Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-insights/california-employees-4-day-workweek.html

by nomagicbullet • 4 years ago

172 217 4 years ago

acwan93• 4 years ago

Serious question, and maybe this is just based on the people I've met: I've been hearing lots of business owners complaining about California's labor laws getting increasingly hostile which leads companies to relocate or move as many resources they can outside of CA, much like Tesla did. Does anyone else share that sentiment?

I personally think that this is well-intentioned but has consequences that need to be thought out before it becomes law.

_boffin_• 4 years ago

I have an extremely close friend, who is at the C-Level, that just shocked me with news of moving to Boulder, Colorado due to the hostile California laws. I haven't gone in detail with him about what laws/ordinances are specifically having him move there, but yeah...

enduroman• 4 years ago

Company I'm at moved headquarters from CA to TX. A bunch of execs left CA too with the relocation. Only people staying are the ones who love SF.

rhexs• 4 years ago

Boulder is California-light. Colorado doesn’t yet have the endemic corruption you get with uniparty states like California, but with all the Californians moving there and doing the same thing, it’s coming.

The rise in homelessness in Boulder in just the past few years is amazing.

88913527• 4 years ago

I don't necessarily share the sentiment, but I am curious to hear the case for the consequences. California is basically its own economy: the state can make its own rules, so from my perspective, the state has more power to set the rules. Other states, at best, can market themselves as "not California"-- something to run from, but not necessarily something to run to.

toomuchtodo• 4 years ago

Indeed, California is the fifth largest economy in the world, ahead of the UK and India (based on GDP).

BlueTankEngine• 4 years ago

I think there most certainly is something to run to. Lower taxes, less regulations to comply with, state-level offices willing to get on the phone and make things happen to bring innovative businesses to the state, lower cost of living, better weather.

Whether or not you think all these things are good things for a state to have, or whether you think Texas represents your values, it most definitely offers something to run to, even in a world without California.

dragonwriter7• 4 years ago

I've been hearing lots of business owners complaining about California's labor laws getting increasingly hostile which leads companies to relocate or move as many resources they can outside of CA

I’m almost 50, and I’ve been hearing and reading lots of this my whole life.

But somehow California’s economy keeps doing well, even without being one of the places that are winning the battle to attract the firms that are optimizing for maximally emoployee-hostile labor laws.

enriquec2• 4 years ago

economy doing well? are you telling me that cities that are completely unaffordable and overrun with crime, homelessness, and drug abuse - along with mass exodus - are signs of a healthy economy?

I live here. I'm fighting the good fight - and it isn't working. It's getting worse every day.

chaostheory2• 4 years ago

California had just had its net population change going negative for the first time recently. There is a threshold where more businesses leave that it’s starting to reach. The cost of living doesn’t help along with crime. Climate change will also make the situation worse in the coming years, where we eventually lose temperate weather in exchange for forest fires. We’re already experiencing failing infrastructure like regular blackouts and issues with the bridges.

The state’s main saving grace for business is that non-competes are not legal in the state. It’s lucky that no other state is smart enough to do the same thing yet. If Oregon or Washington did it, it would be game over.

rufus_foreman2• 4 years ago

> somehow California’s economy keeps doing well

California has the nation's highest poverty rate when cost of living is taken in to account.

If the worst poverty rate is "doing well", what would doing poorly look like, in your opinion?

peyton• 4 years ago

We took our business elsewhere. It’s becoming crazytown back there.

me_me_mu_mu2• 4 years ago

I feel like these trends are waves and we are currently in the down trend. I think we’ll see a bigger uptrend once the economy stabilizes again. We are in a multi prong proxy battle between energy sources and work/life shift. Once people figure out this change I’m sure things will get better as they did for other cities like nyc. Things were really awful back in the day and got better, then got worse, then got better again.

Also, companies might move their headquarters to Texas or whatever but people deep down (workers and probably also the company owners) prefer the lifestyle and experiences that California offers. California coast cities are amazingly beautiful and offer diverse range of activities outdoors and venue wise, and no massive McMansion in 100 degree Texas heat where you have AC blasting and Have to drive eight lane highways everywhere will ever replace the fact you can just hop on your bicycle and ride five min to the beach. I’m just going off anecdote from friends here.

jandrewrogers• 4 years ago

you can just hop on your bicycle and ride five min to the beach

I can assure you that the percentage of Californians that enjoy this lifestyle is vanishingly small. I've lived in all three coastal metros in California, was an avid user of the beach and hate driving; this lifestyle is not realistically achievable for most people that live there, even the average person in tech.

