HR Policy Association’s Senior Labor and Employment Counsel, Roger King, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP Committee) at a hearing examining Senator Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) proposal on a 32-hour workweek. The focus of the hearing was to ensure that employees share any “AI wealth dividend” resulting from AI-related productivity advances in the workplace.
In his testimony, Mr. King emphasized that the Association is not opposed to a 32-hour workweek or other non-traditional workweek configurations that make operational and financial sense for employers and provide flexibility to employees. The Association does not, however, support amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to change overtime requirements from 40 hours to 32 hours while prohibiting any reductions in pay.
The Association’s testimony also discussed the current employee relations landscape, questioning the rationale for creating a new mandatory workweek at a time when employees are requesting, and employers are providing, flexibility in how and when work is performed. The Association encouraged the Committee to consider a number of critical issues as part of its examination of a 32-hour workweek and a corresponding requirement that employers not reduce employees’ wages and benefits, including:
- Worker shortage concerns. The adoption of a 32-hour workweek would increase the number of positions an employer would need to fill to meet clients and customer demands with no corresponding strategy for how these shortages should be addressed.
- Payroll cost impact on employers. The amount of work an employer needs to have completed does not change when converting to a 32-hour workweek, resulting in the need to hire more employees or pay significant overtime for existing employees.
- Operational coverage. If an employer wishes to minimize overtime expenses and not incur the cost of hiring additional workers, it may need to limit hours of operation, which is not possible for 24/7 employers such as hospitals and hospitality.
- Employee loss of work. Mandating a 32-hour workweek at current compensation may, in many situations, result in either job elimination or an increase in part-time work, thereby adversely impacting employees’ overall compensation.
- Is increased productivity possible? Increase productivity is not guaranteed in every workplace, making the 32-hour workweek problematic. Warehouse operations which have physical limitations on how many products can be moved, are an example of where workers have little or no ability to increase their productivity.
