Bernie Sanders, the nefarious propagandist for the Soviet Union, has done it again. This time, the Senator from Vermont has introduced a bill that would drastically reduce Americans’ working hours while maintaining their current levels of income. The legislation cites concerns about new forms of automation currently sweeping the country (i.e., AI) as the impetus for the bill.
Sanders’s new Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act—which could just as easily be called the Three-Day Weekend Act—would create a four-day workweek in the U.S., while mandating new overtime pay minimums to ensure that companies are adequately covering workers’ cost of living. In fact, the proposed law would bar employers from paying employees less than they are currently being paid, despite the reduction in working hours.
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“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,” Sanders said, in a statement posted to his website. “That has got to change. The financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street.”
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Concerns about new forms of automation have swirled over the past year, as advances in generative AI have threatened the livelihoods of workers across industries. Policymakers have paid lip service to these concerns but haven’t done much about it.
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You can imagine how well Sanders’s bill has gone over in our nation’s capital, where corporate cash-flows are the fuel behind all policy decisions. At a U.S. Senate hearing on the bill, legislators made it clear that they just couldn’t abide any sort of legislation that would make Americans’ lives marginally easier. While smiling as if talking to someone of markedly low IQ, our government’s representatives gave Sanders various reasons for why letting Americans work less and enjoy their lives more was a terrible idea.
“A 32-hour work week would be catastrophic,” Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) lamented in his response to Sanders’ bill. “Government should not be in the business of undermining an employer’s ability to keep their doors open with unreasonable and perhaps unconstitutional mandates.”
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The Sanders bill notes that other countries—like France, Norway, and Denmark—already have substantially shorter working hours and are still, somehow, able to stave off national economic collapse. The bill is backed by most of America’s major labor unions, including the AFL-CIO.
If you want to call your Senator and beg them for a three-day weekend, you can consult the Congressional phone number index here.
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