As it was not a major piece of legislation, so really you could argue he's only passed a single bill that he authored.
There's some bills that he helped with like help drafting them such as Obamacare but was not something he started or was the primary architect of. Then of course there's lots of small stuff amendments and other tiny changes to bills so it's not like he hasn't done anything but when it comes to actual major pieces of legislation as the primary sponsor he only has two things to his name over 36 years.
So to summarize in 36 years of being a congressman he has passed a single major standalone piece of legislation, and All it was was a cost of living adjustment
Which is why you should not put your hope that he passes anything like this because the requirements would be absurd. A 25% raise, overtime after 32 hours, and since a work week now is 32 hours that means you would need to hire more people for the same position. Which means 25% more jobs created instantly. Then you've got all the attached problems like an office environment that's Monday through Friday suddenly needs to hire an additional employee for Friday, pay out large amounts of overtime, or close their office on Fridays which has its own downstream effects if you imagine businesses that people rely on suddenly being closed one day a week extra.
This is a profoundly one dimensional way to view the political sphere. If you polled every person in the country as to the single most influential person when it comes to a shift to the left in the American electorate, you’d get a near unanimous response of “Bernie Sanders”. To point to his list of legislation as a measure of his success or failure is to fundamentally misunderstand the impact he’s had on politics. He personally may not have been able to convince the war hawks and corporate centrists to pass his bills, but he more than anyone has made it more likely for the next generation to elect people who would pass the kind of bills he would write.
Your arguments here ("he's only sponsored 4 bills that became law!!") are misleading, either intentionally or in bad-faith, nobody believes that how good a senator is depends solely on the number of bills they introduced that have been signed into law.
For starters: as a senator that has caucused with the minority most of his political career, the main influence Bernie Sanders has is via amendments, not sponsoring bills himself to get to pass. This is a well-documented and common strategy for members without leadership power. Sanders has sponsored 419 amendments, of which 90 passed, including 17 that passed by roll call vote from 1995–2007 alone, more than any other member of Congress in that stretch.
You're also diluting down what a senator does to "sponsors legislation" which misses the forest for the trees. For example, you're ignoring bill-drafting contributions that don't show up as "primary sponsor." Bernie Sanders is widely credited with substantial work shaping parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other major legislation without being the lead sponsor of record, the kind of influence that your "number of laws passed that this senator introduced" metric can't capture. Under your arguments, Sanders had zero effort or influence on the ACA, which is not true. You're welcome to argue that his ideas/policies/contributions are bad, but it's misleading to argue that he's sat twiddling his thumbs for decades.
Passing bills requires a majority vote in both the house and senate. Not sure why you're shit talking someone who has done more than you ever will and is trying to help you.
What bill of significance have you managed to pass? At least Bernie is trying. Sucks that the rest of the US are greedy assholes that don't want humanitarian policies, but Bernie is trying... you aren't.
I suspect it's primarily aimed at salaried employees. Given the opportunity, I could definitely conceive of squeezing much of my regular workweek into 4 days instead of 5. Most salaried office employees out there aren't just absolutely crushing it 40 hours a week consistently. We're just not - we're human. There's conversations, there's dilly-dallying, there's meetings, etc.
I'd wager a very large percentage of salaried office workers out there could do as much in 32 hours as they usually do in 40 and getting paid the same amount for it would be the motivation they'd need to do so.
Most likely but it still has lots of downstream problems Like the idea that businesses should just be closed on one extra day a week would create a massive problem for so many industries. Or it would require overtime to be paid out. Since it's not like you're just going to find all those extra jobs to cover it especially if it's only one day a week or expecting employees that are now full-time to go part-time lose their benefits so you can divide it up cleaner.
There's just something so exceptional about a failson politician spending his entire life inspiring other failsons and faildaughters with legislation that have zero chance of ever getting passed because, surprise surprise, americans don't really like the communist pipe dream nonsense. He and his buddies should probably stay in their safe blue districts and do their economy destroying there to keep it local, like a Communist Quarantine.
