Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing 20240704

The Senate Committee on Health Education labor and pin hits will come to order. This has been a shortened week so i think youre going to see there are hearings taking place all over the place i think you i want to thank all of our panelists for being with us. This morning, we issue that is very rarely discussed in the halls of congress or the senate. That is the need to reduce the standard work week in the United States. In fact, the last time as we understand it the senate held a hearing on the subject was in the year 1955. So i think maybe the time is now to renew that discussion. At that hearing, the senate heard from at that point workers and the congress of industrial organizations and roofers, regarded as one of the great labor leaders of his time. This is what he said at that time. He said, we fully realize the potential benefits of automation are great. If properly handled, if only a fraction of what technologists promise for the future is true, within a very few years, automation can and should make possible a four Day Work Week. The reduction of the work week to 35 or 30 hours in the coming decades can be an important shock absorber during the tranti use of automation. In 1886, 1 of the planks was to establish an eight hour work day, eight hours work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will. That was back in 1886. Americans of that era are sick and tired of working 12 hour days for six or seven days a week with very little time for rest, relaxation or quality time with their families. They went out on strike, they organize, they petitioned the government, and they achieved real result after decades of struggle. In 1916, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation into law to establish an eight hour work day for railroad workers. Six years later, the Ford Motor Company became one of the first major employers in america to establish a five Day Work Week heres something i believe that most people in our country do not know. In Senate Overwhelmingly passed legislation to establish a 30 hour work week by a vote of. That was 1933. While that legislation ultimately failed as a result of a decision from corporate america, a few years later, president Franklin Delano roosevelt signed the fair labor standards act into law and a 40 hour workweek was established in 1940, my friends, in 1940. Unbelievably, 84 years later, despite massive growth in Worker Technology in worker productivity, millions of workers are working longer hours for low wages. I hope people hear this because this is not an issue we talk about enough. Today in america, 28. 5 million americans, 18 of our workforce im in now worked over 60 hours a week, and 40 of employees in america now work at least 50 hours a week. We were talking about a four hour work week 80 years ago and thats what people today, despite the explosion of technology, working today. The sad reality is that americans now work morhours than the people of any other wealthy nation. We will talk about what that means to the lives of ordinary people. In 2022 in the United States and i hope people hear this, logged 204 more hours per year than employees in japan279 moren the United Kingdom and 470 germ. Despite these long hours, the average worker in america makes almost 50 a less then he or she did 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation. No let thasink in for a moment. Think about all of the extraordinary changes in technology that we have seen over the last 50 years. Computers, robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and the huge increase in worker productivity th achieved during that time. In factories and warehouses, robots and sophisticated machinery did not■ exi then or were only used in primitive forms. There were no checkout counters that utilizedas a result of they technological transformations that we have seen in recent years, American Workers are now over 400 more productive than they were in the 1940s. Extraordinary. Telopeople far more productive,d what has been the result of all that productivity inease for almost all of the economic gains of that technological transformation have gone straight to the top while wages for workers have remained stagnant or even worse. While ceos today are making 350 times as much as their average employees, workers throughout the country are seeing their family life fall apart as they are forced to spend more and more time at work, and missing their kids birthday parties, little league, baseball games and just the time they need with their families. Stresses them out even further is that after spending all of their time at work, many paychecktopaycheck and cannot take care of their basic needs. At a moment in history when Artificial Intelligence and robotics, and i hope we all understand the jobs that people have today aint going to be there in many cases in 15conomye transformed by Artificial Intelligence and robotics. The question we are asking today is a Pretty Simple question, do we continue the trend that technology only benefits the changes benefit working people, and one of the benefits must be a lower work week, 32 hour workweek. This is not a radical idea. Friends, the seventh largest economy in the world, has a 35 hour work week and is considering a 32 hour workweek. Norway and denmark are working about 37 hours and belgium has already adopted a four Day Work Week. What we are going to hear work week. What we are going to hear today is there a cthat have adopted t0 hour work week. You know what they found . They found that productivity actually went up because workers were able to focus on their work. They were happy to go to work. So the issue that we are talking about today is of enormous importance. Full benefits and the exploding technology. The wealthiest people who are doing phenomenally well or working people who are falling behind. With that, let me give the mic over to senator cassidy. A 32 hour workweek with no loss in pay, my staff has volunteered to be the test case for that. Who wouldnt want it . No loss of pay but you work a lot less. But in reality there is no free lunch. Workers would be the one who pay, not get paid extra. The government mandating a 32 hour workweek requiring businesses to increase pay at as hour would frankly destroy some employers. They would ship those jobs overseas, or they would automate to replace those workers for whom they have an increased expense. Or they would dramatically increase prices to make them stay afloat. We talked about the biden economics leading to inflation. This would be napalm upon the fire of inflation. If this policy is implemented, it would threaten millions of Small Businesses operating on a razor thin margin because they are unable to find enough workers. Now theyve got the same workers but only for three quarters of the time, and they have to hire more. Fact, there is even incentive for them to dip down so they make everybody parttime and th penalties or certain requirements which are required for full time. If a business wants to voluntarily try a 32 hour workwe for themselves, several laws allow it. We dont have to mandate it. We will hear today from a business that does that. So if an is good for their business, go for it. But i will note that the chair has not done that with his staff. Ere is a certain amount of work required for the continuity of the work. Thats just basic. Now the Business Needs to maintain a 40 hour workweek to remain competitive, not just locally, but globally. Government mandated 32 hour workweek would be catastrophic. Government should not be in a business of undermining their employers ability to■l keep ther doors open with unreasonable and perhaps unconstitutional mandates. The chair frequently says the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world. We