Anyway, I doubt the “democratic socialists” in the USA want to ban working more than 32 hours
They want 32 hours to be legislated as ‘full time’ – meaning that employers legally must pay overtime (1.5x normal wage) for any amount of time worked over 32 hours per week.
This is already the case for 40 hours, but they want to reduce the number to 32.
If this is what they want, it’s really not very well thought through. Employers can just pay the same amount for 40 hours (paying less for the initial 32 and more for the subsequent 8), and employees will have greater incentives to keep their working week at 40 instead of having more flexibility for work-life balance. This would discourage 32-hour work weeks except for those jobs where employers can easily hire more people to compensate for the 8-hour shortfall (and those jobs are very few in number).
In fact, in Europe it’s usually the opposite, where overtime is more heavily taxed, so both employers and employees have incentives to keep the work week within sensible hours. In addition, overtime tends to be restricted by collective wage agreements, which, in contrast to the USA, often apply to non-union members.
Employers can just pay the same amount for 40 hours (paying less for the initial 32 and more for the subsequent 8)
They’re going to have a lot of very pissed-off employees when they announce the company-wide pay cuts. And competing employers who instead use the strategy of dropping to 32 hours and hiring more employees to make up the difference are going to be able to pay the full rate without any pay cut, making them more attractive to workers.
Also … ask yourself, why aren’t they already doing this to get 50 or 60 hour work weeks out of their employees? Because it’s hard to find employees willing to work below market rate for 60 hours a week. (Most employers already strictly limit employee hours, because they hate paying overtime.)
Now, what you’re saying isn’t completely insane – I do recognize that some employers may try to do something similar to what you’re saying, while trying to justify the pay cuts as a reaction to the new law. Also, there’s nothing forcing them to increase the hourly rate, so for a lot of workers going to 32 hours instead of 40 would be a significant overall income reduction.
There will be some friction, especially at first, but I think that over time, the market will normalize around it, and (essentially) 4-day work weeks could become the norm. It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before, during the fight for a 40-hour 5-day workweek.
They want 32 hours to be legislated as ‘full time’ – meaning that employers legally must pay overtime (1.5x normal wage) for any amount of time worked over 32 hours per week.
This is already the case for 40 hours, but they want to reduce the number to 32.
If this is what they want, it’s really not very well thought through. Employers can just pay the same amount for 40 hours (paying less for the initial 32 and more for the subsequent 8), and employees will have greater incentives to keep their working week at 40 instead of having more flexibility for work-life balance. This would discourage 32-hour work weeks except for those jobs where employers can easily hire more people to compensate for the 8-hour shortfall (and those jobs are very few in number).
In fact, in Europe it’s usually the opposite, where overtime is more heavily taxed, so both employers and employees have incentives to keep the work week within sensible hours. In addition, overtime tends to be restricted by collective wage agreements, which, in contrast to the USA, often apply to non-union members.
They’re going to have a lot of very pissed-off employees when they announce the company-wide pay cuts. And competing employers who instead use the strategy of dropping to 32 hours and hiring more employees to make up the difference are going to be able to pay the full rate without any pay cut, making them more attractive to workers.
Also … ask yourself, why aren’t they already doing this to get 50 or 60 hour work weeks out of their employees? Because it’s hard to find employees willing to work below market rate for 60 hours a week. (Most employers already strictly limit employee hours, because they hate paying overtime.)
Now, what you’re saying isn’t completely insane – I do recognize that some employers may try to do something similar to what you’re saying, while trying to justify the pay cuts as a reaction to the new law. Also, there’s nothing forcing them to increase the hourly rate, so for a lot of workers going to 32 hours instead of 40 would be a significant overall income reduction.
There will be some friction, especially at first, but I think that over time, the market will normalize around it, and (essentially) 4-day work weeks could become the norm. It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before, during the fight for a 40-hour 5-day workweek.