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Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

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Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#151

Post by ZeroGravitas »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #138
nostromo95 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like we're mixing up couple things here--(a) the level to which a government represents the people and (b) the powers that a government should have. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that the government is--in its ideal essence--just a way for a population to collectively enforce compliance with / contribution to a social good. I don't think it's controversial to say that if 100% of people wanted a 32 hour wo…

It's probably more nuanced than that. If 100% of people wanted a 32-hour work week, a law wouldn't be necessary - we would just have a 32-hour work week. The fact that the number is less than 100% is the reason we need a law, because the incentives aren't aligned between those who want it and those who don't.

The prisoner's dilemma is a toy example where everyone wants the same thing, but they can't achieve it without some external mechanism. Many regulations in the real world fall into this category, ensuring your competitors can't do things you don't want to do and thereby force you to do it to compete (and they in turn don't want to do it, but if their competitors do it...).

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#152

Post by readams »

holoduke wrote: post #54
jayski wrote: post #48

I've worked for 6 different employers in my life, Ive also employed people. 100% of my experience is that its rare for someone to ping me out of work hours, and if they do, I completely understand that its an emergency. Since I also care about the company's well being, (that's where I get my paycheck from), Im happy to help. In 20 years as an employee or employer this has happened maybe 5 times. I don't know where pe…

I guess you work in IT like 90% of the people here. For those (and me) fixed working hours are non existent. But if you work in a factory , shop etc like 90% of the other people then a 32 hour work week would very much help getting a happier life. Maybe this won't work in the US. But in Europe I think it certainly does.

What prevents an hourly employee from working 32 hours now? It seems like many hourly employees have the opposite problem: they want more hours but they can't get them scheduled.

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#153

Post by ZeroGravitas »

josephcsible wrote: post #100
Cyph0n wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary alternative to achieving this is through formation of unions. But, I’d wager there is an overlap between people who are against enforcement via legislation and people who are anti-union.

By "people who are anti-union", do you mean "people who believe unions shouldn't be allowed to exist", or "people who believe unions shouldn't be allowed to force workers to join as a condition of having the job"?

Hey, if they don't like it, they can get a job somewhere else, no need for authoritarian governments preventing people freely entering contracts with groups with much more power than they do individually.... wait, this reminds me of something?

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#154

Post by propernoun »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #138
nostromo95 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like we're mixing up couple things here--(a) the level to which a government represents the people and (b) the powers that a government should have. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that the government is--in its ideal essence--just a way for a population to collectively enforce compliance with / contribution to a social good. I don't think it's controversial to say that if 100% of people wanted a 32 hour wo…

It's probably more nuanced than that. If 100% of people wanted a 32-hour work week, a law wouldn't be necessary - we would just have a 32-hour work week. The fact that the number is less than 100% is the reason we need a law, because the incentives aren't aligned between those who want it and those who don't.

Because 100% of people don't want something is hardly "reason" to create a law and just because a majority wants something doesn't make it right. There are plenty of examples of that in history.

Is the role of government to maximize social good or individual liberty? I'd rather the latter because the examples of the former are abundant and dreadful. Anyone who thinks this isn't a race to the bottom where lawmakers trade "happiness" for votes at the cost of liberty is lying to themselves. Let's not kid ourselves, a 40 hour work week is not the same as child labor in the coal mines; such laws exist only to win votes. When will it be 20 hours a week? 16? At what point do we descend into the madness that embraced Rome where the role of government became appeasement of the populace to keep them from revolting?

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#155

Post by josephcsible »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #153
josephcsible wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "people who are anti-union", do you mean "people who believe unions shouldn't be allowed to exist", or "people who believe unions shouldn't be allowed to force workers to join as a condition of having the job"?

Hey, if they don't like it, they can get a job somewhere else, no need for authoritarian governments preventing people freely entering contracts with groups with much more power than they do individually.... wait, this reminds me of something?

Unions having the power to force employees to join is what's authoritarian. If I want to work for a company, and the company wants to hire me, we should be free to enter into a contract. A third party shouldn't have the power to say "you can't unless you pay us dues".