are. How did we achieve it . American workers. Second to none. And we have a balance. We dont have people as they do in china working 80 hours a week, but we have that balance. This disrupts that balance. And we wont maintain the status of being the worlds wealthiest nation if we need cap the economy will something that purports to be good for the American Worker, but will lead to shoring the workforce. There is a reason nor the country has a mandatory 32 hour workweek. When japan shortened its workweek from 46 to 40 hours, economic output plummeted 20 . Belgium has a four Day Work Week but those workers work 40 hours within those four days. Ai and other technologies have the potential to dramatically increase economic productivity. I think we should have a bipartisan hearing on the potential impact of ai on the american economy. If we have this, i am ecstatic. You are nodding yourwe need to. My Office Published a white paper last year on how this committee should ai and the impacts upon health, education, and labor. And we are working on next steps based on that feedback. But a momandpop restaurant is not really seeing increased productivity from ai. They are having trouble finding enough to fill shifts, and if we were car them to pay for a 40 hour workweek for 32 hours of work, how will it turn out for that momandpop restaurant . Hospital staffing shortages threatening public health. Why are we passing along to exacerbate that shortage . Uaw pushed for a 32 hour workweek and it didnt happen. Ik the federal government should mandate it to placate a Democratic Political base. Frankly it seems and exercise to help the uaw lay the gun furnite negotiations. They should discuss it at the bargaining table. Eithapologize if this hearing gives anyone false hope, but a mandatory 32 hour work week is bad policy. Not even democrats unanimously support this. But it may give us an understanding where the biden is heading. They are up for a tough and they may be willing to use executive authority to do something which actually has bipartisan opposition. E has been a concerning pattern from democrats in prioritizing policies to help politically connected uon worked businesses themselves. Recently the Biden Administration proposed a new ov pay threshold by 55 . That will result in layoffs and it will result in more inflation. The Biden Administration released a new joint employer rule threatening the viability of the franchise model that employs over 9 million workers and has empowered people who had a dream of becoming a Small Business person to become a Small Business person and otherwise would not have. The■■fbors new independent contractor rule jeopardizes the ability of 27 million americans work as independent contractors, with the ability to pick their own hours and work for multiple independence and protection from forced unionization has made restricting this freedom a top priority. These policies hurt the American Worker and contribute to inflation. As i said, i wouldve been excited to work with the chair on a hearing to discuss the impacts of ai and the new technologies in our jurisdiction. There is very strong bipartisan interest in examining this issue, but we are working instead upon ail congress and we detrimental for American Workers. With that, i yield. Sen. Sanders we thank all five panelist for being with us today. We will begin with the International President of the united automobile workers. He is a 29 year member of the uaw and started as an electrician and led the uaw in negotiating a story contract which substantially waged raised wages and benefits for the workers of that union. Thanks for being with us. Good morning, chairman sanders, dr. Cassidy, and members of the committee. Im here to talk about one of the most important isss any wors person, any us senator, any human being. And that is our time. As president of the united auto workers, i represent 400,000 working class people across induries, and 600,000 retirees. And i know when my members look back on their lives, they never say i wish i had worked more. when people reach the end of their lives, they never say i wish id made more money. what they wish for they had more time. Thats what work does. We are paid for our time, and when we were, we are sacrificing time with other friends, and other things we wish to do. But time, like every Precious Resource in our society, is not given freely to the working class. Since the industrial revolution, we have seen the productivity of our society skyrocket. With the advance of technology, one market is now doing what 12 workers used to do. More profit can be squeezed out of every hour, every minute, every second. There was a time when this phenomenon was supposed to lead to workers getting their time back. Getting some of their lives back. Nearly 100 years ago, the economist John Maynard Keynes spoke of the future of workers time. His worry was that with all the gains in productivity, we wouldnt know what to do with ourselves. He predicted a 15hour work week. 100 years ago. In my own union, i go back into our archives and read of theourn idea that was alive and well for back in the 1930s and 1940s. But today deep into the 21st , century, we find these ideas unimaginable. Instead, we find workers working longer hours. We have workers working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. There are workers, not union, union or not, working multiple jobs, they are leaving to work and scraping to get by in living paychecktopaycheck. We find workers today later in their life working deep into their 60s, 70s, and 80s because they cannot afford to retire. And we find the associated deaths of despair from addiction and suicide, of people who dont feel a life of endless, hopeless work is a life worth living. We have workers who feel despair as a consequence of advances in technology, workers have been sacrificed at the altar of greed and theyve been stripped of their dignity. We have a mental healt■ih crisis we talked about a lot in this country, but we never talk about the causes of that. There have been studies done, increas a week, 12 hours a day, your sacrifice of family life and things you want to pursue, is because of increasing cortisol levels which lead to heart disease, cancer, strokes. Given all those facts, if someone is lucky enough to get to retire, typically they have worked themselves to death their entire life, they face the replacements, hip replacements, shoulder surgeries and the rest of their lives figuring out how they will survive. It is sad to say that inlegisla0 hour work week, but due to intense corporate opposition that legislation failed. But in 1940, resident Franklin Delano roosevelt signed the fair labor standards act establishing the 40 hour workweek. 