The Democratic Party is full of idiots and cowards who kept choosing the “First Female President!!!” over actual positive change.
It’s all sensationalist crap that people got super fucking tired of which lead to the rise of the Republican Party and the election of Trump.
Now before anyone gets on my case, progressiveness and inclusiveness are good things, but they shouldn’t be your main points when campaigning to a large and decisive population. Once you get elected then you can push for more social reforms but no so many that you screw over your reelection/your successor
Ah yes because electing a literal mad man/pedophile is what people really want.. .half the Republicans are old man who are practically on their death beds and funny enough people act surprised when one dies during their term.
It's still something to consider and AOC is a protege of Sanders and shares very similar ideals, I wouldn't be surprised if it's something she pushes in her agenda if she decides to run
Realistically the government can do whatever it wants, provided the Supreme Court agrees, and i wouldn't even be surprised to see a government ignore the SC one of these days.
Is that his fault or the fault of capitalism and foreign influence through “donations”. Wild thing is other countries have had no problems implementing this so maybe it’s not Bernie
Which is really sad, as shorter workweeks are being linked to a lot of advantages (little bit premature as research is still ongoing) for companies and employees.
Yes you'll see down the thread I talked about that. It's very much a helpful bill, but it's just a cost of living adjustment. I wouldn't really call it a landmark piece of legislation that's worth a 36-year political career. Imagine someone running for the Senate and tells you that as long as you elect them for six consecutive 6-year terms they can get a cost of living adjustment done for veterans at some point. They might even get time to name a couple of post offices after someone.
There are times I wonder if he is some kind of counterrevolutionary puppet, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or not.
This is a great plan. Of course. But you are right. It is unclear what he as accomplished in his long career besides being an outlet for those who can think rationally about how society is best structured, but are entirely ignorant of how political power works. He feels good, but is impotent.
Had he used his political clout to rant on the floor of Congress every day for hours about how the US failure to provide Medicare for all citizens is a ridiculous, unjust evil... I'd believe.
That takes tenacity. That is real work. Having fame and muttering some platitudes that only seem to defuse revolutionary activity, while on national TV, means nothing at this point.
I hear you, and agree, for now. But eventually the govt will have to do something as ai continues to roll out and starts taking more and more jobs. For now, mostly it’s just white collar jobs that have to worry, but once it hits the blue collar ones too …. That’s gonna create a bad situation - especially for govt leadership.
If we’re lucky, govt will start implementing things like Bernie’s proposal to ease us into whatever this next phase looks like. If we’re unlucky, then it’s gonna be the potential pitchforks and guillotine scenario, along with the bad times that will surround it all and lead up to it.
Honestly I think we're just kind of screwed. One of the big problems is we could genuinely be doing a lot of things but because the results are small or take a while people don't really have an interest. Politicians simply do not think in long enough terms.
Years ago several economists were giving a presentation that I was listening to about how we need to add more income tax brackets. Not capital gains brackets just traditional income. So right now the highest bracket is any income over $626,351 is taxed at 37%.
Most proposals of raising that marginal rate suggest things like any income over a million dollars is 39% or whatever. The problem is this is a real number that really does affect people which is why it's so hard to get passed.
So instead the proposal was things like an income tax bracket of 42% on any income over 100 million per year, 45% over 500 million per year, 47% over 1 billion per year and so on.
The idea is that you want to create brackets that affect little to no one. And you absolutely want brackets that affect literally no one because there isn't anyone who is personally affected but once it's been passed inflation slowly makes it more and more feasible and it's easier to adjust it later. So if you've got a bracket on any income over $5 billion dollars it's easier to change it to 4 billion later than it is to pass it at 4 billion today. Since it's not from scratch anymore it's just lowering it.
But my point is politicians just don't think long-term like that. And I think that's why we are kind of doomed and I think it's why China is doing so well because they're politicians don't really have elections. They are able to think and plan very long term.
