>> the senate committee on health education labor and pin hits will come to order. this has been a shortened week so i think you're 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 issue that is very rarely discussed in the halls of congress or the senate.

that is the need to reduce the standard work week in 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 an eight 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. here's something i believe that most people in our country do not know.

in 1933, the united states senate overwhelmingly passed legislation to establish a 30 hour work week by a vote of 53-30. that was 1933. while that legislation ultimately failed as a result of a decision from corporate america, a 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 years later, despite massive growth in worker -- technology in worker productivity, millions of workers 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 i'm 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 that's 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 -- and i hope people hear this, logged 204 more hours per year 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 he or she did 50 years 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. computers, robotics, artificial 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 1940's.

extraordinary. technology has made working people far more productive, 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 employees, workers throughout the 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 paycheck-to-paycheck and cannot take care of their basic needs. at a moment in history when

artificial intelligence and robotics, and i hope we all understand the jobs that people have today ain't 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 continue the 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 hour workweek with no loss in pay, my staff has volunteered to be the test case for that. who wouldn't 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 they've 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 part-time and then they don't 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 don't 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. that's 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 don't have people as they do

in china working 80 hours a week, but we have that balance. this disrupts that balance. and we won't maintain the status of being the world's 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 has a four day work week but those workers work 40 hours within those four days. ai and other technologies have the potential 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 ai and the impacts upon health, education, and labor. and we are working on next steps based on that feedback. but a mom-and-pop 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 mom-and-pop 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 didn't happen. i don't 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 gives anyone 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 of becoming a small business 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 would've 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 congress 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 the united automobile workers. he 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. i'm here to talk about one of the most important issues to any union leader, any working-class

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 i'd made more money.” what they wish for is they wish they had more time. that's 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 wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. he predicted a 15-hour work week. 100 years ago. in my own union, i go back into our archives and read of the fight for the 30-hour week, an idea that was alive and well for -- back in the 1930's and 1940's. but today deep into the 21st

, century, we find these ideas 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 multiple jobs, they are leaving to work and scraping to get by in living paycheck-to-paycheck. we find workers today later in their life working deep into their 60's, 70's, and 80's because they cannot afford to retire. and we find the associated deaths of despair from addiction and suicide, of people who don't 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 they've 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 to heart disease, cancer, strokes. 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, we've 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 working-class issue and that's 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 working-class people take back their lives and take back their time?

many in this room will say people just don't want to work, or working-class people are lazy. but the truth is, working-class people aren't lazy, they are fed up. they are fed up with being left behind and stripped of dignity as wealth and equality -- inequality spirals out of control. they are fed up that in america, three families have as much wealth 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 don't want to work. people who can't 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 blue-collar people. those aren't working-class people. it's a group of people who are never talked about for how little they actually work and

produce and how little they contribute to humanity. the people i'm 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 people who build the products, 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 working-class 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

time since the author of the best-selling book, the overworked american. thank you for being with us. >> thank you, good morning, i'm 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 has risen to 400%, yet full-time employee still logged an average of 41.9 hours a week. annual hours even rose in the 1990's and have barely changed since then. these trends depart from the steady reduction in hours between 1870 in world war ii and from trends in other wealthy countries. the average american is on the job 400 more hours a year than in germany, 200 more than in france and the u.k. and more than the average japanese. this is despite the u.s.

historically being the global leader in worktime reduction in the world's first five-day week country. this was the situation when the pandemic hit, which brought with it extraordinary levels of stress and burnout, resignation and historically high job vacancies. in response, an increasing number of employees are shifting to a water day, 32 are week with no reduction in pay. i was asked to lead research on their experiences and in collaboration with an ngo called for date week global. they include all sectors, health-care care, mom-and-pop restaurants, manufacturing and construction, retail, non-profits, it, finance, and professional services, and even a police department in golden, colorado. in the u.s., 78 percent of these

are small businesses with 50 or fewer employees, which is similar to the u.s. economy. our results have been extremely positive for both workers and the companies. we have 26 well-being measures for more than 3600 employees, every one of which registers improvement from baseline to the end of the trial. nearly 60% of employees experienced better work-family balance, anxiety, sleep problems, fatigue, physical and mental health improved for 40% of workers. 69% of employees have lower burnout scores. it is fins tell us the new schedule is life-changing. one person reports that had it not been for the pilot, i wouldn't have had the time or the availability to get medical appointments and procedures which ultimately led to the early detection of something that might've proved fatal.

