by RUSS BYNUM Associated PressFILE - Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., talks to the media as he walks to the House chamber before President Joe Biden's State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol, March 7, 2024, in Washington. Sanders, the far-left independent from Vermont, introduced a bill Thursday, March 14, that would shorten to 32 hours the amount of time many Americans can work each week before they're owed overtime. The 40-hour workweek has been standard in the U.S.
That means people who currently work Monday through Friday, eight hours per day, would get to add an extra day to their weekend. Workers eligible for overtime would get paid extra for exceeding 32 hours in a week. “The majority of employees register an increase in their productivity over the trial. They are more energized, focused and capable,” Juliet Shor, a Boston College sociology professor and a lead researcher on the UK study, told Sanders' Senate committee.
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said paying workers the same wages for fewer hours would force employers to pass the cost of hiring more workers along to consumers.“It would threaten millions of small businesses operating on a razor-thin margin because they’re unable to find enough workers," said Cassidy, the ranking Republican on the committee. "Now they’ve got the same workers, but only for three-quarters of the time. And they have to hire more.
The landmark law followed a century of labor-union efforts seeking protections for the many overworked people in the U.S., said Tejasvi Nagaraja, a labor historian at Cornell University’s School of Industry and Labor Relations.