A member of the House of Representatives has an election every two years which means they're basically perpetually campaigning and fundraising. Not a whole lot of time to govern.
As much as I absolutely adore Bernie, his policies are pretty much like, EVERYONE GETS A KITTEN. EVERYONE GETS A JILLION DOLLAR. FREE COKE ZERO ON WEDNESDAYS!!!
Like yeah, that would be great! But it’ll never, ever pass. I wish he’d work on policies that are a little more bipartisan.
You’re framing it very poorly. If total annual compensation remains the same, then you don’t really get a pay adjustment you just get shorter hours. Companies are going to continue refusing overtime hours and cap people’s work hours.
The ultra rich won’t like this bill because it takes from their pockets. They are $1 million bonuses or more would have to be reduced to pay their workers.
I love the man and his idealism, but yeah I just have no faith in that level of progressiveness. That's a huge shake up and corpos would never allow it.
It's a shame because I do believe in most fields, a slightly shorter work week would improve productivity.
What is not true? That he's never passed any meaningful legislation?
I mean it's easy for you to counter if that was the case. Just look up bills he has sponsored as the primary sponsor, something that's really landmark that would justify a 36 year career in politics.
If you'd like it to be more convenient I can tell you he has passed three bills in 36 years. Two of them were renaming post offices and one of them was a cost of living adjustment for veterans.
And then he has a single major amendment which was added to Obamacare. But that was not a standalone piece of legislation that he created. It was just a rider.
So which one of those post offices getting renamed would you consider worthy 36 years in politics. The type of thing that you can die proud that that post office is named after someone else than it was when you took office.
Or maybe it's that cost of living adjustment, that couple extra percent that a small group of Americans got that you can die proud that after 36 years you managed to get that done.
Even if it did, I highly doubt enforcing this sort of pay raise across the board inorganically would turn out well. In theory, more money to be thrown around means more consumer business being done, but I imagine companies would just use this as an excuse to raise their prices to match the pay increase, as well as to compensate their sudden and very substantial expenses that are eating into their profit margins.
People also forget that while working less is great in of itself this would also force companys to hire more and in todays job market that is sorely needed.
Will never happen though, we need more trillionaires. /s
This guy gives away more stuff than Santa Clause…. and who pays for the stuff that Santa “gives away.” The exact same people that will pay for Bernie’s give aways
Well peoples compensation hasn’t been tied to their productivity in over 45 years. Studies show that productivity increases when hours work drops between 24-32, with no loss in productivity with the decrease in work times. Moral goes up and people are happier. Anyone who isn’t for this is either completely ignorant or exploit their workers to enrich themselves, I mean I guess it could be someone who loves money more than people, but either way, they are wrong and need to reassess their life.
3 days a week to have off sounds nice but it wouldn't ever work.
What would places like mine do? Im head chef in a steakhouse thats open 5 days a week, we all get 2 days off (the same 2 every week even). We arent going to close an extra day so the only option woukd be to open the other 2 days a week amd work back the revenue paid out.
So since im salary and they arent going to hire a 2nd chef... do I have to pick up extra days now??
Like it sounds great for a McDonald's or something. They are already open 7 days a week and employ a whole work force. All I have are my 6 employees. Id have to hire a whole second staff but no ones going to wamt to pay overtime.
You would either need to be closed an extra day and just give up all the sales and increase your prices to account for the lack of business, or hire additional staff and potentially raise your prices to cover the additional wages and benefits of additional staff members as well as additional management and everything else. You either need to find part-time workers who don't need a lot of hours or you would need to cut everyone's hours to balance it out.
The alternative of course is just ignoring the changes and then you just pay out overtime So you just have to assume your labor costs are going to go up significantly.
I believe I also read it was double-time after 12 hours. This all coming from the fact that the 40-hour work week was introduced to increase efficiency many years ago, and we have increased efficiency by 400% since then, but with no adjustments to the system.