that something was cancer. in our statistical modeling, we find that the larger the worktime reduction, the greater the increase in well-being. fewer sleep problems and less fatigue or one reason. but the second is that a majority of employees register an increase in their productivity over the trial. they are more energized, focused, and capable, partly as a result of organizationwide changes in work culture and processes. in response to methodological criticism, i will just say here that our findings are robust across time, across place, and industry and contain a large number of variables to rule out alternative explanations. for employers, the most important number is 91%. that's the fraction of companies who have continued with a four day week after at least one full year.

in the u.s. and canada, only two companies have gone back to a five day schedule. their performance metrics reveal why. resignation spell 22%, absenteeism decline 39%, revenue increased an average of 30%. some companies report that quality of service improved. after losing 50% of their inpatient nurse leaders during the first two pandemic years, temple university hospital gave them a four day week. patient outcomes improved and voluntary turnover fell to zero. if the u.s. adopts a four day week, 32 hour week, it is likely that hourly productivity will rise. that has been the experience of both workers and management in our trials. it has historically what scholars have concluded from past reductions in worktime and it of course wealth -- with

international comparisons come the countries with the highest levels of per our productivity are those with the shortest working hours. i began rhyme remarks by referencing our fourfold increase in productivity. the fact that so little of that productivity increase has been put toward reducing hours has left american workers suffering from burnout and stress with families in special jeopardy. the pandemic exacerbated this pre-existing problem. given the current robust rates of u.s. productivity growth, the promise of further large increases from artificial intelligence and the fact that over the last 84 years the standard workweek has been unchanged, it is now time for a 32 hour week. thank you. sen. sanders: thank you very much. our next witness is john lehman, chief strategy officer at kickstarter and co-founder of a

nonprofit. he successfully introduced the four day work week at his company in 2022 and supports employers, unions and policymakers advancing the 32 hour work week. thanks for being with us. >> good morning. as the chiefs strategy officer at kickstarter, i bring a unique perspective to this panel, having input minute and experienced a four day work week in our country of 118 employees. our journey began during the pandemic, a period that completely upended traditional work norms and demonstrated how ingrained and potentially outdated some of our assumptions are around work. the pandemic also clarified that the time we have with our families and loved ones is the most valuable thing that we have. kickstarter is a data driven company and we were initially driven by repeated studies and success stories demonstrating that a four day work week benefit both businesses and

employees. we also recognize some common sense around how a four day work week could work. hours worked as a factor in productivity but is not determinate. efficiency, focus, and employee retention are all equally or more critical. people are tired workers are already finding ways to rest at work. they're surfing the internet, they're just slowing down, they are stepping away just to get the energy to get to the work day. i would rather just give people back their time so they can properly rest. in april 2022, we initiated a six-month pilot. our goal was to maintain or improve overall productivity. to do that, the bargain we made with our employees was simple. they would get back an extra day every week, retaining the same salary and benefits and in exchange, we expected them to manage their time effectively, show up to work every week rested and ready to go, and get the job done. we were not going to scale back

our ambitions or our goals to accommodate the four day work week. the result of our pilot were clear. our goal achievement rate soared from 62% to 95%. customer response times, satisfaction rating stayed the same. employee retention increased from 82% to 98%. all while reducing average weekly working hours by nine hours a week for each employee. we made the decision to stick with the four day work week and have kept it for two years. the most profound change has been the impact to our employees. in just two years, we've been able to return new -- nearly 10,000 days, more than 27 years. those are years of spending time with family and their children, volunteering in their communities, learning new skills, and taking care of their health. the value of that time is

priceless and ultimately has been the greatest outcome of our transition to a four day work week. the five-day workweek was established 84 years ago in the u.s.. critics back then also predicted doom. they worried that a week and would destroy the american economy. instead helped launch just to the front of a global pack. entire industries, the american middle-class became the envy of the world and the week and became a time when families and communities came together. with ai looming on the horizon, it's time for a much-needed update. the studies echo what we learned at kickstarter, that when piloted, the four day work week works. all 35 north american companies that piloted the four date workweek with us in 2022 have kept it. if it didn't work, for-profit

