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Southern California congressman proposes 32-hour work week

The average American’s work week would be eight hours shorter under a bill from Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside.

Takano recently introduced legislation that would create a 32-hour work week for most Americans. The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act  would do this by lowering the threshold that triggers overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours under the federal Fair Labor Practices Act, which applies to most workers with certain exemptions — independent contractors and gig workers, for example.

Takano, whose district includes parts of western Riverside County, said in a news release that he introduced the bill “because — now more than ever — people continue to work longer hours while their pay remains stagnant. We cannot continue to accept this as our reality.”

With millions of Americans unemployed or underemployed because of the the coronavirus pandemic, “a shorter work week will allow more people to participate in the labor market at better wages,” Takano added.

The bill “is not necessarily about shortening the work week. It’s about empowering workers with fairer wages and better work/life balance, while also benefiting businesses” and replacing the outdated five-day work week model, Lana Abbasi, Takano’s spokeswoman, said via email.

Takano’s legislation doesn’t prevent people from working more than 32 hours, but would require overtime pay for those working beyond that threshold, Abbasi added.

Asked if shortening the work week would cut workers’ pay because they’d be working fewer hours, Abbasi said that while the bill does not directly address “worker misclassification,” or improperly classifying workers as independent contractors to get around federal labor laws, “under this legislation, most workers (who are not exempt from the Fair Labor Practices Act) would see an increase in pay.”

The bill “is just one component of the suite of comprehensive labor reforms that must occur,” she said. “We must collectively continue to work … to ensure that labor protections are in place to prevent the misclassification of workers along with unfair reductions in pay, and illegal wage theft from ever occurring.”

The California Chamber of Commerce hasn’t taken a position on Takano’s bill, spokesperson Denise Davis said via email.

The bill’s prospects are unclear. Many House of Representatives bills undergo major changes in committee and even if they make it out of the House, they often falter in the Senate, which is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and where 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation.

While the four-day work week concept is not new, supporters of a shorter work week, including labor unions, say it’s needed to relieve America’s exhausted workforce.

In 2018, Americans worked 106 more hours than those in Japan, 248 more hours than British workers and 423 more hours than German workers, according to Vox, which cited data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

A shorter work week could also fight climate change, supporters argue. A study released earlier this year by a British environmental justice group found that a four-day work week would reduce Great Britain’s carbon footprint by roughly 20%, in part because workers would commute less and workplaces would use less electricity.

Other countries are starting to experiment with a 32-hour work week. In March, Spain’s government announced a pilot program to test the concept, while the prime ministers of Finland and New Zealand have expressed support for a four-day work schedule.

A study in Iceland that involved shortening the work week from 40 hours to 35 hours showed “really promising results,” said Kalina Michalska, an assistant professor in UC Riverside’s psychology department.

“Having that extra time to ward off burnout … could make people more productive,” she said. “What I see is that people are putting in the time, but not being more efficient and it’s leading to chronic stress.”


Source: Orange County Register

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