WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, has introduced a bill to make the standard U.S. workweek last four days without any reduction in pay.
The bill, over a four-year period, would gradually lower the maximum hours required for overtime compensation from 40 to 32 hours for non-exempt employees.
The "Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act" would require time and a half overtime pay for workdays longer than eight hours, and overtime pay at a double a worker's pay for those days longer than 12 hours.
“Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” Sanders said in a press release. “Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change."
Last year, a trial of a four-day workweek in Britain found that an overwhelming majority of the 61 companies that participated planned to keep going with the shorter hours. It found most employees were less stressed and had better work-life balance.
Some U.S. businesses and agencies have launched their own 32-hour workweek pilots. Last month, the Golden Police Department in Colorado said it would be extending its program that changed the typical number of hours officers and other police staff work each week. Officials said the pilot has so far been successful in its goals of decreasing overtime costs, increasing efficiency and employee well-being and has not negatively impacted any public safety.
But not everyone is on board with the proposal to mandate a 32-hour workweek. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy criticized the legislation during a Senate committee hearing on the measure. He argued the plan is "bad policy" and has no chance of passing Congress.