companies would abandon it. you don't need theories or advanced data. you just need to see that the companies that this tend to stick with it. this is not just tech companies, these are manufacturing companies, health care facilities and pleas to perms that are making this transition. it can and must benefit all workers in our society. that's why the bill introduced by the chairman is so important. it would ensure that we are defining a new standard for weekly that benefits all, not just the most privilege. with the opportunity we have now, it's important to ensure all american workers and our society reap the dividends. the four day work week is an issue backed by data that americans of all stripes in poll after poll sate matters to them. it affords the opportunity to deliver a boost to our economy and happiness to every american worker, to strengthen american

families and communities. the original weekends did just that, and it's time to do it again. sen. sanders: center cassidy, do you want to introduce your witnesses? >> a professor of the practice of data science in st. louis, she is a senior fellow at harvard university and m.i.t. researcher and statistician to discovery channel shows and is featured in a number of publications. what is most interesting is that she studied at the cordon bleu. so we axley have someone who knows how to cook something more than pancakes. we are pleased to have you. >> chairman sanders, dr. cassidy, thank you so much for

having me here today. i am a statistician and we've heard a lot of statistics thrown around. so i'm here to make some sense of these and make sure we are analyzing them property. proponents of the 32 hour workweek often point to statistical studies, mostly pilots, that suggest shorter work weeks can lead to increased productivity and improved employee well-being. the argument is making broad claims based upon week and since this tickly -- statistically flawed data sets. there are significant flaws and limitations. it take a brief look at some of the studies to understand the statistical flaws and shed significant and potentially insurmountable doubt on the proposal for sustainability in the american work economy. many of the news headlines touting the studies discuss the stress or happiness levels of workers who work less time. inevitably, over the short term,

in the short pilot projects, it is not inconceivable to imagine that having -- happiness levels increase. the question is where does the pendulum end at no work? statistical studies, long-term statistical studies have shown us that happiness does not increase over time, it goes back to the same level. for example, the study after mandatory reduction of hours saw a return to the same level of happiness after seven years. if you want to see those same employees really stressed out, just see what happens when their employers lay them off to hire part-time workers instead or have to close their doors because they cannot make enough revenue. another major flaw in the studies is the self-selection bias. for example, the companies that choose to participate in some of the studies like the four day week global study are companies whose work tends to be able to

be adapted to a shorter workweek already, who can remove wasted hours. specifically only companies that are able to adapt to shorter work weeks that tend to participate, cutting out they say extraneous meetings, coffee breaks, having more independent work i'm going to zoom. however, over 70% of the u.s. job economy is people working with their hands. they don't necessarily have extraneous meetings or to cut out. so statistically you cannot apply this type of cutting of hours across the entire economy. also given the types of companies that are potentially capable of cutting their workweek, we could see a divide of the rich getting richer and having more time and the poor having to take on three part-time jobs in order to pay the bills. we also potentially disadvantaged older workers who cannot necessarily physically do

the same amount of work in a shorter time. this happened to the great detriment of that population during the great depression. in terms of increase productivity by shortening the week, the statistics just aren't there and there are specific shutting -- studies that show the opposite. economic output fell by 20%. another largely touted study in iceland had a pilot program cutting the workweek by about four hours from 2015-2019. the results were blasted all over the headlines as an overwhelming success. what is not reported on is that the icelandic government or taxpayers have to shell out almost $30 million extra a year to higher more health-care workers because of this experiment. in spain where there is a pilot program, the companies that participate get access to a multimillion dollar government

bond in order to participate. microsoft tested a four day work week by shutting down its japan office every friday for the month of august. the statistical claim is that this resulted in a 40% increase in productivity. correlation is not necessarily causation. productivity increased over a very short period of time during a low productivity month when overall productivity was already at a 75 year low. there is no statistical evidence to merit a nationwide mandate of a 32 hour workweek. in fact, there is clear evidence against it. if it works for some companies in some sectors, that is great. but it cannot be applied to all sectors. thank you. >> next is mr. roger king,