Most engineers aren't trading a house in Santa Monica for a house in Texas. They are trading a house in South San Jose. That lifestyle is much less different.

thurn• 4 years ago

Tesla's 'move' was a PR thing -- the great majority of the engineering team is staying in CA.

JaimeThompson2• 4 years ago

It was also Musk searching for even more subsidies from the Texas state government.

karaterobot• 4 years ago

Practically speaking, large employers would be required to compensate employees the same amount of pay for fewer hours worked.

Not sure that's true, unless the bill also mandates that employers continue paying the same amount to salaried employees. I assume what'll happen instead is that salaries go down to compensate, and wage employees get fewer hours. Personally, I'd be okay with that, but many people wouldn't want to take that hit.

Worth noting that this article is written by Fisher Phillips, a law firm that, according to Wikipedia, represents management exclusively, so they are not an unbiased source.

oneoff786• 4 years ago

I doubt this though. Over the long term it’s about being competitive. The marginal value of a salaried employee hour is small. It’s the base availability that provides the most value.

mrfusion• 4 years ago

I really feel like work would be quite tolerable at 4 days a week. 5 days plus commute has always felt suffocating to me.

throwawayboise• 4 years ago

Consider that people used to work every day. Farming, hunting, subsisting. When organized religion and cities started to spread, you had one day a week as the day of rest. The industrial age and unionization brought us 5 days, which is now "suffocating." So if 4 days is the norm, that would start to feel suffocating also. Then it would be 3 days. Then, when work is the thing you spend the minority of your time on, you start to ask yourself "why am I doing this at all?"

thot_experiment5• 4 years ago

Then it would be 3 days. Then, when work is the thing you spend the minority of your time on, you start to ask yourself "why am I doing this at all?"

I think you hit the nail right on the head there my guy.

Also once the agricultural revolution happened peasants likely had much more unallocated than the typical office worker in the united states, probably by at least an order of magnitude. I'm not claiming it was a better life but there was a greater amount of self determination which is absolutely something we should strive toward.

alar442• 4 years ago

They may have worked every day, but not all day, and not through every season. Yes farming is hard work, but you don't work from 6-6 every day.

Also your slippery slope argument is silly.

q3k• 4 years ago

… you do realize farming isn’t a whole year thing at most latitudes, right?

bluefirebrand2• 4 years ago

Consider that people used to work every day. Farming, hunting, subsisting.

I would be surprised if individuals in a hunter/gatherer tribe used to work more than 8 hours every single day.

Most people also used to be in survival mode for their entire lives. That shouldn't be what we are aiming for today.

t0mas883• 4 years ago

Maybe that becomes possible at some point? A long time ago we needed 7 days a week to farm or hunt enough food to survive. With technological advancements we may be at a point where we need near 0 work days to feed everyone and create a comfortable life.

Then doing work isn't needed to survive anymore but instead only because you want to achieve something. That could be many different things for many people.

InCityDreams• 4 years ago

"Then, when work is the thing you spend the minority of your time on, you start to ask yourself "why am I doing this at all?""

Crap! And i thought i was anonymous here.

wahnfrieden• 4 years ago

This is a bs narrative, ahistorical. Try Graeber/Wengrow’s recent research/book

ausbah• 4 years ago

I mean yes? trying to get society to the point where no one has to work to survive (food, clothing, etc) sounds really awesome. less stress and more time to spend on what really matters to someone personally

ng55QPSK• 4 years ago

My regular workweek is 35h (unionizing helps) and if it would be possible to have working IT processes and reduce some managment overhead, i could be productive the level in 30h (and actually i am).

Shorter workweeks makes people focus.

t0mas883• 4 years ago

I've seen several cases here where going from 40 to 32 hours to have time for kids (very very common in NL) has kept the same or better productivity.