84 years ago 40 hour week was established. Since then, weve had a 400 increase in productivity, but nothing has changed. That was why in our Victory Campaign we had our stand up strike, we raised the flag for 32 hour workweek. A workingclass issue and thats why 75 of americans in her contract right stood with us in that fight because they are all living the same reality. Who is going to act to fix this epidemic of lives dominated by work . Are the employees going to act . Will congress act . How can workingclass people take back their lives and take back their time . Many in this room will say people just dont want to work, or workingclass people are lazy. But the truth is, workingclass people arent lazy, they are fed up. They are fed up with being left behind and stripped of dignity as wealth and equality inequality spirals out of control. They are fed up thatica, three families have as much wealth as the bottom 50 of citizens in this nation. That is criminal. I want to close with this. I agree there is an epidemic in want to work. A people who don people who cant be bothered to get up every day and contribute to our society. But instead want to freeload o. But those are not bluecollar people. Those arent workingclass people. Its a group of people who are never talked about for how little they actually work and produce and how little they contribute to humanity. The people im talking about are the wall street fre income. Those who profit off the labor of others have all the time in the world, while those who make this country run, the people who build the products, contribute the labor have less and less times for themselves, their families, and for their lives. So our reunion will continue to fight for the rights of workingclass people to take back their lives and take back their time and we ask you to stand up with the American Workers and support us in that mission. Thank you. Sen. Sanders are next witness is an economist at boston college. She is a lead researcher for four day week global trials of companies instituting four day weeks with five days pay. She has been researching work time since the author of the bestselling book, the thank you for being with us. Thank you, good morning, im honored to have this opportunity to suppour work week act. We are here today because for 84 years, there has been no reduction in the standard workweek. Since 1950, the productivity of the American Worker has risen to 400 , yet fulltime employee hours a week. Annual hours even rose in the 1990s and have barely changed since then. These trends depart from the steady reduction in hours between 1870 in world war ii and from trends in other wealthy countries. The average american is on job n in germany, 200 more than in france and the u. K. And more than the average japanese. This is despite the u. S. Historically being the Global Leader in worktime reduction in the worlds first fiveday week country. This was the situation when the pandemic hit, which brought with it extraordinary levels of stress and burnout, resignation and historically high job vacancies. In response, an increasing number of employees are shifting to a water day, 32 are week with no reduction in pay. I was asked to lead research on their experiences and in collaboration with an ngo called for date week global. They include all sectors, healthcare care, momandpop restaurants, manufacturing and construction, retail, nonprofits, it, finance, and professional services, and even a Police Department in golden, colorado. In the u. S. , 78 percent of these are Small Businesses with 50 or fewer employees, which is similar to the u. S. Economy. Our results have been extremely positive for both workers and the companies. We hmeasures for more than 3600 employees, every one of which registers improvement from baseline to the end of t trial. Nearly 60 of employees experienced better workfamily balance, anxiety, sleep Mental Health improved for 40 of workers. 69 of employees have lowers burnout scores. It is fins tell us the new schedule is lifechanging. One person reports that had it not been for the i wouldnt have had the time or the availability to get medical appointments and procedures which ultimately led to the eaection of something that mightve proved fatal. That something was cancer. In our statistical modeling, we find that the larger the worktime reduction, the greater the increase in wellbeing. Fewer sleep problems and less fatigue or one reason. But the second is that a majority of employees register an increase in their productivity over the trial. Energized, focused, and capable, partly as a result of organizationwide changes in work culture and prin response to methodological criticism, i will just say here that our findings are robust across time, across place, and industry and contain a large and contain a large number of variables to rule out alternative explanations. For employers, the most important number is 90 one . Thats the fraction of companies with the four day week after at least one full year. In the us and canada, only 2 companies have gone back to a 5 day schedule. Their performance metrics reveal why. Resignations fell 22 . Absenteeism declined 39 , revenue increased an average of 30 . Some Companies Report that quality of service improved. After losing 50 of their inpatient Nurse Leaders during the first two pandemicmw years Temple University hospital gave them a four day week. Patient outcomes improved and voluntary turnover fell to 0. If the us adopted four day week, 32 hour week, it is likely that hourly productivity willise. o that has been the experience of workers and management in our trial. It is historically what scholars have concluded from past reductions in worktime and with International Comparison thent highest levels of productivity are those with the shortest working hours. I began my remarks by referencing our fourfolproduct. The fact that so little about productivity increase has been put toward reducing hours of left American Workers suffering from burnout and stress with families in special jeopardy. Erbated this preexisting problem. Given the current robust rates of us productivity growth, the promise of furthery large increases from Artificial Intelligence my and the fact that over the last 84 years the standard work week has been hank you. Doctor shah, thank you very much. Next witness is john leland, chief strategy officer, cofounder of nonprofit work 4. He successfully introduced four Day Work Week at his company in 2,022 and in his nonprofit work supports employers, unions and policymakers advancing the 32 hour workweek. Thanks for being with us. Good morning, doctor sanders and members of the quitting. I bring a unique perspective to this panel having both implemented and experienced a four day workweek in our company of one hundred 18 employees. Oour journey began during the pandemic, a period that completely upended traditional work norms and demonstrated just how ingrained and outdated some of our assumptions are around work. The pandemic also clarified that time we have with our families and loved ones is the most valuable thing we have. Kick starter is a datadriven company and weially driven by repeated studies and Success Stories demonstrating that a four day workweek would benefit both businesses and employees. We also recognized some common sense around how a four day workweek could work. Hours worked is a factor in productivity but it is not determinative. Efficiency, focus and Employee Retention are all equally or more critical. And people are tired which workers are already finding ways to rest at work, surfing the internet, slowing down, stepping away just to get the energy to get through the work day. I would rather just so they ca properly rest. In april of 2,022 we initiated a 6month pilot. The goal was to maintain or improve overall productivity and to do that the bargain we may with our employees was simple, they would get back an extra day every week, retaining the same salary, the same benefits and in exchange, we expected them to manage their time effectively. Show up to work every week, rested and ready to go and get the job done. We were not going to scale back our ambitions or our goals to accommodate the 4day workweek. And the result of our pilot were clear. Our goal achievement rate soared from 62 to 95 . Customer response times and satisfaction rating stayed the same. Employee retention increased from 82 to 98 all while reducing average weekly working hours by 9 hours a week for each employee. We made the decision stick with the four day workweek and kept it for two years. The most profound change, however, has been the impact to our employees. Just two years weve been able to return nearly 10,000 days to our one hundred 18 employees. Thats more than 27 years. Those are years of spending time with family and children, volunteering in their communities, lrng new