California Bill Proposes Mandating 32-Hour Workweek for Large Companies
A federal version is also being prepared.
Given the crime surge, drug problems, and the problems associated with unchecked illegal immigration and homelessness, you would think that the California state legislature would be very busy.
And while you would be correct, the legislature’s priorities aren’t precisely aligned with the problems the state and its citizens are experiencing.
For example, the Assembly now is considering a proposal that would mandate a 32-hour workweek for larger companies.
A new bill introduced in the state assembly would make the official workweek 32 hours for companies with 500 or more employees, with hefty raises for any work done past that cutoff. Employers would be required to pay time-and-a-half to workers whose hours run over 32 a week. Work stretching past 12 hours a day or into seven days a week would be paid at double their normal wage.
Employers subject to the law also would be barred from reducing workers’ pay because they are working less, assembly member Cristina Garcia, one of the bill’s sponsors, told the Los Angeles Times. The bill would not cover workers who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
California Assembly Bill 2932 was authored by Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) and Evan Low (D-San Jose). However, there is also a federal bill that is being prepared.
At the federal level, a bill by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) is pushing for similar changes under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Reached by phone Friday, Garcia said the idea was prompted in part by the exodus of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of whom were seeking a better quality of life. More than 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We’ve had a five-day workweek since the Industrial Revolution,” Garcia said, “but we’ve had a lot of progress in society, and we’ve had a lot of advancements. I think the pandemic right now allows us the opportunity to rethink things, to reimagine things.”
The state bill is still in its first steps and needs to be voted on by the state Assembly.
If the bill passes, 2,585 employers would be affected, according to California’s Employment Development Department.
…The California Chamber of Commerce says the increase in labor costs would discourage job growth, especially with so many employers still trying to recover from the pandemic and facing higher prices for supplies.
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Mon dieu! The Democrats are turning French.
Not quite that bad. At least this bill doesn’t seek to ban employees from voluntarily putting in overtime, and doesn’t cover salaried employees or those with a union contract.
Give them time.
“Not on union contract”. Key point to hire union. They have attempted to kill off private contractors and people on gigs.
In California, if you have 5 or more employees you must provide a retirement plan. If you don’t select a plan the State provides one. So that brings in the salaried employees.
All of this makes starting a business more uphill… but… it should since it’s a workers’ paradise. The job of business is to provide jobs at any and all costs in El Norte.
Dems are doing their best to get business to leave California faster than they already are.
Just another Socialist attempt to turn our own tax money against us and kill part of the American economy…Classic Cloward-Piven!
Stupidest fucking thing imaginable.
The consequences of this for any employee are pathetically predictable.
500 employees? Anybody with that many workers is almost certainly running 7 days a week.
So what’s going to happen is they’re going to hire 2 sets of employees, one group works M-Th, one group runs Th-Sun. And on Thursday when they have too many employees, they get laid off and don’t even get their 32 hours.
Congratulations California, you’re cutting worker wages by 20%.
These people are so utterly disconnected from how the world works its unbelievable.
“So what’s going to happen is they’re going to hire 2 sets of employees,”
Good luck with that. All of the companies out my way (granted they don’t have 500 employees, but…) are having a devil of a time hiring ONE set of employees. We have restaurants who flat stopped serving dinner, and the holdouts are shutting down at 7 PM.
I think it’s a tax scam. Overtime is heavily taxed.
So is everything else
In CA overtime earnings are “regular income”, only at a higher hourly rate. So the state collects more tax on OT pay… And this will push some workers into higher brackets with the increased gross pay.
I see some business who can do so moving out of the state.
For a minute, I thought they were mandating a MINIMUM 32-hour workweek, as a response to those companies who deliberately limit employee hours so they don’t have to pay health benefits. That would also have been bad, just in a different way.
“I think the pandemic right now allows us the opportunity to rethink things, to reimagine things.”
Uh huh.
Mr. Crisis, I want you to meet Mr. Never Let It Go To Waste.
Ah, leftism. Utopia is always around the corner. And if it’s not around the corner, it’s around the next one. Or the next one. Or the next one. Wait. I PROMISE it’s the next one. Gee, how come everything has turned into a wasteland looking for this place?
No one will ever be allowed to “officially” work more than 32 hours. Companies will limit employees to 25 hours to ensure that they don’t accidentally go over the limit. They will put more workers on salary so that they can fudge the numbers and fire anyone who complains, etc. and so on. This kind of legislation doesn’t help actual working people.
