By Summer Concepcion and Victoria Ebner —
NBC News
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who usually votes Democratic, held a hearing on Thursday on his bill seeking to reduce the work week to four days without loss of pay.
The 32-Hour Workweek Act, if passed by the Senate and House of Representatives and signed by the President, would reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours over four years, including reducing the maximum required for overtime pay in the case of non-exempt employees.
It would also require overtime pay for workdays of more than eight hours, as well as overtime pay that would pay workers double their normal wage if their workday exceeds 12 hours.
A news release about the bill described it as an “important step toward ensuring workers share in the rising productivity and economic growth fueled by technological advances.”
“Moving to a 32-hour work week with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” Sanders said in a statement.
“Today, American workers are more than 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans work longer hours for lower wages than they did decades ago.
This has to change,” he added.
“The financial gains from major advances in artificial intelligence, automation and new technologies must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy Wall Street shareholders,” he said.
“It's time to reduce the level of stress in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life.
It's time for a 32-hour work week with no loss of pay.
I look forward to this week’s debate,” he explained.
Sanders introduced the bill along with Democratic Senator Laphonza Butler;
Democratic Representative Mark Takano introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives.
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, asked Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union;
Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College, and Jon Leland, chief strategy officer at Kickstarter and co-founder of the Four Business Days Campaign, who will testify at the hearing.
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Sanders cited in a statement about the bill studies that say that although the weekly wages of average American workers are lower than they were 50 years ago once adjusted for inflation, CEOs earn hundreds of times more than they did 50 years ago. what your employees earn.
“It is time that working families—not just CEOs and wealthy shareholders—can benefit from greater productivity to enjoy more leisure,
family time, educational and cultural opportunities
, and less stress,” the document stated.
Sanders also pointed to other countries that have reduced their workweeks, such as France, Norway and Denmark, as well as four-day workweek pilot programs that have seen increased productivity and worker satisfaction.
During Thursday's hearing on the bill, Sanders highlighted productivity statistics from other countries that have adopted shorter work weeks.
“One of the issues we have to talk about is the stress in this country, the fact that so many people go to work physically and mentally exhausted,” Sanders said during the hearing.
“And [we should also talk about] the fact that we haven't changed the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“We created the 40-hour work week in 1940. Who is going to deny that the economy has not changed fundamentally and radically in that period of time?,” he added.
Fain noted that many workers in the United States
work for less pay and cannot retire until later in life
, when they may face significant health problems.
“The truth is that the working class is not lazy.
They are fed up.
“They are tired of being left behind and stripped of dignity as wealth inequality in this nation, this world, spirals out of control,” Fain added.
“They are fed up in the United States.
In the United States, three families have as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the citizens of this nation.
That is criminal,” she said.
The commission's ranking member, Republican Bill Cassidy, disputed Sanders and Fain's arguments, insisting that American workers have a balanced work and personal life and that companies could benefit from shortening the week if it proves conducive to your specific line of work.
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However, Cassidy argued, a mandatory 32-hour workweek at equal pay would be detrimental to small businesses, restaurants and retail stores.
She also warned that a reduced workweek would appear beneficial to the American worker in the short term, but could lead to layoffs down the road if companies can't keep up.
“We have a balance.
We don't have people like in China working 80 hours a week, but we have that balance;
“This breaks it,” Cassidy added when referring to the bill.
“And
we will not maintain the status of being the richest nation in the world
if we amputate the American economy with something that purports to be good for the American worker, but will in fact lead to the offshoring of jobs in search of a more cheap.”