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Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

takano.house.gov

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Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#11

Post by selykg »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #10

For manual labor this would make a big difference. For intellectual work, I suspect it would probably not lead to much less work being done. Just because people are at the office 8 hours a day, doesn’t mean they’re getting 8 hours of work done. I would be curious if people would get as much done and waste less time sitting there or if the sitting there time is the same, percentage wise.

This is what I've been trying to tell people for awhile. In "knowledge work" areas I suspect most people work around 5-6 hours a day and the rest is spent doing whatever other stuff they do.

My current job I only work 35 hours a week and it's great. They pay us for an hour lunch basically and I just take it at the end of my day, thus shortening my day to 7 hours.

Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#12

Post by Miner49er »

selykg wrote: post #11
bigmattystyles wrote: post #10

For manual labor this would make a big difference. For intellectual work, I suspect it would probably not lead to much less work being done. Just because people are at the office 8 hours a day, doesn’t mean they’re getting 8 hours of work done. I would be curious if people would get as much done and waste less time sitting there or if the sitting there time is the same, percentage wise.

This is what I've been trying to tell people for awhile. In "knowledge work" areas I suspect most people work around 5-6 hours a day and the rest is spent doing whatever other stuff they do. My current job I only work 35 hours a week and it's great. They pay us for an hour lunch basically and I just take it at the end of my day, thus shortening my day to 7 hours.

One study found it's only about 3 hours for the average office worker: https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/office-worker-product...

Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#13

Post by thayne »

citilife wrote: post #6
teeray wrote: post #3

Would this also have the side-effect of adjusting the threshold at which hourly employees become full-time? (and thus require benefits)

It impacts people being paid overtime. In reality, this would likely push some employers to leave ~Cali~ (EDIT: mean the U.S., didn't realize this was federal) (such as SpaceX, Tesla, etc), as they wont want to pay overtime. It would also potentially push people to hire more salary employees, but they'll only be paid for 32 hours. That could suppress salaries (as the employer will only pay say $100/hr, they wont incr…

> It would also potentially push people to hire more salary employees

That will only work for certain kinds of workers. Not all jobs can be exempt from over time (IT jobs are though).

Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#16

Post by toomuchtodo »

xibalba wrote: post #14

Takano and other well meaning legislators reveal they have zero clue how economies work or how wealth is created. It is fairly terrifying that these sorts have become so influential.

Based on vast capital accumulation to a small cohort [1], I believe they do know how wealth is being created. They're simply improving quality of life for the people doing the actual work. Conversely, its terrifying (at least to me) that there are people who endorse the dystopian status quo.

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2020/december/has-weal...

Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#17

Post by hedora »

awillen wrote: post #4

"Today, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) introduced legislation that would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours by lowering the maximum hours threshold for overtime compensation for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)." It seems like this would just lead to businesses who employee non-exempt employees hiring more of them but scheduling for fewer hours to stay under the 32 hour…

The most obvious fix is to make employers offer the same benefits (prorated by hours worked) for all employees.

That’d radically change the structure of the health insurance industry, since working full time hours by combining two part time jobs would imply that you’d get health insurance just like full time workers at either company.

Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#18

Post by Jtsummers »

awillen wrote: post #4

"Today, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) introduced legislation that would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours by lowering the maximum hours threshold for overtime compensation for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)." It seems like this would just lead to businesses who employee non-exempt employees hiring more of them but scheduling for fewer hours to stay under the 32 hour…

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title29/cha...

Section 213 is what you want to look at. It’s not really a matter of choice but industry, role, and hourly rate that determines if someone is considered exempt.

Re: Rep. Takano Introduces Legislation to Reduce the Standard Workweek to 32 Hours

#19

Post by supportlocal4h »

Decades ago the U.S. tied healthcare to employment. It had some big positives at the time. I think it has proven to have more negatives as time has unfolded. Here is one of them.

If you reduce hours per worker by, say, 10% you just pay each worker 10% less and hire 10% more workers, right? It's not so simple. If you try to cut the health insurance premium of each worker by 10% the policy becomes unattractive. If you keep the same policy, you increase your health insurance costs by 10%.

For this and other reasons, it's time to separate health insurance from employer.

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