Of course those were all desk jobs, where it's not about exactly how many hours you're typing code or writing ideas but about the output. I expect it to be less applicable for assembly line kind of work.

gdubs• 4 years ago

I’ve said this many times before but keep in mind that people were strongly opposed to the 40hr workweek and it ultimately led to higher productivity. Less illness and injury, primarily.

Source: The Rise and Fall of American Growth.

rafale• 4 years ago

Not sure there is causation there. A lot of factors contributed to the decrease in illness and injury, including the jobs themselves, a lot of the dangerous ones either got outsourced or died out.

Animats2• 4 years ago

What we need is more enforcement of existing labor laws. A 40-hour work week with teeth. No "unpaid overtime". No "time shaving". Out of hours phone calls count as work time, with a minimum time for a call. (3 hours in the movie industry).

thot_experiment5• 4 years ago

Yes, I mean we should also have a 32 hour work week but the laws surrounding it need teeth for sure. We should hold executives/managers criminally liable with the potential for jail time for repeat offenses. It's absolutely fucking absurd that shoplifting, especially when performed by disadvantaged folks carries harsher penalties than systematic wage theft. It's upside down clown world out there, abusing your position of power is FAR worse than stealing to eat or even fund a drug habit.

pc865• 4 years ago

Are you saying the punishment for shoplifting should be less if you're disadvantaged compared to if you're not?

syshum4• 4 years ago

I did not think shoplifting was punished at all in California.

Animats2• 4 years ago

An interesting thing about white collar crime - jail time is a real deterrent. It doesn't take that much jail time.[1] Routinely sending managers to jail for 30 days for time-shaving would stop that practice rapidly.

[1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/how-stop-white-collar-...

farseer2• 4 years ago

This! 40 hours workweek with mandatory overtime pay (usually double per hour) with a minimum duration. Reducing the workweek below that would be considered unnecessary government intervention and is liable to be bad for business and workers. No one wants a pay cut that goes with it.

t0mas883• 4 years ago

The proposal isn't a paycut right? As written employees keep the same pay but work 32 hours instead of 40.

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 4 years ago

I would take that pay cut in a heartbeat. And yes, I realize the cut won't be proportional, I just want to work fewer hours and still have healthcare and reasonable pay for the time worked.

standardUser3• 4 years ago

The government saying 40 hours in the work week is OK, but any other number of hours to you is "unnecessary government intervention"? What makes the number 40 sacred?

imtringued4• 4 years ago

Yeah it's a completely ridiculous idea. All you need to do is implement a negative interest rate on cash and people will start cutting their hours voluntarily as they notice that there is no future generation that is willing to be in debt for their early retirement.

Right now with the 0% interest subsidy on cash people will work 40 hours to save themselves into an early retirement that won't be possible in the future and then they complain that the government stole their money through inflation by letting them save money that has no reason to exist.

artificialLimbs3• 4 years ago

What I’d like to see is less government power, which means they stay out of my life, which means more freedom and less coercion, which means I can negotiate my life as I see fit like a grown up who is responsible for himself.

hinkley• 4 years ago

And you’ll create a power vacuum that business will gleefully dive into and give you less freedom, more coercion, and less ability to negotiate your life as you see fit.

If you don’t remember why unions and OSHA exist then you are doomed to repeat it. Captains industry have no problems oiling their machines with human blood.

Broken_Hippo• 4 years ago

Exactly how much are you willing to be coerced to put food on the table? Because that's what we are really looking at here: Employers having power to coerce you into lifestyles and coerce you into things just so that you can put food on the table. Laws protecting employees (most of us!) are there because employers didn't simply treat people well, and people had little choice if they wanted to eat.

And I'll point out that you might be a grown up, but you live in a society. Simply taking care of yourself isn't enough, not only because other people are obviously doing things that benefit you greatly. You know, like treat patients in emergency rooms and uphold wiring standards so your air conditioner doesn't burn your house down, and even if it does the fire department puts the fire out without even forcing you to sell it for cheap or show proof of fire insurance.

