A proposal to make the 32-hour workweek the new federal standard is back before Congress, renewing debate over whether Americans could work fewer hours without taking a pay cut. Last week, independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Representative Mark Takano of California reintroduced legislation that would gradually reduce the federal standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 while protecting workers' existing pay and benefits. The bill would change federal overtime law, effectively making it more expensive for employers to routinely require covered workers to put in more than 32 hours.
"A 32-hour workweek is not a radical idea. What's radical is that, despite an explosion in technology and productivity over the last 50 years, millions of workers are working longer hours for lower wages while nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent," said Sanders, arguing that automation and the proliferation of artificial intelligence should give workers more of their time back. It's time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow workers and their families to enjoy a better quality of life.
It's time to pass this bill," he added. The concept of the four-day working week is not new, with trials in various countries having involved thousands of workers across dozens of companies. Many of those trials reported improvements in burnout, well-being and staff retention, and a number of employers chose to keep schedules with reduced hours after the trials ended.
Others encountered problems with staffing, customer coverage and fitting the model around different types of work and industries. Though the proposal faces an uncertain future in Congress, the experiences of employers in other countries that have already tried shorter working weeks offer a clearer picture of how reducing hours can work in practice, and where it can run into problems. While a four-day workweek is not mandated nationally anywhere in the world, employers in a number of countries have already tested shorter working weeks, often while keeping workers on full pay.
The trials have largely focused on whether companies can reduce working hours without hurting productivity, while also examining effects on staff retention, burnout and well-being. Results have varied, but several large pilots have led many participating employers to make shorter working weeks permanent or adopt at least some of the policies used in the trials. One of the largest trials took place in the U.K. in 2022, when 61 companies covering about 2,900 workers reduced working hours for six months without a pay cut.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that 71 percent of employees reported lower burnout, sick days fell 65 percent, and staff resignations dropped 57 percent. Company revenues, meanwhile, remained broadly stable among firms that supplied comparable data. At the end of the trial, 56 of the 61 employers said they planned to continue with a four-day week, and 18 immediately made the change permanent.
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