skills and taking care of their health. The value of that time is priceless and ultimately has been the greatest outcome of our transition to a four day workweek. nz the 5day workweek is not an immutable law of nature. It was established 84 years ago codecs of the 5day workweek back then also predicted doom, they worried a week and would destroy the american economy. Instead it helped launch us to the front of the global pack. Entire industries of recreation and leisure were born, the american middleclass became the envy of the world, the weekend became a time when families and communities came together. With a century of profound changes in our workforce and technology, with ai looming on the horizon, its time for a much needed update. The studies echo what we learned that kick starter, when piloted, a 4day workweek works. All 35 north American Companies that piloted the four day workweek with us in 2022 have forprofit companies would abandon. You dont need theories or advanced data, you just need to see that the companies that pilot this tends to stick with it. This is not just technical either. These are manufacturing company, healthcare facilities, restaurants, Police Departments that are making this transition. This is a shift that can and must benefit all workers in our society. That is why the bill introduced by the chairman is so important. It would ensure we are defining a new standard for our workweek that benefits all workers, not just the most privileged. Rtuni important to ensure that all American Workers in our communities reach a dividend. The four day workweek is an issue backed by data that americans of all stripes and all paul after paul say matters to them. The opportunity to deliver a boost for our economy and happiness to every American Worker, strengthen american families, time to do it again. That very much, senator cassidy . Of course. Doctor liberty is a professor at the practice of data science in st. Louis, senior fellow of Harvard University and mit research. Discovery channel shows and analyzers and cause elections for decision and is featured in a number of publications, has a great resume for academics but what is most interesting about doctor witt it is she started at the cordon bleu so we have someone who knows how to cook something more than pancakes, which no offense, i am sure im sure others do as well. So we are pleased to have you. Cookies for the group. Chairman sanders, doctor cassidy, thank you for having me here today. I am a statistician and we heard a lot of statistics thrown around. Im here to make some sense of these and make sure we are analyzing them properly. Proponents of the 32 hour workweek often point to statistical studies, mostly pilots, that suggests shorter work weeks can lead to increased productivity and improve employee wellbeing. This argument isweak and statistically flawed data sets. A closer look at some of the most popularly cited studies reveal significant flaws and limitations. We will take a brief look at some of these studies to understand these statistical fls and shed insurmountable doubt on the proposals sustainability in the American Work economy. Many of the new headlines touting these studies discuss the stress or Happiness Level of workers who work less time. Inevitably over the short term in these short pilot projects, its not inconceivable to imagine that Happiness Levels increase. The question is where does the pendulum end . At no work . Statistical studies, longterm statistical studies have shown us that happiness does not increase over time, it goes back to the same level. The study in france after mandatory government reduction of hours saw a return to the same level of happiness after 7 years. If you want to see those same employees really stressed out just see what happens when employers lay them off to hire parttime workers instead or have to close their doors because they cannot make enough revenue. Another major flaw in the study is self selection bias. The companies that choose to participate in some of these studies like the four day week global study are Companies Whose work tend to be able to be adapted■d■■ to a shorter workweek already, can remove, quote, wasted hours. Only companies that ehs able to adapt to shorter workweek that tend to participate. Cutting out, as they say, extraneo bakes, having more independent work, going to zoom but 70 of the us job economy is people working with their hands. They dont necessarily have extraneous meetings were too many coffee breaks to cut out. Statistically you cant apply this type of cutting of hours across the entire economy. Also given the types of companies that are potentially workweek, we could see a divide of the rich getting richer, having more time, and the poor needing to take on three ■w pa the bills. We also potentially disadvantage Older Workers who cannot necessarily physically n do the same amount of work in a shorter time. This happened to the great detriment of that population during the great depression. In terms of by shortening the week, the statistics just arent there and there are specific studies that show the opposite, japan tried it as doctor cassidy said from 1988 to 1996, the result was not ambiguous but economic output fell by 20 . Another largely touted study was in iceland which had a Pilot Program cutting the workweek by about four hours 201519. The results were all over the headlines that this overwhelming success. What is not reported on is the icelandic government or rather taxpayers now have to shell out almost 30 million extra a year to hire more healthcare workers because of this experiment. In spain where there is a Pilot Program, the companies that participate get access to a multimillion dollar government funding order to participate. Microsoft also tested four day workweek by shutting down its japan office every friday for the month of office. The statistical claim that this resulted in a 40 increase in productivity, this is a statistical fallacy, correlation is not necessarily causation. Productivity increased over a very short period of time during a low productivity months when overall productivity was already at a 75 year low. There is no statistical evidence to marriage and nationwide mandate of a 32 hour workweek and in fact, theres evidence against it. If it works for some companies and some sectors, that is great, but it cannot be applied to all sectors. Thank you. ■w thank you. Next is mister roger king, senior labor and Employment Council at Hr Policy Association which represents the chief Human Resource officers of nearly 400 of the largest business, highly regarded as a Labor Relations attorney, career spanning 40 years. He began out of law school as a counselor for this committee. He told me he appeared with angus king good, one of our colleague and worked with young teddy kennedy, jacob javits, and others show homecoming week for you. Thanks for being here, mister king. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, doctor cassidy, members of the committee, it is indeed a distinct honor to come back before this committee again. I had great experiences here working with robert taft junior, fritz mondale, ted kennedy, jack cavetts, angust for an adult beverage now and then. So thank you again for having me back. I am appearing here, doctor cassidy, as you mentioned, on behalf of the Hr Policy Association. We represent approximately 10 of the private Sector Workers in this country to our corporate members. I would like to start the discussion about mandating 32 hours, over 8 hours, over 12 hours, these are concepts that have consequences. This proposal only works if you reduce 8 hours a workweek and have the workers have the same level had at 40 hours. It just doesnt work in many industries. It doesnt work operationally. What we have is what i call a productivity gap where we have work that not yet getting done, for the 32 hour workweek situation. How do you feel that productivity gap . As you mentioned, senator cassidy, the inflationary impact of this type of proposal is considerable. I noted this week that the us labor statistics said that we have inflation at 3. 