You couldn't help where you were born, nor did you have a choice in your own primary education, nor whether or not your parents were rich or poor. You might be responsible for yourself now, but you don't fully take care of yourself, your starting level got chosen by others, and you are at the mercy of the actions of others, which can greatly affect your day to day life.

risho2• 4 years ago

not everyone has the constitution to advocate aggressively for themselves. just because you can doesn't mean we can leave people who don't or won't to get exploited and taken advantage of. also not everyone is in a position to advocate for themselves even if they wanted to. there are a lot of people whose life would fall apart if they lost their job and the the business has all of the leverage. for those people, these regulations you hate are the only things preventing them from being sold into indentured survitude. your libertarian utopia is just like every other utopia. it's naive and nonsensical

standardUser3• 4 years ago

"which means I can negotiate my life as I see fit"

You seem to have absolutely no clue what life is like for most working people, combined with a frightening lack of historical context. Can you describe in precise detail how you expect an unskilled laborer to successfully negotiate an agreement in their favor when the employer can wield their vastly greater power without any government hindrance?

aaomidi2• 4 years ago

You know you can do that right?

imtringued4• 4 years ago

The government isn't the only source of coercion. In fact, it usually is the weakest one and it bows down to bigger sources of coercion like the wealthy, foreign/domestic investors and landowners.

Since those are deemed untouchable they will keep doing whatever they want.

marricks• 4 years ago

We need a slew of things to change but not much will with the current power imbalances. Courts still won't/aren't going to hold companies accountable when million dollar lawyers and well priced bribes can save their assess.

Arguing about which band aid is best feels a bit like a distraction.

jeffbee2• 4 years ago

Real enforcement with teeth would help a lot with several issues. One of the biggest is that construction projects in California drag on and on because an inspector will show up at a non-union job site to stop work and survey the labor to make sure they are getting paid and have fair working conditions. By "frequently" I mean weekly or more. This has massive productivity impacts, but they have to keep doing it because wage theft is endemic. If wage theft convictions came with decades-long prison sentences, this would stop. Unfortunately the public does not have an appetite for punishing white-collar crime, they only want long prison sentences for homeless guys who steal shampoo.

chollida1• 4 years ago

What would happen to people's salaries in this case. Right now i'd bet most employment contracts for salary states 40 hours a week as a work week.

Would everyone take a 20% pay cut? Would people try to keep the same pay for fewer hours.

bluefirebrand2• 4 years ago

People would keep the same pay for fewer hours and companies would be lucky if that's all it is.

Keep in mind that wages and salaries have been largely stagnant for decades. Companies and corporations owe their workers a hell of a lot more than "same pay at fewer hours" by now.

hollasch2• 4 years ago

Increasingly, American political parties are most interested in seizing and wielding power, and I feel like most citizens are occupied with surrendering and assigning that power to their preferred political party. How in the world did we get here? Is there any way we can turn back?

Most of the discussion here is about whether mandating business practice would be a good or a bad business move, but hardly anyone is questioning whether this is a good or legitimate role for those in government to decree and mandate. More and more, I see governments mandating changes that already appear to be underway, but in a way that accrues the praise and rewards to themselves. Most Americans seem to be complicit in this transformation, continually voting greater and greater control and authority away from the people and toward government powers.

monocasa• 4 years ago

The definition of the length of the work week and who it applies to is already a concept defined by government.

artificialLimbs3• 4 years ago

Unfortunately. People should be able to negotiate between themselves without interference from the government.

akira2501• 4 years ago

Stated this way it makes it sound as if the government, unbidden by anything external, just decided to make this a requirement one day. Of course, this was not the case.

In reality workers, unions and even industry leaders themselves were already pushing for this decades before the government codified it in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

nostromo953• 4 years ago

Eh whether government should have the right to do this takes a backseat to the fact that the government is the only way we can do this.

The government is the only coordinating mechanism we have to enforce something like this, otherwise everyone is playing the prisoner’s dilemma.

pc865• 4 years ago

Respectfully, this seems like a completely backward take.

If you don't care about whether or not government should be able to do things, and are only concerned with whether or not it does things you like, you end up with a government that can do whatever it wants. Eventually, that power will be wielded by someone you find detestable, or even worse, someone who finds you detestable.

artificialLimbs3• 4 years ago

By prisoners dilemma, do you mean that people are free to negotiate amongst themselves as they see fit? Oh the horror…

Cyph0n• 4 years ago

The primary alternative to achieving this is through formation of unions. But, I’d wager there is an overlap between people who are against enforcement via legislation and people who are anti-union.

pandemicsoul2• 4 years ago

Because there's really no reason to question whether government should reasonably limit standard business practices – we've seen, in spades, how business practices are driven entirely and only by concerns of profit while the labor market has very little flexibility that would allow workers to "vote with their feet" and move to "better" employers without outside influence.

