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 will see senators drifting in and out. I want to thank all of our panelists for being with us. This morning, we are going to be talking about an issueely discussed in the halls of congress or the senate. That is the need to reduce the 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 the head of the United Auto 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 transition to the widespread use of automation. In 1886, 1 of the planks was to establish anight 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 for autoworkers. Heres something i believe that most people in our country do not know. In 1933, the United StatesSenate Overwhelmingly passed legislation to establish a 30 hour work week by a vote of 5330. That was 1933. While that legislation ultimately failed as a result of a decision from corporate 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 yearsdespite massive growth in Worker Technology in worker productivity, millio 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 more hours 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 than employees in japan. 279 more hours than workers in the United Kingdom and 470 more hours than workers in germany. Despite these long hours, the average worker in america makes almost 50 a week less then ago after adjusting for inflation. No let that sink in for a moment. Think about all of the extraordinary changes in technology that we have seen over the last 50 years. Rtificial intelligence, and the huge increase in worker productivity that has been achieved during that time. In factories and warehouses, robots and sophisticated machinery did not exist then or were only used in primitive forms. There were no checkout counters that utilized barcodes. As a result of the extraordinary technological transformations that we have seen in recent years, American Workers are now over 400 more productive than they were in the 1940s. Extraordinary. Technology has made working people far more and what has been the result of all that productivity increase for working people . 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 oyem 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. And what stresses them out even further is that after spending all of their time at work, many of them still are living he 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 15 years. The economy is going to be transformed by Artificial Intelligence and robotics. The question we are asking today is a Pretty Simple question, do we c trend that technology only benefits the people on top, or do we demand that these transformational 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 are companies all over our country and all over the world that have adopted the 40 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 hourkweek 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 least an extra . 25 per 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. In fact, there is even incentive for them to dip down so they make everybody parttime and then they dont have to pay certain penalties or certain requirements which are required for full time. If a business wants to voluntarily try a 32 hour workweek 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 employer things it is good for their business, go for it. But i will note that the chair has not done that with his staff. Why . Because there 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 keep their 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 ws 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 four Day Work Week but those workers work 40 hours within those four days. Ai and other technologies have the potenal 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 your head yes. We need to explore it. My Office Published a white paper last year on how this committee should approach 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 people 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. I dont think the federal government should mandate it to placate a Democratic Political base. Frankly it seems and exercise to help the uaw lay the groundwork for furniture future negotiations. They should discuss it at the bargaining table. Either way, i apologize if this hearing givesone 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. There has been a concerning pattern from democrats in prioritizing policies to help politically connected unions at the expense of the workers and businesses themselves. Recently the Biden Administration proposed a new overtime rule dramatically increasing overtime 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 person to become a Small Business person and otherwise would not have. The department labors new independent contractor rule jeopardizes the ability of 27 million americans work as independent contractors, with the flex ability to pick their own hours and work for multiple businesses, but their 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 a bill which will never pass and will be 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 thehe 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 issues to any union leader, any workingclass 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 industries, 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 is they wish they had thats what work does. We are paid for our time, and when we were we are sacrificing time with other people, 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 the fight for the 30hour week, an idea that was alive and well for back in the 1930s and 1940s. But today deep into the 21st , century, wnd 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 multiplejobs, 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 Health crisis we talked about a lot in this country, but we never talk about the causes of that. There have been studies done increases in stress from working seven days 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 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 in 1933, the u. S. Senate passed legislation to establish a 30 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. This is a workingclass issue 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 aren up. They are fed up with being left behind and stripped of dignity as wealth and inequality spirals out of control. They are fed up that in america, three families have as muchwealth as the bottom 50 of citizens in this nation. That is criminal. America is better than this. I want to close with this. I agree there is an epidemic in this country a people who dont want to work. Who cant be bothered to get up every day and contribute to our society. But instead want to freeload off the labor of others. 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 produce and how little they contribute to humanity. The people im talking about are the wall street freeloaders, the masters of passive income. Those who profit off the labor of others have all the time in the world, while those who make this country run, the pe 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 author of the bestselling book, the overworked american. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, good morning, im honored to have this opportunity to support the 32 hour 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