And before you say "well not if the company and union entered into a contract that said the company would only hire union workers", that's not how it works today. The laws we have today give unions the power to unilaterally say that without the company agreeing, and this is what's bad and needs to go away.

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#156

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #29
dragonwriter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been hearing lots of business owners complaining about California's labor laws getting increasingly hostile which leads companies to relocate or move as many resources they can outside of CA I’m almost 50, and I’ve been hearing and reading lots of this my whole life. But somehow California’s economy keeps doing well, even without being one of the places that are winning the battle to attract the firms that are…

>> somehow California’s economy keeps doing well California has the nation's highest poverty rate when cost of living is taken in to account. If the worst poverty rate is "doing well", what would doing poorly look like, in your opinion?

Mississippi?

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#157

Post by farseer »

standardUser wrote: post #126
farseer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! 40 hours workweek with mandatory overtime pay (usually double per hour) with a minimum duration. Reducing the workweek below that would be considered unnecessary government intervention and is liable to be bad for business and workers. No one wants a pay cut that goes with it.

The government saying 40 hours in the work week is OK, but any other number of hours to you is "unnecessary government intervention"? What makes the number 40 sacred?

Because the government didn't set that minimmum, its what society determined over a course of 150 years as to what is "fair". Once the majority of the businesses by choice start reducing that, and the 32 hour week becomes the norm then sure legislate that for everyone. But it can't be imposed until then.

[1]https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#158

Post by ZeroGravitas »

josephcsible wrote: post #155
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, if they don't like it, they can get a job somewhere else, no need for authoritarian governments preventing people freely entering contracts with groups with much more power than they do individually.... wait, this reminds me of something?

Unions having the power to force employees to join is what's authoritarian. If I want to work for a company, and the company wants to hire me, we should be free to enter into a contract. A third party shouldn't have the power to say "you can't unless you pay us dues". And before you say "well not if the company and union entered into a contract that said the company would only hire union workers", that's not how it w…

Didn't California stop companies from preventing their ex-employees from working for competitors?

Sounds like they're doing exactly what you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#California

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#159

Post by michaelmrose »

pc86 wrote: post #64
t0mas88 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proposal isn't a paycut right? As written employees keep the same pay but work 32 hours instead of 40.

One, there are a lot of businesses that operate on margins well under 20%. Some percentage of these would absolutely go out of business if you somehow mandated 80% of the current hours for 100% of the current pay. Now you can argue they should go out of business anyway, and maybe you're right, but it's still the government passing a law to intentionally put a lot of people out of business and make a lot of people los…

You are assuming that wages represent 100% of costs when its more apt to be 30%. You are assuming that all employees are full time when in fact the minority often are. Lastly you are assuming that people will be paid 20% more for working 20% less. They would be making 25% more 5/4 not 4/5. For example 100 for working 5 hours is 20 100 for working 4 hours is 25. Those errors corrected lets blow through a hypothetical.

A shop that employs 40% of its folks full time will have to hire a ~10% (25% not 20%) bigger workforce in order to provide an identical number of labor hours. However labor costs while they are substantial aren't 100% of costs. It would be more normal for employee labor to be closer to 30%.

This means costs ought to increase more like 3% not 20%.

Businesses can take the additional profits from rising prices in fact only partially attributable to rising prices of inputs and probably come out even.

It ought to be noted that its also possible that many firms can't all hire 10% more labor making paying the overtime rate for some of its people the only feasible alternative to serving business. Paying 8 hours of overtime for a given employee is like paying for an extra 4 hours of pay or once again 10% of effected employees minus the additional cost of acquisition and management. This may end up being the desirable option.

Re: Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

#160

Post by josephcsible »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #158
josephcsible wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions having the power to force employees to join is what's authoritarian. If I want to work for a company, and the company wants to hire me, we should be free to enter into a contract. A third party shouldn't have the power to say "you can't unless you pay us dues". And before you say "well not if the company and union entered into a contract that said the company would only hire union workers", that's not how it w…

Didn't California stop companies from preventing their ex-employees from working for competitors? Sounds like they're doing exactly what you want. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#California

What does that have to do with unions?
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