2 picked up from january. Our co inflation is 2. 8 or more, the 2 target rate for the fed. This is bad policy as it results to the consumer. What do i mean by that . If you cant fill the cutting back hours are making adjustments to your business, you pass on added costs to the consumer. You have to pay for it some way. The other very important point i would like to make his flexibility is the most important thing we are hearing from workers today. They want as much flexibility as possible as to how, when, and where they perform work. j the proposal of the chairman, all due respect, is going to interfere with that flexibility. Workers today want to be able to spend more time with their families and i certainly agree with the Panel Witness on that point. They also want to select as i said when, warehoused they work. Lets go to the history of the fair labor standards act which s been mentioned already numerous times, go back and look at the history of the new deal, why president Franklin Roosevelt was initiating this proposal. It was to increase the number of jobs in the country. The evidence is clea that proposal was put in place by the congress to increase the number of americans who come the workplace. What we are seeing today in the proposal of the chairman is a a tremendous shortage of workers. Industry after industrysnt have enough workers today. This proposal, for many employers, will cause even further worker shortages. The flexibit we do commend the chairman and this committee for having hearing on impact of ai. Senator cassidy, your suggestion for bipartisan discussion is excellent. We would welcome with that. No question, a i can increase productivity and no question that increased wealth can occur. It is what i call the ai dividend and we agree that workers and employers alike should share in that wealth. The way to go about that is let the market determine that distribution of wealth. Mister fain can negotiate a 32 hour workweek, so be it. If he can convince the autoworker companies in this country to it so be but let the market determine how the distribution of wealth is going to occur. Finally, as an overall point we commend the committee for starting a discussion about the fair labor standards act, this is one of the mosts■ litigate statutes in the country and we need to reexamine edge. The amount of litigation that occurs is way over the top. We need to address more clarity in this statute. Iav with the 32 hour workweek. I would close with this comment. I just saw the psenators bil last night and it is even more extreme than i thought we were going to be discussing today, the requirement of pay, overtime, over 8 hours, will be a significant Economic Impact on Many Companies and the requirement to pay double time over 12 hours, the only state in the country that does that is california, that from perspective is quite extreme. One last point on an example to bring this home. Healthcare employers in this country generally employ registered nurses for three, 12 hour shifts. They are going to three work days, buthe 12 hour shifts, that works by and large, but this proposal will four additional hours of overtime and in addition it would require overtime over 8. Thats going to have a very negative impact on the healthcare in this country and cause healthcare expenses to go up. The solution for the Healthcare Community is to get more nurses, more workers in the employment stream. Not to impose strict standards that will cripple employers and causing her mental costs. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to all of the panelists. Let me briefly respond to mr. Kings statement about letting the market decide who benefits from the transition to more advanced technology. For the last 50 years the market has done just that and the result has been, there has been a 50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 to the top 1 . After those 50 years, there are millions of workers who are worse off, but we have more income and wealth inequali than we have ever had in history of the country so im not in favor of letting the market decide. Not to of been a little bit liberal here, in terms of the time, we only have a few members here and it is an important subject. I wanted to start with president fain. I dont want to talk about statistics, we per lot of statistics, youve been with of the Union Forever three decades, no doubt youve met thousands of workers, met thousands of retirees. Tell the American People what it is like to work on a factory floor, in some cases, i learned this recently, there are people today in america working 7 days a week 12 hours a day, unbelievable. Talk about the impact on the life of the worker ntal, physically who is doing hard work day after day, year after year. What happens to that person . Thank you. I find irony in the some of the statements i have just listened to. The typical life of a or not, worse for nonunion workers because they have less rules that govern their workplace wh workers, many typical schedules are 12 our schedules, 7 days a week, a lot of these places run around the clock. When you are standing on concrete floors 12 hours a day 7 days a week year after year after year theres a lot of wear and tear on a persons body. As i say, people when they age end up in their older working years getting knee replacements, hip replacements, ut i find an iron he in some of this that mentally, the stress of working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, ont get to see your kids, dont get to go home and have dinner with your kids, dont get to make sure they are getting their homework done, dont get to spend quality tim dont have a family, if you have quality time for yourself, something sacrificed when you are working 12 hours a day either sleep or time with family, Something Else is sacrificed. We only have so much time in a day. But i find an iron in some of the comments made by mister king as far as shortage of workers. I dontel country. I think covid made people wake up and realize what is important in life and its not working 12 hours a day 12 an hour in multiple jobs just to get by. The shortage of workers that we see i dont believe is a shortage. I believe its a fact th people woke up and decided im not going to leave my home for 12 an hour when i cant even afford to pay the bills. Letting the market determine this, hr standard talking point about passing cost to the consumer. I witnessed inflation the last four years, it wasnt caused by it wasnt caused by it was caused by two words, corporate greed. Consumer price gouging. And so tha focused on the real here. Thank you. