As part of his Labor Day message to workers in the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday re-upped his call for the establishment of a 20% cut to the workweek with no loss in pay—an idea he said is “not radical” given the enormous productivity gains over recent decades that have resulted in massive profits for corporations but scraps for employees and the working class.
“It’s time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay,” Sanders wrote in a Guardian op-ed as he cited a 480% increase in worker productivity since the 40-hour workweek was first established in 1940.
“It’s time,” he continued, “that working families were able to take advantage of the increased productivity that new technologies provide so that they can enjoy more leisure time, family time, educational and cultural opportunities—and less stress.”
You shouldn’t have to take a cut in pay for this. Productivity has increased and the benefits of the productivity increase has only gone to the ultra wealthy.
But negotiating only for higher wages per hour and lower hours as a package deal could make it harder to get either. It probably depends employer to employer, but doing both at the same time would be hard to make them do.
Which is why we need to build class solidarity, unions, and strike. A hundred years ago, people fought for everything they could get. They didn’t say “safe working conditions or a 40h work week.” They said, “we want all we can get.”
Yes that’d be good. But I still don’t see the advantage of only talking about these as a package deal.
If you start from a compromised position you will only get less.
How does putting these as separate line items in negations compromise the position?
Because it’s easier to pick them apart separately. Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book.