Put another way: Of course it's a good thing to force businesses to make work more humane and sustainable for the humans who have to do it.

superfunny• 4 years ago

> while the labor market has very little flexibility that would allow workers to "vote with their feet" and move to "better" employers without outside influence

Have you heard of the Great Resignation?

vmception• 4 years ago

and I feel like most citizens are occupied with surrendering and assigning that power to their preferred political party

No, most of us are independent and lie to our friends for employment and sex

luckydata• 4 years ago

{insert strawman here}

The US government doesn't do nearly enough to ensure the welfare of workers. If not being treated like shit by your employer bothers you have plenty of options.

koof• 4 years ago

I need more free time from my work responsibilities so I can think about this very scary question with the gravitas it deserves. Can you give me a day off?

dennis_jeeves1• 4 years ago

but hardly anyone is questioning whether this is a good or legitimate role for those in government to decree and mandate.

That's because you are in the wrong forum. I would think that there are forums out there where unpopular or less common opinions are the norm. Your original point is still true, far less people care less about their freedom, welcome to life.

TazeTSchnitzel• 4 years ago

Government power isn't the only power. Workers cheer government regulation as one of their only leverages against employer power (or the power of capital).

ghufran_syed• 4 years ago

I agree - a related issue is that if indeed government should be using it's power, then it should be exercised at theost local level possible ie at the city or county level. That way you could see what happens when people have more of a choice about whether to live under those rules or not, before applying it in a way that is harder to avoid. Meaning it is easy to move cities or counties (in the US), harder to move state, almost impossible to change countries for most people's.

If it really is good for companies, then more will move there. If not, they will move out - better to do the experiment on a small scale first!

But the aim of a lot of federal or state level proposed legislation is so that people can't escape nirvana...

Vladimof• 4 years ago

Most of the discussion here is about whether mandating business practice would be a good or a bad business move, but hardly anyone is questioning whether this is a good or legitimate role for those in government to decree and mandate.

Isn't the Government already limiting the workweek to 40h?

qeternity• 4 years ago

I agree with your comment, but it has nothing to do with Americans.

Your comments sounds very much like an American with limited experience outside of the US. The scary part is that especially post pandemic, this is a very global phenomenon.

Source: American expat

proc0• 4 years ago

Are you saying these laws are common elsewhere? I don't recall any other country passing a 4 day work week law. Either way, these type of laws being uncommon in America is not a bad thing.

carapace• 4 years ago

hardly anyone is questioning whether this is a good or legitimate role for those in government to decree and mandate.

That's because it's been discussed and the current status quo is the result. Check out the history of the labor movement.

The nature and power of organized labor is the outcome of historical tensions among counter-acting forces involving workplace rights, wages, working hours, political expression, labor laws, and other working conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...

More and more, I see governments mandating changes that already appear to be underway, but in a way that accrues the praise and rewards to themselves.

That's pretty much the definition of "politician", eh?

Most Americans seem to be complicit in this transformation,

What transformation?

continually voting greater and greater control and authority away from the people and toward government powers.

Without concrete examples it's difficult to say anything useful.

malermeister• 4 years ago

The authority isn't with people right now, it is with capital and being wielded against the people.

The only mechanism I'm aware of to change that is government and it needs more power to do so. Government is elected and democratic. Capital is neither.

skd234233• 4 years ago

If the govt does not have the power to dictate working hours, people would did from overwork like in the other countries. May be not software for now, but definitely it is possible with low skilled jobs. This is actually a good thing for the govt to have power over.

PS: This applies to every company, so the playground is fair to compete against.

badRNG• 4 years ago

It is interesting to see the tensions play out between managers/"entrepreneurs" and workers in threads like this.