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world, yet we have people who are stressed out, we have a crisis in Mental Health. A lot of factors for that. That. And yet we are working longer hours than people in any other wealthy nation. How i think a lot of the reason for the long hours in this country have to do with the kinds of things that weve been talking here today and the fact n worker has not had enough power in the market to reduce hours but there are other aspects as well. One of the things we know from economic studies is that when inequality increases, so do working hours. The rise in inequality in the United States which he referred to earlier is one of the primary causes of longer working hours in the United States. From your perspective this discussion is not just theoretical. You have implemented it. Talk a little bit about the impact that it had what the transition to a four day work ek in your company, the impact that it has had on the workers there. It has been transformative for our workers. Ive been told this is one of the most impactful things theyve experienced in their lives because a lot of these workers are able to spend time with their kids, learning new skills, some me learned how to use ai and brought back into the workplace it is much more efficient as a result. They are learning new skills not related to work but just participating in communities longterm. You talk about increased productivity. ■ our workers more focused when they come back after 3 days . Yes. Workers are much more focused, better rested. They are dedicated to the task at hand in a different way and teams stitched together longer. The cohesiveness of the organization is much more robust. You are to burning peo arent churning through the. Not having to deal of turnover costs. Talk about turnover. One of the great cost of business is a lot of turnover and effort to train the workers. What do you think the impact of a 32 hour workweek would be on that . It was shocking honestly how much it changed turnover in the impact it had on our productivity. We rarely lost an employee in the last two years. People have longer tenure. We dont deal with hiring, the cost of hiring, the time of hiring someone else. Our goals dont get disrupted by sudden departure of a key employee. A 32 are workweek, people want to work. The notion that americans are lazy that some people seem to have is inaccurate and people want to work, but in a way that balances with the rest of their lives. They will stay in those jobs longer if the job is balanced with the rest of their lives. Thanks very much. Senator cassidy. I yield to senator ow th. Before i got here, 37 yea spent runnings a navigation of how hard it is when you sign the front side of a paycheck to get a little business, to ever get beyond that. As we grew into a regional, then national company, things change as you evolve. Weve had discussions before. Im a proponent of higher wages and good benefits. Been out there to where you want to be able to negotiate and bargain. But theres such a big difference in terms of that dynamic, wrapping it with mandates that would never enable most of what comprises our economy which would be Small Businesses, main street ones, to be in a position to where they would have to live with a homogenous approach to what we are talking out and for most business owners, if they can they are going to weave that into what they are able to offer their employees. Weve had the conversation. Big corporations are in places where they cornered the market. Theres a legitimate discussion of within between employees and Public Companies and a lot of times in professional management it would seem to rake in levels of pay i never thought were possible. Back to how i do disagree with trying to do anything from this place that would impose upon the preponderance of busineurv. Theres a legitimate issue to talk about, voluntarily. If you a and you are going to keep employees youre going to want to weave it in. Its a legitimate issue to bargain level of superlarge corporations and large workforces. That is as far as you can go. Most businesses would not be like yours. You wouldnt be in business if you werent open 6 days ak, for almost any Retail Business i am aware of including my wifes business in our downtown that has been there for nearly 45 years. It just would not work. Keep that in mind. I want to start with this question, i want to focus on would work on main street with Small Businesses. Im not worried about big corporations, they generally are going to land on their feet yw are to be negotiated with for all the things you might do to improve the position oal workers there, but what about main street and Small Business. We start with you, doctor victor it and mister king. I should learn mute and zoom. It is important to note so many of the studies that have been done, these pilots have shown incredible fingers, it is selfs election, these companies are choosing to be a part of that so they aree to cut out extraneous meetings and shorten coffee breaks and go to remote meetings for something, whatever it is. Never heard of anything you just mentioned in a Small Business. It is not there. We try to do it, we dont run out of time, i have a final question for mr. Leland. Mister king, would uaa not too. Good to see you again. This doesnt work for Small Business, doesnt work for any type of business. If you cant measure productivityorrectly and have the productivity gap satisfied. The proposal the chairman has put in legislation today would overrate, it would require overtime over 32, would require overtime doubletime. Small Business Needs to have flexibilitys. Employees hav■ family obligations, other obligations in their community, Employer Needs them sometimes more than 8, sometimes less. You know that from your business. The bill we are talking about today interferes with that flexibility. It is not sound policy. Mr. Leland. Would you agree that your business has certain characteristics that probably made it peculiar to you being able to do that or do you believe it would be transferable into the multitude of businesses on main street . Our business has characteristics that are not unique but lend themselves towards an easier transition to a four Day Work Week. The pilots doctor sure has worked on show that this is possible across multiple industries. It looks different, the transformation looks different, weve seen manufacturing, construction, healthcare, Police Departments do this successfully. Thank you. Senator murphy. Thank you for convening this hearing. This is an important conversation to have, where you stand on this issue, the fundamental question here that we are asking is where this wealth gone . That has been gathered in this economy from massive increases in productivity, if it hasn t and other unions have to fight tooth and nail just to be able to get living wage increases. Havent talked about yet. A lot of money is going to trust funds. A lot of that money is going into inherited wealth. At some point we should have a conversation about that a little more openly as a committee and as a congress. Is a stunning piece of data, for the first time last year, the majority of wealth for new billionaires in terms of people who became billionaires in 2,023 came not from their work but through inheritance. Time happened. Thousand billionaires are expected to pass down 5. 2 trillion worth of wealth to their heirs in the next two years. And so you hope that if the money isnt going to the workers it is at least being recycled back into the economy. This is not true. A lot of that money is passed s who in previous ages would not have been able to enjoy that level of benefit from their parents success. I want to talk a little bit about leisure time. You talked about this already. You importantly talked about the importance your faith plays in the work that you do in your life. A pretty wild thing happening in america today. 70 of americans belong to a religious institution but toda decline in the ability or willingness of americans to go to church or a religious institution on a regular basis. That has lots of broad impact gv in our society but there are lot of reasons for that but one of them is americans have less free time. When you have to work 70 hours to get the same standard of living for your family that 40 hours would have gotten you a few decades ago, you dont have time to go to wednesday night bible study. Might not have the ability even to attend Church Services on a sunday. You can talk about church if you want or if you dont want. It is true that some of the leisure time activities, some of the institutions americans found value and meaning in our less accessible when you have to work these long hours. