- Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the ‘Thirty-Tour Work Week Act’ on Thursday
- The bill would cut the normal work week from 40 to 32 hours without loss of pay
- However, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy claims the measure could threaten small businesses across the country
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A top Republican is sounding out a proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would mandate a four-day work week, saying the measure could threaten millions of small businesses across the country.
Progressive Vermont – and self-proclaimed ‘democratic socialist’ – passed its ‘Thirty-Tour Work Week Act’ on Thursday during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing.
His plan would reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours with no loss of pay for employees. The bill would also lower the maximum number of hours required for overtime pay for non-exempt employees.
Sanders has said the bill is ‘not a radical idea,’ but the top Republican on the HELP committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., warns that workers will be the real losers if it is passed.
“The government mandating a 32-hour work week, requiring companies to increase wages by at least an extra 25 per cent an hour, would frankly destroy some employers,” Mr Cassidy said at Thursday’s hearing.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced the ‘Thirty-Tour Work Week Act’, which would reduce the standard work week from 40 to 32 hours without loss of pay
The top Republican on the Senate HELP Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said the measure could threaten millions of small businesses and force them to pay more for less
“If this policy is implemented, it will threaten millions of small businesses that operate on razor-thin margins because they are unable to find enough workers.”
‘It’s free money, if you like. No loss of wages, but you work much less’.
Cassidy said the proposal ‘would be napalm on the fire of inflation.’
The bill also has provisions that would require overtime pay, time and a half, paid to employees who work more than eight hours in a day.
It also mandates that workers be awarded double their normal wages if they work more than 12 hours in a day.
Still, Sanders argues that workers today are more efficient than they were in 1940, when the standard 40-hour workweek was established.
“Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s,” Sanders said in a press release announcing the bill.
“And yet millions of Americans work longer hours for lower wages than they did decades ago.”
“It’s time to reduce stress levels in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life.”
Republicans argue the bill would force employers to go on a hiring spree to keep their businesses adequately staffed
But members of the GOP say Americans’ quality of life would decline with Sanders’ goals.
“Workers would be the ones who would pay, not get paid extra,” Cassidy said.
“They would send those jobs overseas or they would automate to replace the workers for whom they have an increased expense.”
“Or they would increase prices dramatically to stay afloat.”
Late. Mike Braun, R-Ind., also pushed back against Sanders’ proposal at Thursday’s hearing.
“I disagree with trying to do something from (the Senate) that would impose the predominance of companies out there.”
“I just don’t think they will survive,” he said.