The idea that the establishment of a working week is government tyranny is obvious to one side and bizarre to the other.

xivzgrev• 4 years ago

Note this seems to apply only to hourly workers. All of us salaried techies need to keep waiting for free market to open this up

thot_experiment5• 4 years ago

Unionize, refuse to be on call, refuse to answer slack messages outside of work hours. If working in tech, and at startups specifically has taught me one thing it's that urgency is ALWAYS fake, you can put the fire out tomorrow morning. If there aren't consequences for bad planning then the bad planning continues. See also: financial bailouts of pretty much any kind, the cost of mistakes needs to be adequately large.

alar442• 4 years ago

It's a great thought, but I'd be fired pretty quickly if I tried that. You will also not find a new job with those demands.

You know what I do to offset the after hours stuff? I slack the fuck off all day. It's not like anyone knows what I do anyway. "Hey Alar, what you up to today? -Oh y'know, just getting these switches up to date, gotta keep the packets flowing! Also have some phone stuff to do and getting the servers ready for patching this weekend! -Wow great job!"

Wake up at 8, "check email" until 9. Head to the office to show some face and actually check emails and do communication til 10. From 10-12 follow up with requests and put out any actual fires. 12-130 lunch. 130-330 knock out a meeting or two and then head home to "get my notes together and plan the next day" aka crack open a 6 pack.

I know this isn't always possible, but as long as you deliver SOMETHING every day, no one questions the infra "wizard".

renewiltord• 4 years ago

I’d rather have my life than theirs though.

jayski2• 4 years ago

I've worked for 6 different employers in my life, Ive also employed people.

100% of my experience is that its rare for someone to ping me out of work hours, and if they do, I completely understand that its an emergency. Since I also care about the company's well being, (that's where I get my paycheck from), Im happy to help.

In 20 years as an employee or employer this has happened maybe 5 times.

I don't know where people are working that this is even an issue, but if at all possible consider switching jobs because youre working with sociopaths.

32 is too low, employers are going to leave California even more if this is approved.

holoduke• 4 years ago

I guess you work in IT like 90% of the people here. For those (and me) fixed working hours are non existent. But if you work in a factory , shop etc like 90% of the other people then a 32 hour work week would very much help getting a happier life. Maybe this won't work in the US. But in Europe I think it certainly does.

jayski2• 4 years ago

I do work in IT. You make good points, my job involves a lot of sitting down and honestly slacking.

If I worked standing up at a factory Im sure I would want 32 hours

readams• 4 years ago

What prevents an hourly employee from working 32 hours now? It seems like many hourly employees have the opposite problem: they want more hours but they can't get them scheduled.

swarnie• 4 years ago

Not sure what the current work week is (assuming 40?).

Does anyone actually "work" close to that amount? I've got mine down to about 8 hours with an additional 8 of meetings where i sit on mute and contribute nothing.

tlogan2• 4 years ago

This bill affects only hourly workers, which means that Walmarts and other companies will just cut their work week and pay employees less. They are not going to pay them overtime if they work more. And poor people will need to find an extra job to keep up with bills.

The only poeple who might benefit are hourly gov employees - but that depends on budget constrains.

micromacrofoot• 4 years ago

if walmart employees unionize it could go a long way to prevent that

tlogan2• 4 years ago

Exactly!!

Ericson2314• 4 years ago

This is poor reasoning. It assumes there will be enough extra jobs, but there is a friction to that. Wallmart trying to staff up with more people will also not be trivial for them, and come with more fixed costs.

Obviously it would be better with a magic way to get rid of second jobs for poor workers (and stuff like UBI and JG nicely avoid these issues without magic) but it still would be win for labor.

kleiba2• 4 years ago

There's no English equivalent, so please excuse the use of Google translate:

https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Auseinanderse...

This is the German wikipedia entry on the conflicts that trade unions and employers' associations in Germany have fought over the reduction of weekly working hours since the late 1970s.

kleiba2• 4 years ago

If I subtract the time I spend checking my social media while pretending to work, I'm probably already doing a 32 hour work week...

dizzant• 4 years ago

This grinds my gears. I'm a part time at my office (govt contractor), and do more work in 20 hours than some others on my team do in 40. Restrictions on firing underperformers put us in the position of "needing" 40 hours in the workweek.

jcpst• 4 years ago

Let’s give them the benefit and say they get all their expected tasks done in that 32 hours.