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. One of the biggest, one of the things we talked about with the 32 hour work week when we put that in our contract talks was the fact that we wanted to createqn Work Life Balance because in this country we are the most productive, sadly i say, not probably, we are the most productive nation in the world, which means people are working more and more hours with less and less people, something has got to give. It is Work Life Balance. When you are working multiple jobs to live paycheck to paycheck or you are working 7 days a week 12 hours a day, Something Else is sacrificed in that. That is what ends up happening■ you have to sacrifice the ability to go to church, if it Something Else to do, maybe you get a sunday off and havent slept all week and yound the whole day sleeping, thats a reality a lot of workers face on some of the schedules they work. The thing to me, i hear all this, weve heard my whole life about good for business, good economics and those type things but to me, we have to focus i believe congress has an obligation here on Spending Priorities and regulations. That may be an ugly word to people who represent business, but the point of this, this should be■h create more jobs, more jobs at a better rate of pay so people have more free time to live. Ent is going invest in business the trillions of dollars we invest in business that our taxpayer dollars invest in business, thatse benefits should be going to workingclass people, not strictly business. Thats the problem. All this money goes to business but it never seems to funnel its way down to benefit workingclass people. I agree with you. We should have an interest in leisure time. We should have an interest in making sure people are able to find value outside of work. A lot of people find value in work and im glad they did a lot of people find more value by the institutions, social clubs, churches that they affiliate and spend me with t thats less accessible for people today and that should be a Public Policy interest of the United States congress and i appreciate the hearing allowing us to talk about that. Thank you. We have a little extra time. Ive got a lot of questions. First, i totally agree with you, my practice as a physician is in a hospital for the uninsured, folks want job and decent pay. I agree with that entirely. Theres little bit of confusion and what we are saying. When you say people are working longer to m money, if you just cut them down to 32 hours a week they are still making the same money. For them to grow their income they would have to either work full time and or take a second job and yes, companies that work 24 7 but people dont work 24 7, theyork on avera 41. 3 hours a week. We have to be clear on that. Lastly, productivity is not more hours to make the same money. Its more work per hour. It is oftentimes aided by mac less wear and tear on the body, not to say theres not wear and tear on the body with construction workers but thats the whole point. When you mention decreasing hours increases productivity it makes sense to me and i go to spain and mcdonalds, they dont have somebody at the front desk to take my order for a hamburger, they have a machine i push a button on the dispses it. The department of labor has said that if we raise minimum wage there will be a net loss of jobs because people automate in order to decrease their labor costs. How would if you are speaking labor cost by adding fewer hours of work for the same salary be any different than raising the minimum wage in terms of an incentive for net loss of jobs by replacing workers with automation . Thank you for the question. Let me respond. Two points. One is we are seeing no increase iovertime, second job holding in our studies. The impact we are seeing here are not labor displacing because people are able to make up that productivity in the four days they had in the 5 days. That surprises me. Intuitively, i am a doctor. Nurses working shorter hours, i will just say according to the Pennsylvania Hospital association, 30 of all our positions are not filled and apparently Temple University hospital spent 55 million for nurse over time because of a nursing shortage. Not sure i would swear that because they work less hours d pay more overtime or the other nurses are on three day schedules and so forth so this was put into place at two years after the pandemic started. The nurse managers are working less. Correct. They are not on five day schedules. Im almost out of time. Mister leland, we are trying to get something done. My staff is working 80 hours a week. Anytime on a saturday or sunday holiday, they are fully prepared. When youve got big crunch time, deadline has to hit, you got to move. People still work 32 hours . It is a norm. This is not penciled down at 32 hours, its the question of what is your standard work week. I look at frances Unemployment Rate among youth, it 17 . Pretty amazing. And the next group, 7 or 8 , much higher than ours, you mentioned, theyve got other labor laws as well but you mentioned this kind of sugar high of more satisfaction but then it goes away, also that there is loss of work as they go to temporary work or offshore. Can you elaborate on that its the same ideas, right when covid hit, baking bread or doing whatever we are doing it as code went ond your home more you are sitting in your bed longer. It shows in the long term studies things go back to normal. We see that happen all over again. I think we see it clearly in terms of unemployment in the same way. The other things that occur, disruption of the economy et cetera really have more to dictate your happiness than whether you work less. There may be a loss of a job because of the impact. That is what happened in france, people lost their jobs. And mister king, just to make a point, theres nothing to prevent a business leland o University Hospital or a select group of employees to have a policy which would be 32 hours a week so no reason for a mandate per sale. Companies can do that, just make that point. Absolutely and thats the point. Lets give flexibility to workers and employers, dont have government come in and intervene, its going directly in the opposite position of where we should be going. As far as the number of workers available in this country, i agree, we need to get more people back io the workforce for sure but study after study shows even if we did that, looking at a recent us chamber of commerce study, we would have 3 million jobs open in this country, this proposal is going in the wrong direction. Flex ability is what we need. Want to ask you this. You mentioned, didnt quite get the association versus causation. You■ say when theres more inequality, people work longer hours. I didnt understand that relationship was that association or causation . Macroeconomic studies. We believe they are causation but they are not controlled experiments. Any comment . If yout you cannot find causation. It is statistics. I becam to a person who became pregnant and just because it happened at the same time it is not a causation. Its an association. These are highly sophisticated studies. I disagree with the idea that we could only know something i am out of time. People need to work more hours to keep up, because theres a comparative dimension to peoples sense of the thing of milk cost more because somebody else is making more but that no thank you, mr. Chair. Ive been lookingward all day to this panel. I appreciate your time and contributions. Great to see you again. Appreciate all the work you did to bring up a four day week in negotiations and after there with doctor sure, undergraduate student when i was a graduate student and somehow she hasnt aged whereas i have. Theres an injustice there that needed to be pointed out. Research over all these years on the lives people need in various types of jobs. You talk a little bit about different ways people have a shorter workweek, taking part off every day or a full day, what are the pros and ive got several questions, pros and cons on this . The majority in our study, thank you, by the way. Wonderful to see you. E doing full days off. Over 90 of our studies are doing full days off and that seems to be a much moreop to d daily hours. Theres a little bit of variation. One thing we looked at in our studies was whether or not having three consecutive days had a bigger impact on wellbeing and we were surprised that it doesnt. In some of them people are taking those wednesdays off to get a break in the middle of the week. Interesting. Better work for Small Businesses . Yes. Great question. 