You forgot to mention ,”completely unconstitutional”.
I predict the creation of a lot of new companies with less than 500 employees to which the companies with more than 500 employees will outsource their work.
Someone should read “The Mythical Man-Month”.
Democrats don’t understand human nature. They don’t even believe there is such a thing. Not even their own.
It would cost them low four figures to send an intern to meet with the CEO of a randomly-picked company, give him the gist of the bill, then ask him how he would game it. They can’t be bothered.
That’s how you end up enacting bills that require guns to FAIL safety tests before they can be sold in your state, and accidentally make felonies out of July 4 veterans’ parades.
I predict a lot of automation in California’s future.
I predict California doesn’t have a future.
That’s after they pass a law mandating a per-machine annual permit – license – fee on the automation equipment.
There won’t even be any more UFO sightings if they do that.
averaging 32 hours or more per week is when my company benefits kick in
Do it. It will enhance the split between Leftist-ruled states and America. If California does this, fewer companies will open there, and new companies will instead seek a different place to start up. It won’t be in Democrat run Colorado, but there are still places where it is American. And facing the competitive disadvantage, more companies will move from California to America, and probably not be too thrilled at any movement in their new state to try to imitate California.
Subotai Bahadur
I agree, unless someone can show me how it doesn’t work to the advantage of the rest of the country, especially the red states.
How about when they bring their leftist employees with them?
I see a lot of businesses closing their doors.
Absolutely. None of the smaller companies would escape the effects of this. This would force overtime pay on the larger companies, making smaller company wages uncompetitive.
This is a truly futile and stupid gesture…and Cali Democrats are just the guys to do it!
They’re not trying this because they are stupid. Their objective is to take down capitalism and the American economy. They are using every weapon socialism has to do this. Especially galling is the fact that they are using our own tax money, against us and , so far, they are getting away with it…while we call them stupid.
Oh yeah, that’s the ticket, piss on democracy, markets and free enterprise, what you need is MANdates. Man dates are what happens in bathhouses, not where wholesome, industrious, prosperity thrives.
Even Californians do not deserve that malignancy that is being imposed against them by their putrid government.
California voters have been building this kind of government for decades….
True enough and they have yet to plunder the depths of depravity they have created.
Might be worth noting that the provisions apply to hourly workers. Salaried employees would not be included, although the amendment neglects to include the section of the existing law that calls out generally exempt workers. I think the intent is that this only applies to hourly workers, but that will really create a rift — and more than a few people will be told that they are now salaried if the HR folks can determine that their jobs fit the requirement.
They may actually get away with it in the short-term if they have a labor shortage, but come a recession, and states with such laws will be hit especially hard.
Off topic, but this is very worth reading.
The goal is to push past the point of no return before the majority realizes it. It’s a graveyard spiral down through the clouds… by the time one punches through the clouds recovery is at best marginal. The Left knows that at some point they can close the borders, declare amnesty and create a one party rule. What Johnson said about the Civil Rights Act and hundreds of years of voting by certain… ah… well… his words for Blacks… will apply tothe illegal immigration. The minute the hard core talk of closing the border… that is past the point of no return.
Well worth reading indeed. However, I fear that the situation may be hopeless, because poor quality public education is a feature not a bug of the Left.
Govt control over the means of production? Gosh that sounds familiar from somewhere. Oh yeah, the former USSR.
This will not end well.
They think that they can abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too. We are playing with a double-edged scalpel.
Work less, earn more, finitely available and accessible resources, and progressive energy… How long will the Chinese enable labor and environmental arbitrage, engage in practical and actual slavery, and temper their ambitions to annexation of Tibet and violent conflicts with bordering nations?
A shortened workweek is as foolish as the minimum wage. Ultimately both harm the very people the champions of these sorts of measures profess to help. In both cases the cost of a worker is artificially increased so businesses will respond by culling the least productive workers.
This will result in less employment and less wages for workers who are below average. The remainder will have increased productivity targets and more stress. That’s all assuming that employers don’t simply abandon CA for greener pastures in a State where the govt doesn’t use regulations to harness private enterprise to conduct social experiments.
This will backfire like everything else the left does. But then, they’re out to destroy our country and way of life. So ‘backfires’ are good for them, so long as they destroy.
Btw: does this seem to any of you like this could be an unconstitutional taking without just compensation?
France on the Pacific, suggestion after that passes give everyone August off for a month vacation.
But if you told the legislators they had to work 32 hour weeks they’d scream bloody murder, go figure…