Bernie: Here’s a bill that will help literally everyone. People waste less of their lives at work, and productivity goes up massively for the corporate overlords. There is no downside here for anyone.
Everyone: Shut up, hippy.
Everyone: Shut up, hippy.
Don’t listen to them, when they tell you that. As far as you know, might even be an astroturfer, trying to kill this in the crib.
Call your House of Representative member and let them know that you want this bill to become law.
If we citizens don’t apply the pressure, nothing will happen.
And if your cynical about doing that, try it anyway, just as an experiment, to see what happens. Hell, even make a YouTube video about your experience doing so, for content.
Just say "Please let my representative know that I am in favor of the Bernie Sanders bill (Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act) for a 32 hour work week."
It’s just a phone call. A 32 hour work week is worth a single phone call, right?
Everyone: Shut up, hippy.
They’ve been telling him that since he was being arrested for protesting for civil rights and Joe Biden was fighting against school busing…
Their stupid bullshit hasn’t stopped him yet
Bernie is still the only politician I have donated to but to be fair to Biden, bussing was met with violent protests and even black activists criticized it for weakening black communities. There were good reasons to be against that method without being against desegregation.
There were good reasons to be against that method without being against desegregation.
That’s not a fact, it’s an opinion.
One that Biden hasn’t been able to rationalize to Dem voters for decades.
If you want to try, give it a shot. I legitimately believe you might do a better job at it than Biden.
But you’re gonna have to do more than say there was “good reasons” besides people of Bidens age being completely ignorant of psychology.
School busing sped up integration by decades, and when kids grow up in multiracial environments it changes their ingroup determination to not just be “people who look like me”.
We can only change that at a very young age, but it sticks with you for life. Even with busing, the effects were decades away.
If we didn’t have busing, generations of people would have suffered.
So if you and Biden want to argue with that, you’re going to have to put in a lot of effort to throw the last 30 years of psychology
It’s not my opinion. It is the opinion of many black civil rights activists at the time. They argued that spreading out the kids would weaken the ties to the black community. They wanted to make black schools better rather than move kids. They argued that strengthening the black community would be the most effective way to pursue civil rights. Given that black children still get inferior education to whites and black communities are impoverished, they might have been right.
Lol.
You can’t try to defend Biden…
So you make up hypothetical Black people and say they didn’t want their kids to go to school with white kids?
Like, you just honestly tried to say it was the Black people being racist, and what’s the implication?
That Biden knew that, lied about why he was against busing as a cover job?
Why not just stop replying instead of that shit you typed?
Black leaders were mixed on the practice. Activist Jesse Jackson, NAACP officials and U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm were among those who supported busing efforts and policies. But many Black nationalists argued that focus should instead be placed on strengthening schools in Black communities.
A February 1981 Gallup Poll found 60 percent of Black Americans were in favor of busing, while 30 percent were opposed to it. Among white people surveyed, 17 percent favored busing, and 78 percent were against it.
“It ain’t the bus, it’s us,’’ Jackson told The New York Times in 1981. ‘’Busing is absolutely a code word for desegregation. The forces that have historically been in charge of segregation are now being asked to be in charge of desegregation.’”
Has it been so long that you forgot which side eyounwere arguing?
Or do you legitimately think that backs up your opinion from almost a day ago?
Unfortunately that’s a fairly naive take that fails to consider how most people work in the US- hourly employees would be fucked by this.
Retail, service, anyone whose not already working 9-5 office jobs; the reality is that they won’t loose pay, but they will loose hours. And you can bet your ass that companies won’t pay more to make up for it.
If it’s mandated by law they will. As they do in other countries.
Yup. These “free market” folks conveniently forget that competition is bolstered when there’s a floor. An impartial referee to call balls, strikes, and fouls. A set of rules everyone has to play by, or they don’t get to play at all.
Also known as regulation.
We need this so fucking bad. As a species, not just America or the wealthy nations only. Everyone.
And this should just be a transitionary period down to a 24 or less hour work week. Fuck slaving away at shit jobs just to make billionaires.
We need this so fucking bad.
Of course we do, so do the corporations, though they don’t realize it. With happier workers you get more profits.
Call your House of Representative member and let them know that.
If we citizens don’t apply the pressure, nothing will happen.
