California is trying to become the first state in the nation to make a four-day workweek a state law.
The state introduced a new bill that would make the official workweek 32 hours and no longer 40 hours for companies with 500 employees or more, giving higher raises and time-and-a-half pay to any worker who exceeds that cutoff. A typical workday would remain 8 hours.
The bill – AB 2932 – also states that 12 hours past the 32-hour cutoff would mandate double the normal wage for pay and workers would not be docked pay for working less than 32 hours. The bill does not address or cover workers who are under a collective bargaining agreement, however.
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The bill was authored and proposed last week by state assembly members Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) and Evan Low (D-San Jose). A similar bill is being pitched at the federal level under the Fair Labors Standards Act.
Garcia Told Los Angeles Times that the idea was prompted by a major shift in employee welfare that was born during the COVID-19 pandemic when many workers left their jobs seeking a better quality of life. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021. The shift also comes as working-from-home has become more normalized in cohesion with the pandemic.
“We’ve had a five-day workweek since the Industrial Revolution,” Garcia told The Times. “But we’ve had a lot of progress in society, and we’ve had a lot of advancements. I think the pandemic right now allows us the opportunity to rethink things, to reimagine things.”
The bill, which would affect nearly 2,600 companies in California, has not come without pushback. The California Chamber of Commerce has called it a “job killer,” making hiring more expensive and leading to a drop in jobs across the state.
Yet evidence from other countries shows a blueprint where a 32-hour workweek can bolster companies and their employees with better productivity rates. According to a recent study in January, 40-hour work weeks have been wearing workers out. Iceland has implemented a four-day work week, while Japan’s government has recommended it as a national policy.
“The fact of the matter is many other companies are already doing this, and other countries too, so I think this is the direction we’re going,” Low, the bill’s co-author, told The Times. “This is going to attract more (employees) to your company, because it’s undisputed workers are looking for more flexibility.”
According to data from the OECD, US employees put in more work hours every year than workers in most other industrial nations, with the typical American worker today working nearly 1,800 hours a year.
AB 2932 is currently under review with the Labor and Employment Committee and a hearing date has yet to be scheduled.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism