Workers in a Manufacturing Plant.
The times are a changing written by Bob Dylan in 1963 seems appropriate given the recent developments in the senate last week when Senator Bernie Saunders introduced a new bill on March 14, 2024 with Sen. Laphonza Butler and Mark Takano .
“While CEOs’ wages continue to increase, our workers are finding themselves doing more, yet earning less than they have in decades,” Butler wrote in a statement. “The thirty-two-hour work week act would allow hardworking Americans to spend more time with their families while protecting their wages and making sure profits aren’t only going to a select few.” Takano, in a statement, described the bill as “transformative legislation that will be a win for both workers and workplaces.”
Sanders, who chairs the senate committee on health, education, labor, and pensions, introduced the legislation ahead of his committee’s hearing Thursday on the same topic.
For the history of the forty hour work week, it actually started in 1817 after the industrial revolution. The fair labor standards act, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, restricted child labor and imposed other workplace protections that included limiting the workweek to forty-four hours. The law was amended two years later to make it a forty hour work week.
So over eight decades later, the times are a changing again. It will be interesting to see the arguments unfold, both positive and negative, but there is no question, changes will be made due to the advances in AI, and increasingly robotics.
Sanders says that, “ U.S. companies can no longer afford to give employees more time off without cutting their pay and benefits.”
On the other hand, many are concerned that a shortened work week will require employers to hire more employees, increase operating expenses and potentially even lower productivity.
The bill proposed that people who currently work Monday through Friday, eight hours per day, would get to add an extra day to their weekend, and workers eligible for overtime would also get paid extra for exceeding thirty-two hours in a week. The bill would also be proposed to be phased in over four years.
In the announcement, Sanders cited several pilot programs and studies that show productivity improving with a four-day workweek. The studies largely found that because workers were happier, they were more productive and were less likely to get burned out.
One recent University of Cambridge research study of British companies that agreed to adopt a 32-hour workweek concluded that employees came to work less stressed and more focused while revenues remained steady or increased. In 2022, a team of university researchers and the non-profit four Day Week Global enlisted sixty-one companies to reduce working hours for six months without cutting wages. Afterward, 71% of the 2,900 workers said they were less burned out and nearly half reported being more satisfied with their jobs. “We feel really encouraged by the results, which showed the many ways companies were turning the four-day week from a dream into a realistic policy, with multiple benefits,” said David Frayne, research associate at University of Cambridge, who helped lead the team conducting employee interviews for the trial. “We think there is a lot here that ought to motivate other companies and industries to give it a try.”
Meanwhile, twenty-four of the participating companies reported revenue growth of more than 34% over the prior six months. Nearly two dozen others saw a smaller increase.
“The majority of employees register an increase in their productivity over the trial. They are more energized, focused and capable,” Juliet Shor, a Boston College sociology professor and a lead researcher on the UK study, told the Sanders' Senate committee.
In October, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon predicted AI could cut work weeks to three to five days. Bill Gates later said that AI will not replace humans but rather help them transition into a three-day work week.
Indeed the times are a changing and with so many stressed out humans, and health related issues, innovative companies will find alternative work arrangements.