And if your cynical about doing that, try it anyway, just as an experiment, to see what happens. Hell, even make a YouTube video about your experience doing so, for content.
Just say "Please let my representative know that I am in favor of the Bernie Sanders bill (Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act) for a 32 hour work week."
It’s just a phone call. A 32 hour work week is worth a single phone call, right?
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Futurama, but you’re going to have to elaborate on this reply, and how it relates to my comment about contacting your house representative.
“I don’t miss twice Campers.”
I loved that line.
I was jokingly suggesting that unhappy workers are actually more productive but in reality I’m 100% with you.
Yea, slaving away should be purely optional. If you love your job or you love money or you want to keep yourself distracted AND make money at the same time, by all means, knock yourself out and work 60 hour weeks.
It’s a failure of the system if people have to work full time to scrape by with the very bare necessities and live in poverty, with all the nasties that come with it. America coined the term “working poor” (obligatory meme so we’re on the same page)
Full Employment and Zero Protests go hand-in-hand.
As soon as unemployment figures start climbing (2008, 2014, 2016, COVID-2020) people hit the streets and cops start working a lot of extra overtime.
Imagine if people had a whole third weekend day to themselves. Imagine what they could spend their time doing that wasn’t entirely predicated on enriching their bosses?
Looking at the productivity gains, vs income gains since 1970, I would say that we need an 8 hour work week. We are producing well over 7 times as much stuff and economic value as we were in 1970
vs income gains since 1970
I hope you do correct for inflation.
Bernie is an example of what a progressive politician actually looks like.
American politicians (Republicans AND Democrats) have been moving steadily to the right for the last 40 years. So now, Democrats are where the Republicans were in the 1980s, boring corporatists and friends of banks, pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
And the Republicans have moved all the way into an insane asylum. They long for the “good old days” of company towns, run by 19th century robber barons and worry that the six corporations that control all our news are the “liberal news media.”
Nonono don’t do it!!
Just look how it went in Germany, they went from 40 to 35 and then last year they overtook Japan as the 3rd largest economy in the world.
But if they had kept 40 hour work week, they might have done that a year earlier.I tell you 32 hour work week will be an absolute disaster, marriages will break because people will have time to spend together. This is why the christian right will oppose this tooth and nail, and you should too.
/s
Inb4 Fox News later today
I’ll tell you hwat. 32 hour work week will be an absolute disaster, marriages will break because people will have time to spend together. This is why the christian right will oppose this tooth and nail, and you should too.
- Economist who chose to remain anonymous due to fear of liberal cancel culture.
Isn’t Germany the country where they’re burning wood to keep warm in the winter?
Absolutely, wood pellets and stoker furnaces are brilliant, as they work very well, and is a near CO2 neutral source of heat.
We do that too here in Denmark 7th richest country in the world, and I bet they also do in Norway and Switzerland, the 2nd and 3rd richest countries in the world.
We have both stoker furnace for central heating and a windowed stove in the living room for traditional firewood. The brilliance with the stove is that it has higher energy utilization than any other heat source. And it creates hygge in the living room in the long cold winter evenings.
Sometimes I imagine what America would be like if Bernie had enough votes to pass his bills.
I always vote for him when he’s at the polls, since 2 decades ago. But the oligarchy of this nation will never allow him in position of power to implement these changes.
The reality of America is that our owners have no interest in making life better for the us, the common man, their only interest to bleed us as much as they can for their own selfish agenda. And the American people are collectively still too stupid to understand how it all works.
I don’t see a path forward that doesn’t start with the US government making the change first. They are one of the only employers that don’t have market competition.
Some departments in the US government give you a paid time off day every week to use however you want. A lot of people would take every Friday off, or some would stash them for a longer vacation.
It’s wild to me how internally the government offers the kind of benefits politicians should’ve pushed into law a long time ago. It really is “for Me, not for Thee”.
Source: worked in one of those departments
Giving a benefit to government workers only requires a president to write an executive order.
Making a benefit into a law that affects all workers requires the House, Senate, President, and SCOTUS to all get on board.
Some departments in the US government give you a paid time off day every week to use however you want. A lot of people would take every Friday off, or some would stash them for a longer vacation.
Nope.
Source: worked in one of those departments
If you did, you had no idea what was going on.
An agency can’t just “give” someone twice the leave accrual as the max. People were probably doing 4 days a week, 10 hours a day.