70 of the businesses in the us and canada sample haveewer than 25 employees. This is proving to be an especially appealing thing for Small Businesses and it may have to do with higher levels of stress they are seeing among their employees and one of the things we are seeing is the small number of companies discontinuing, we are trying to figure out whats common among them and so far the only thing we can see is they are not achieving the same levels of wellbeing increase that the ones who dont stop are. Our. Interesting. When i was mayor, when i first became we had the worst budget recession ever and one of the stopgap measures we did was compelled all City Employees to take friday afternoons off. That was not perfect, no one likes that when you are on a tight budget to have to make your budget balance at the end he to this day, to give people that friday off every week, we saw increase in sales at local restaurants which was interesting, other retail sales went up, so there is some accessory benefit. Im going to skip past Mister Leland help i cant tell you how excited i am to have the chief officer for kick starter, done. Ire so i want to go to doctor witt it, because i found it compelling that she was in 2018 the coolest person in scotland and that her Television Show libertys Great American cookbook which, is it still showing . It is . Cheney dolled viewers i can get. We dont want to miss the through that and looked this up last night when i saw that because vittert is not a common name, it is less than mr. Leland, her brother leland van hollen was an admired journalist based in denver when i first became mayor so he reeducated me from the school of hard knocks on how to think about these things. Anyway, one argument in favor of implementing 32 hour workweek is these tech advancements like ai are going to make such a dramatic increase. How realistic do you think that is and with those productivity increases begin to show or begin to have a benefit . The issue that we see here the word ai and dont necessarily know what that means and as someone who works in this space we dont know yet what abilities ai is going we are trying to figure out what those words mean. To say theres going to be this explosion of productivity] we dont know yet and im certainly not saying, its above my pay grade, that people shouldnt share in that but mandating reduction of the workweek is not the way to do it. Same question to you. Youve gone into ai, your feeling on that. Tremendous opportunity for everybody. The issue of distribution of wealth, wealth dividend, this is what we are talking about here. Productivity and compensation tract similarly for decades. Economists agree on that. There have been time lags. But the market will lv shawn fain will negotiate hard for 32 hours. Others will advocate for 32 hours. We have examples of that. Dont have congressman pose this on employers or employees. You are negotiating of 32 hour work week. Ultimately it wasnt included q in the final contract but what were the concerns, unique concerns that were raised by employers, what do4z you thinkt would take to get those employers to move . I think in terms of 36 hour workweek that would be applied in the city. Its roughly 10 pay raise as a way to think of doing Something Like that. The level of appreciation was palpable. You can feel it. Whats your sense on that . Of fear of change of doing something different. ■v look at studies that have been done when workers, especially factory workers, when they look 10 hours they are not as productive. Productivity drops off. As anythingyearold i remember putting apart on a transmission. Its monotonous work doing over and over again. Your minds wandering off. So many benefits, semblance of Work Life Balance and with advances in technology Companies Choose to a laminate jobs and squeeze more people, remaining people working more hours. I appreciate that. I have more questions but i will yield back to the chair. Thank you for being here. Senator cassidy has asked unanimous consent. Mr. King, you can inform your clients our legislation will probably not be passing tomorrow. They will be glad to hear that. Im sure they will. The point of this hearing is to try to raise at the congressional level something that has not been discussed here for decades after decades. As all of us have understood we are living in a difficult moment in american history. We have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Senator murphy made the point that for the billionaire class, a majority of that wealth is being not earned but being transferred to children, unearned income if you like. We are seeing ceos making 350 times more than their workers, 60 of the people in america are living paycheck to paycheck. We have the highest level of childhood poverty of any major country on earth, many older people finding it hard to retire. Weve got to start asking some fundamental questions. This is an extraordinarily wealthy country. N top own more wealth than the bottom half, according to the Rand Corporation over the last 50 years the Rand Corporation is not exactly a socialist organization. Over the last 50 years, 50 from the bottom 90 to the top 1 . In the wealthiest country in the history of the world the vast majority of people are struggling to put food on the table, are living under incredible stress, how Life Expectancy is significantly lower for workingclass people, for workingclass in this country, you live 10 years fewer than if you were upperclass. These are issues that have got to be discussed. I am not suggesting a 32 hour workweek is going to change al weve got to talk about, stress in this country, the fact that so many people are going to work p exhausted, physically a mentally, and the fact that we have not changed the fair labor standards act, this was in 1940 we came up with the 40 hour workweek. Who is going to deny the economy has not fundamentally and radically changed . To suggest we have to maintain what we put in place 84 years ago does not make a lot of sense to me. Let me conclude by thanking our panel. It has been a good discussion. I hope the discussion continues, thank you all very much for being here today. For any senators who wish to ask additional questions, they will be due in ten business days. I asked unanimous consent to enter two statements in support of shortened work weeks including the statement from congressman takano and committees across the country. We stand adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] House Speaker mike johnson hosts presidt den and the irish Prime Minister for the annual friends of iron and ireland luheon. Coverage begins on cspan, cspan now, our free mobile video apps or online, cspan. Org. Get Contact Information from members of the government in the palm of your hands when you preorder your copy of cspans 2024al directory with bio and Contact Information for every house and Senate Member of the one hundred eighteenth congress, Important Information on congressional committees, the president s cabinet, federal