implement counsel at the hr policy association which represents the chief human resource officers of nearly 400 of the largest businesses. he is highly regarded as a labor relations attorney, spending more than 40 years, he began at eight law school as a council for this committee. he tell me he was a peer with angus king, one of our colleagues and he worked with a very young teddy kennedy and others. thanks for being here, mr. king. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, dr. cassidy, memos of the committee. it is indeed a distinct honor to come back before this committee again. i had great experiences here working with fritz mondale, ted kennedy, and angus king and i used to go out for an adult beverage with this committee. so thank you again for having me

back. i am appearing here on behalf of the hr policy association. we represent approximately 10% of the private sector workers in this country who are corporate members. i like to start the discussion about mandating 32 hours, over eight hours, over 12 hours, these are concepts that have consequences. this proposal only works if you reduce eight hours of work week and have the workers have the same level of productivity that they had at 40 hours. it just doesn't work in many industries. it doesn't work economically, it doesn't work operationally. what we have is what i call a productivity gap where we have work that is not yet getting

done for the 32 hour workweek situation. how do you feel that productivity gap? as you mention, senator cassidy, the inflationary impact of this type of proposal is considerable. i noted this week that the u.s. bureau of labor statistics said that we have inflation at 3.2%, picked up from january. our core inflation is 3.8 or more. the 2% target rate for the feds. this is bad policy as a results to the consumer. what do i mean by that? if you can't fill the productivity gap by cutting back hours are making some adjustment to your business, you pass on added costs to the consumer. you have to pay for it some way. the other important point i'd like to make is that flexibility is the most important thing we

are hearing from workers today. they want as much flexibility as possible, as to how, when, and where they perform work. the proposal of the chairman, in all due respect, is going to interfere with that flexibility. workers today want to be able to spend more time with their families. i certainly agree with the witness on that point. they also want to select when, where, and how they work. let's go to the history of the fair labor standards act, and has been mentioned already numerous times. if you go back and look at the history of the new deal and why president franklin roosevelt was an issue in this proposal, it was to increase the number of jobs in the country. the evidence was clear, that proposal was put in place by the congress to increase the number of americans who come to the workplace.

what we are seeing today in the proposal of the chairman creates a real problem for our country. we already have a tremendous shortage of workers. industry after industry doesn't have enough workers today. this proposal for many employers will cause even further worker shortages. the flexibility factor is a problem. we do command the chairman and this committee for having hearing on the impact of ai, it is considerable. senator cassidy, your suggestion for a bipartisan discussion is excellent and we would welcome that. there's no question ai can increase productivity. and there is no question that increased wealth can occur. it's what i call the ai dividend wealth. and we agree that workers and employers alike should share in that wealth. but the way to go about that is

let the market determine that distribution of wealth. if the union can negotiate a 32 hour workweek, so be it. if he can convince the autoworker companies in this country to do it, so be it. but let the market determine how the distribution of wealth is going to occur. finally, as an overall point, we commend the committee are starting a discussion about the fair labor standards act. this is one of the most litigated statutes in the country. chairman, you're absolutely correct, we need to re-examine it, the amount of litigation that occurs regarding the fair labor standards act is way over the top. we need to address more clarity in the statute. i've listed in my testimony a number of problems with the 32 hour workweek. i would close with this comment, i just saw the senator's bill last night, and it is even more

extreme than i had thought we were going to be discussing today. the requirement to pay overtime over eight hours will be a significant economic adverse impact on many companies, and the requirement to pay double over 12 hours, i think the only state in the country that does that is california. from our perspective, that is quite extreme. one last point on example just to bring this home, health care employers in this country generally employ registered nurses for three 12 hour shifts. they have gone to three workdays, but they are 12 hour shifts, and that works, by and large. this proposal would require between that 36 and 32 hours, four additional hours of overtime. in addition it would require overtime over eight. that will have a very negative impact on the health care community in this country and

cause health care expenses to go up. the solution for the health care community is to get more nurses, more workers into the employment stream, not to impose strict standards that will cripple employers and cause incremental cost. thank you very much. sen. sanders: thank you very much to all the panelists. let me just briefly respond to mr. king's statement about letting the market decide who benefits from a transition to advanced technology. for the last 50 years, the market has done just that, and the result has been there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. so after those 50 years, there

are millions of workers today who are worse off, but we have more income at wealth inequality than we've ever had in the history of the country. so i am not quite in favor of letting the market decide. that may begin the questioning. not to offend -- in terms of the time, because we only have a few members here and it is an important subject. i don't want to talk about statistics, we've heard a lot of statistics. you have been with the union for over three decades, no doubt as president you've met thousands of workers and thousands of retirees. tell the american people what it's like to work on a factory floor, in some cases -- i learned this recently, there are people today in america who are working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, unbelievable.