And you just didn’t understand
While a small tangent, I agree. I used to work 4x10 each week. Had done that for over a decade. Having a 3 day weekend really helped. When I got my current position I was moved to 5x8. I’m now endlessly tired, I can’t get the weekend projects done, etc. Because you’re just getting out of work, or getting ready to start work again, there’s no break. So if this ends up being 4x8, that would be great! Keep my hours and get my weekend back. Though I assume corporate USA will find some way to muck it up, like the RTO bullshit.
The only way that we can remain competitive in the global marketplace is to squeeze the workers to the greatest extent that biology will allow. If that means slavery, mind control and death-at-30 then so be it. We must remain competitive
“But look! Asia’s doing it! We gotta compete! Think of the GDP!”
[Completely ignoring people dying at their desks unnoticed, jumping from factory windows, suffering heart attacks at 25 years old]
Pure malicious insanity.
Don’t forget their collapsing birth rates
He also spoke earlier about Israel breaking the US law by disrupting Us Humanitarian Aid.
So that’s two things the rest of the party will ignore him on?
Tbf they ignore him on everything and that’s why I do too. He’s been in politics forever and can’t get anything done ever. Sure it’s the fault of the party for ignoring his good ideas, but it’s also his for being so bad at politics that he can’t even get the backing of his own party. How was he ever going to beat Trump if not even the Democrats like him? He says nice things but he’s ineffectual
Bernie Sanders is an Independent, he runs in the Democratic primaries for the Democratic Presidential nomination but he sits in Congress as an Independent.
Even less effective
Nobody would be good enough.
I mean they have to be good enough to win right? And Bernie can’t, he’s proven he can’t win. So what’s the point of him but words?
In any case Bernie is old as shit, that’s why I don’t want him. I honestly laugh at the hypocrisy of his supporters calling out the age of Biden, Trump, Pelosi and McConnell, while asking for Bernie.
You misunderstand. Nobody would be good enough for YOU. You will find something else to be angry over and will project it there.
This sounds awesome. Here’s what I wanna know though:
What stops your boss from then saying “You better stop at 31.95 hours or you’re in trouble.” Because they don’t wanna pay overtime? They already do this in a lot of jobs.
So, you’d need additional pay to compensate for less hours, but now you have a two-pronged battle because that just sounds way too lovely.
And I’m guessing a lot of the “exempt” office workers that grind themselves into dust the hardest won’t be affected?
I mean hey, I’d rather it just passes and we see what happens, and keep fixing it as it goes, at least it’s something! But the hardest part is blocking your bosses from weaseling around laws and screwing you anyway.
having your boss say “stop” at 32 hours is the intent of the bill.
Correct. But that’s the issue right now. People look at the equation all wrong and say “I just wish I could get more hours!” instead of fighting for reasonable pay. If hours go down but pay doesn’t go up to compensate, a ton of people will actually get hit really hard by this and their lives will get worse instead of better.
Companies can use that tired, stupid line that “Washington says you don’t have the eagle-screeching-freedom-right to WORK! How dare they!” and people will buy it.
We don’t want that, because it’ll turn workers against worker-friendly politics, and that would be a Very Bad Thing, given the level of job-simp-indoctrination we’re already combating! :O
Can someone explain that “with no loss in pay”?
It’s not like there is a magical way to know what you’d get paid if you worked a 40hr week, when everybody works 32hr week, and punish your employer if it’s less.
It’s not like wages are determined by the government either.
(iii) by adding at the end the following:
“(3) With respect to any employee described in paragraph (2) who in any workweek is brought within the purview of this subsection by the amendments made to this Act by the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, the employer of such employee may not reduce the total workweek compensation rate, including the regular rate at which the employee is employed, or any other employee benefit due to the employee being brought within the purview of this subsection by such amendments.”
And yes, wages can definitely be determined by the government; see the Federal minimum-wage limit. Salary would remain the same; your hourly-wage would be increased by 1.25x.
Does the bill also include at least a 1.25x minimum wage increase to enforce this as well?
That would be logical, but still would affect only people earning close to minimum wage.
It would increase pay for some, and leave others without their jobs. Same as any other minimum wage increase.
Yes, but combined with shorter work week, which may cause some increase in the amount jobs of exactly for people earning close to minimum wage, the result may be less noticeable.
