Proposed bill would shorten California workweek to 32 hours

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?<p>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.

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

Serious question, and maybe this is just based on the people I&#x27;ve met: I&#x27;ve been hearing lots of business owners complaining about California&#x27;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?<p>I personally think that this is well-intentioned but has consequences that need to be thought out before it becomes law.

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.<p>Source: The Rise and Fall of American Growth.

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

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&#x27;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?

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&#x27;s a bill to change the line at which employers pay overtime ... to workers who would get overtime.<p>In California, for employers of the size mentioned here, workers become exempt at around ~$62k&#x2F;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 &#x27;exempt&#x27; line, possibly more than half.<p>Add to that a lot of workers are:<p>- working for employers smaller than 500 staff in CA<p>- some form of contractor<p>- working multiple jobs (perhaps less now than a few years ago)<p>What&#x27;s the proportion of workers who would be impacted by this?<p>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?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shouselaw.com&#x2F;ca&#x2F;labor&#x2F;wage-and-hour&#x2F;salary-laws&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shouselaw.com&#x2F;ca&#x2F;labor&#x2F;wage-and-hour&#x2F;salary-laws...</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;oes&#x2F;2020&#x2F;may&#x2F;oes_ca.htm#00-0000" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;oes&#x2F;2020&#x2F;may&#x2F;oes_ca.htm#00-0000</a>

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).<p>Shorter workweeks makes people focus.

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

If I subtract the time I spend checking my social media while pretending to work, I&#x27;m probably already doing a 32 hour work week...

What would happen to people&#x27;s salaries in this case. Right now i&#x27;d bet most employment contracts for salary states 40 hours a week as a work week.<p>Would everyone take a 20% pay cut? Would people try to keep the same pay for fewer hours.

&gt; Practically speaking, large employers would be required to compensate employees the same amount of pay for fewer hours worked.<p>Not sure that&#x27;s true, unless the bill also mandates that employers continue paying the same amount to salaried employees. I assume what&#x27;ll happen instead is that salaries go down to compensate, and wage employees get fewer hours. Personally, I&#x27;d be okay with that, but many people wouldn&#x27;t want to take that hit.<p>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.

Not sure what the current work week is (assuming 40?).<p>Does anyone actually &quot;work&quot; close to that amount? I&#x27;ve got mine down to about 8 hours with an additional 8 of meetings where i sit on mute and contribute nothing.

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.<p>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.

There&#x27;s no English equivalent, so please excuse the use of Google translate:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Auseinandersetzungen_um_die_35-Stunden-Woche?_x_tr_sl=auto&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Auseinanderse...</a><p>This is the German wikipedia entry on the conflicts that trade unions and employers&#x27; associations in Germany have fought over the reduction of weekly working hours since the late 1970s.

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

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

Thought provoking essay by Bertrand Russell on idleness. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;harpers.org&#x2F;archive&#x2F;1932&#x2F;10&#x2F;in-praise-of-idleness&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;harpers.org&#x2F;archive&#x2F;1932&#x2F;10&#x2F;in-praise-of-idleness&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;ve worked for 6 different employers in my life, Ive also employed people.<p>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&#x27;s well being, (that&#x27;s where I get my paycheck from), Im happy to help.<p>In 20 years as an employee or employer this has happened maybe 5 times.<p>I don&#x27;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.<p>32 is too low, employers are going to leave California even more if this is approved.

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

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

Govt. mandates 32 hr workweeks. Employers drop pay 20%.<p>Not shocked.

Oh, nice. California, here I come!