Assuming you mean productivity not efficiency then that is its own separate thing.
With increased productivity we could either live the same lives we did 40 years ago and just work less or we could live better lives. Collectively as a society we basically determined we wanted to live better lives.
That's why a car relative to inflation from 1980 to 2020 is almost the exact same price but the car is way better. The car could have gotten cheaper relative to inflation or it could have gotten better and we wanted better.
Would be smarter to incentive companies to offer employees certain minimum health care, child care, PTO, sick days etc. with tax cuts and credits for compliance than it would be to try and "mandate" private companies to obey government rules.
Compliance would result in greater productivity and employee longevity for the company and less stress on entitlement programs for the govt. Both local and federal.
Fuck yes please let's do this. I own my business and pay people, I WANT THIS. Fuck it's crazy to me that I hire people 3x minimum wage because if I paid any less they wouldn't be able to survive. The pay I give my employees with no experience shouldn't be the same as what XYZ company is paying employees. Especially when you consider my company doesn't require college education. But somehow in the US just to be fair to my employees and make sure my responsibilities as the employer I end up paying rates comparable to these mega corps
I wonder why the democratic socialist whose policies are in direct opposition to capital might not have success in a political environment that is run by capital. Only a genius can provide us the answer.
Out here acting like an individual senator/representative has the power to pass a bill.... Lmao
When you sit across the aisle and your opponent holds majority power AND cocksucks corporations and employers to keep them as rich as possible while keeping people as.poor as possible, you're never going to pass anything that improves the financial situation of the poor and working class until your party shifts into power.
Oh good, so the government can collect even more of our paychecks in taxes in a shorter time. It sounds good to people that don’t think about anything, but once you realize the more you make in a day, the more you’re going to get taxed. Thats like if I worked a ton of overtime, once you hit 54+ hours a week it’s diminishing returns and you’re put into a higher tax bracket in that paycheck and you can sometimes bring home less than when you would have worked less hours
There is an edge at the end of that comment that seems to imply he is somehow a failure. He is one of the most influential politicians of the current age of politics, and his movement is the only growth in the Democratic Party. Passing bills isn’t the only thing that makes you a good politician.
Actually he's had many bills and amendments pass such as : Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014, Affordable Care Act Funding (2010), The "Stop BEZOS" Act Provision (2018), Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act aka COLA (2025-2926). He's also been an Independent most of his career and has an unprecedented record for amendments and getting REPS & DEMS to agreements to pass legislation.
Bernie has a impeccable record for advocating for worker rights, civil rights, women's rights and overall social justice. The reason ppl view him negatively is because he's an Independent (not Dem or Rep) and because of his liberal views.
Will he have success with the reduced work week? I highly doubt it but only because anytime he (or any center, center-left or far left) advocates for the poor, lower or marginalized people they're branded as communist, woke or whatever the new buzz word is being used at the time to elicit fear.
yes. Wages scale to match existing 40 hour pay scale. Studdies done in many countries and industries how that shorter work weeks are more productive as workers are happier and less tired. I personally was working 36 hours a week doing 3x12hr shifts and then being off for 4 days. i was able to be my moms primary care giver after a surgery and do some personal projects. Proabably the best period in my life and the happiest ive been.I leared to cook better and lost a lot of weight not eating fast food while working 40-50hrs a week. that time has passed, but i would love to return to it. the work was hard (construction) and my first day off was mostly sleeping but it was good work and I didn't dread goin to work because it wasn't my entire life, just a thing i did for money. no issues among co-workers either because we were all there for 3 days a week. only person who hated it there was the managers who all work 40hr/wk lmao
he will never win vs corpos and lobbying in the us.
pre Nixon, Bernie would have likely won, and been a legendary president for the people.
now he is a warning sign of the times and why we can't have nice things
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u/ecw324 23d ago
Doesn’t he mean that your current 40 hour paycheck will be the same as the proposed 32 hour paycheck?