Love the idea. But like free college and free healthcare I’m thinking it’s just wishful thinking.
Amazing how so many people have been tricked into thinking these ideas are impossible. It’s really not crazy at all.
Oh I think it’s possible, but considering our useless government and the obstructionists we all know, utterly impossible.
…I think it’s possible, but…utterly impossible.
So you don’t think it’s possible? Have you tried to do something, and have come to that conclusion because no matter what you do, nothing seems to be changing?
I’m not focusing on you specifically, but why people say things are “impossible “ and then you ask what, if anything, they’ve done, people will say nothing (or won’t even vote!).
You don’t need to devote your life to something you want to change…an hour or two a week. Join an advocacy group. Go to a town hall meeting. Call your congressman. If time is something you really have ZERO of, then donate so that other people can spend more time working the change you want to see happen.
“It’s impossible to change anything, so I’m not even gonna try”. Again, not saying this is you. I hear this “argument” so friggin often. It’s like people try and subconsciously excuse their own inaction and apathy.
When I said “I think it’s possible” it was within the context of being able to maintain production, and economic output. Productivity per worker has increased between 30-50% within the last 40 or so years.
When I said “utterly impossible” It was in regards to corporation control and influence in the government, as well as corporation sympathy with republicans. Considering they are obstructionists that will even deadlock mutually beneficial laws and acts, they would 100% kill something they actually oppose.
Even with most Americans in support of Roe vs Wade, that was shut down.
You dont get something for nothing, either prices have to rise, or the government is propping up companies that are that ineffient that workers are only doing 32 hours in a 40 hour work week.
You should probably update your economic knowledge.
Study after study over the last 20-30 years has shown that productivity remains or increases when switching from 40 hrs to 32.
And that would be under the government is propping up companies that are that ineffient.
If you mean that the common best practice of working 40 hrs/week is inefficient, then yes.
Governments aren’t pushing for 40 hr work weeks, socialists and industrialists of the early 1900s were, and the rest is conservatism.
Cool, so you think that framers get as much done in 32 hours as 40?
I don’t know if there’s any studies made specifically on framers, but machinists and manufacturers have been reported to, and of course almost anyone in a knowledge job.
So you think that all jobs are more efficient if they just lower the hours?
I’m saying there’s independently verified, peer reviewed, and repeated research that show that many jobs keep or increase their productivity.
Yes
Cool, but you would be wrong.
Many workers already only work 32 hours a week and fill a chair while bullshitting the rest of the time. Many people do that because they would burn out otherwise. Cut the hours by 25% and it’s more reasonable to expect people to actually work. Right now even supervisors don’t crack down on that behavior because it’s just generally accepted that you can’t push people that hard or productivity starts to fall. Imo 30 hours/week is the sweet spot for productivity and cutting down wasted dead time.
And that would be under the government is propping up companies that are that ineffient.
Don’t know where you get that idea from. If you cut out the hours where employees sit around wasting time, you get the same productivity for less hours worked. There’s no difference besides time saved. Government has nothing to do with it, as revenue is not affected.
The government creates a hedge of regulation protection for large businesses. Also the government directly gives money via contracts, between 20-25% of the GDP is government spending, and that is just on the federal level.
Which is disproved by Germany. When you compare Germany to surrounding countries, the economy of workers that now only work 35 hours per week, has not declined by comparison to neighboring countries.
Other factors are way more significant, like wealth distribution, economic environment, and quality of public services. If you look to UK they are way worse off, because they have generally fucked up and used economic thinking similar to republicans.
Also look at Denmark, we have one of the least number of yearly work hours, yet we are among the highest paid in the world. With almost no natural resources to benefit from.If you are unwilling to progress, there will be no progress.
So a roofer will be able to put on more roofs if they work less hours?
Yes! And the closer you get to zero the more we approach infinite roofs per hour, because that’s the way it works with humans, you simply multiply and divide and add and subtract, it’s really that easy, I wonder why people make it so complicated and add in completely unnecessary stuff like health and well being? /s
You can be snarky if you wish, but I am just pointing out the flaws in the idea that if you lower hours people will be as efficient.
Written in our universes language: “Bernie Sanders released a plan that will absolutely never happen and caused literally every single person that isn’t a worker to laugh until they couldn’t breathe anymore.”
Tell me you’ve never worked a day in your life without telling me.