What’s disappointing is wasting that time on social media, when those extra 8 hours could be to improve a process, do some self-learning, mentoring, research… at least, that’s what I do if what I need to get done doesn’t fill the week.

mbgerring• 4 years ago

You can already have this as a salaried worker if you negotiate well when you get a new job, and I highly recommend it. Most people barely work on Friday anyway.

qiskit2• 4 years ago

Instead of all these regulations, why not institute basic income. If every adult was given $2000 ( or whatever figure we come up with ) you wouldn't have to create so many laws. Minimum wage, work hours, retirement, diversity, etc laws would be unnecessary because it would be difficult to exploit people whose needs are met. Why pass hundreds of laws when you can pass 1 that solves all the problem?

risho2• 4 years ago

basic income definitely doesn't mean they can deregulate everything else. it greatly lessens the leverage these businesses have over workers but the leverage doesn't go away entirely. also basic income doesn't solve every problem.

andrei_says_• 4 years ago

$2000 barely covers rent ( 1 br LA/SF). We’d also need rent control legislation to prevent rents from rising to absorb the UBI.

Apart from that I agree - UBI is the simplest, cheapest way to lift the population out of poverty.

The outcomes are fantastic - I recommend Rutger Bregman’s book on it.

qiskit2• 4 years ago

$2000 barely covers rent ( 1 br LA/SF).

The market will develop housing for basic income people or you could always move to lower cost areas.

We’d also need rent control legislation to prevent rents from rising to absorb the UBI.

Nope. If people are given basic income, the market will develop housing/services to cater to them.

hemreldop• 4 years ago

California is a huge state, you don’t have to live in the heart of LA or San Fran

CameronNemo• 4 years ago

You can definitely get a studio in the LA area for like 1400. Close to public transit too.

notahacker2• 4 years ago

Because you have to fund basic income.

And if your goal is a population that pays its way and has relatively generous working conditions and less unequal income distributions, the hyper regulated Europe looks a whole lot better than, say, Saudi Arabia where citizens can live comfortable, unproductive lives topped up by monthly payments, discrimination is rife and an underclass of non-citizens do most of the work for very little money, often in truly awful conditions.

mgalgs• 4 years ago

Andrew Yang proposed a VAT and redistributing funds from other entitlement programs.

imtringued4• 4 years ago

Because a UBI is the wrong solution for this problem. Reducing the work week should be done when productivity grows faster than the economy and a UBI does not care whether that is true or not.

exabrial• 4 years ago

I really hope this passes, just so we can see how stupid defining these things in legislature. This should be decided by employers, not politicians. If employers have too much power then you have a monopoly problem and you should do something about it, not rake small businesses over the coals.

I would love a 4 day work week, but only if it meant my job is secure. This is the worst way to go about it.

abeppu• 4 years ago

As with the bill that Rep Takano introduced in Congress, I feel like the media are not discussing this in at all a reasonable way. It is _not_ a bill to shorten the workweek. It's a bill to change the line at which employers pay overtime ... to workers who would get overtime.

In California, for employers of the size mentioned here, workers become exempt at around ~$62k/yr. The BLS has stats for California which annoyingly give the median hourly wage, and the average annual comp (~$65.5k), but not the median annual comp. But certainly large fraction of workers are above the 'exempt' line, possibly more than half.

Add to that a lot of workers are:

- working for employers smaller than 500 staff in CA

- some form of contractor

- working multiple jobs (perhaps less now than a few years ago)

What's the proportion of workers who would be impacted by this?

And how many workers are not yet exempt, but are close enough to the exempt line that employers will be better off giving them a raise to an exempt salary and then demanding more hours per week?

https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/labor/wage-and-hour/salary-laws... https://www.bls.gov/oes/2020/may/oes_ca.htm#00-0000

dmode• 4 years ago

All this discussion is moot, since this bill not pass.

mrlonglong• 4 years ago

Oh, nice. California, here I come!

rdtwo• 4 years ago

Why don’t they start at 40 for everyone. That would be a great start Shes create another 20-30% more job openings

peapicker• 4 years ago

Govt. mandates 32 hr workweeks. Employers drop pay 20%.

Not shocked.

skd234233• 4 years ago

Thought provoking essay by Bertrand Russell on idleness. https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

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