but talk about the impact on the life of a worker mentally, physically, who is doing the hard work day after day, year after year. what happens to that person? >> i find irony and some of the statements i've listened to, but the typical life of a factory worker, and this is union or not, it axley works for nonunion because they have less rules that govern the workplace. typically many typical schedules and manufacturing are 12 hours schedules, and they are seven days a week. a lot of these places run around the clock. when you're standing on concrete floors 12 hours a day, stevan -- seven days a week year after year, there's a lot of wear and tear on a person's body. as i say, people when they age, they end up in their older working years come in up getting

near replacements, hip replacements, shoulder surgeries. i just find irony in some of this, mentally the stress of working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, when you don't get to see your kids, you don't get to go home and have dinner with your kids, you don't get to make sure they are getting their homework done or spend quality time with family. even if you don't have a family, if you have quality time for yourself. something sacrificed you are working 12 hours a day, either sleep or time with family, something else is sacrificed. we only have so much time in the day. i find irony in some of the comments made by mr. king as far as the shortage of workers. i don't believe we have a shortage of workers in this country. i think covid made people wake up and realize what is important in life, it's not working for $12 an hour at 12 hours a day

and multiple jobs just to get by. the shortage of workers we see don't believe is a shortage, i believe it's the fact that people woke up and decided i'm not going to leave my home for $12 an hour when i can even afford to pay the bills. and also going back to letting the market determine this, it's in hr standard talking point about passing costs onto to the consumer. i've witnessed inflation last four years that wasn't caused by workers, it wasn't caused -- it was caused by, two words, corporate greed. it is consumer price gouging. we've got to get focused on the reality here. sen. sanders: thank you. we are the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and yet we have people who are stressed out, yet we are working

longer hours as i understand then any other wealthy nation. how does that happen? >> the reason for the long hours in this country have to do with the kinds of things we've been talking here today, and the fact that the american worker has not had enough power in the market to reduce hours. but there are other aspects as well. one of the things we know from economic studies is that when inequality increases, so do working hours. so the rise in inequality in the united states, which she referred to earlier, is one of the primary causes of longer working hours in the united states. >> five. from your perspective, this is

not just theoretical. you have implemented it. talk a little bit about the impact it has had some of the transition to a four day work week in your company, the impact that it has had on the workers there. brexit has been transformative for our workers. i have been told that this is one of the most impactful things they have experienced in their lives because a lot of these workers are able to spend time with their kids. they are learning new skills. someone who works for me learn how to use ai on his days off and is much more efficient as a result. they are learning new skills that are not related to work. they are just participating in communities and volunteering. senator sanders: our workers more focused when they come back? >> yes. workers are much more focused. they are better rested. they are dedicated to the task at hand in a different way, and

teams stay together longer. the cohesiveness of the organization is much more robust because you are not bringing people out. you are not having to deal with turnover costs. senator sanders: talk about turnover. one of the great costs to businesses is a lot of turnover and having to train new workers. what do you think the impact of a 32 hour workweek would be on them? >> it was shocking how much it changed turnover and what impact that had on our productivity. we rarely lost an employee in the last two years. that means people have longer tenure. we don't deal with hiring. the costs of hiring, the time of hiring someone else. our goals don't get -- people want to work. the notion that, i don't know, americans are lazy, that some people seem to have, it's inaccurate. people want to work in a way that it's balanced with the rest of their lives and they will stay in those jobs longer if the job is balanced with the rest of their lives. senator sanders: thanks very

much. senator cassidy? >> i yield to senator braun. >> thank you before i got here, 37 years spent running an enterprise that would encompass that scrappy navigation of how hard it is when you are signing the front side of a paycheck to get a little business to ever get beyond that. as we grew into a regional and then national company, things change as you evolve and we have had discussions before. i am a proponent of high wages and good benefits. i have been out there to where we want to be able to negotiate and bargain but there is such a big difference in terms of that dynamic and then wrapping it with mandates. that would never enable most of

what comprises our economy which would be small businesses, mainstream ones to be in a position to where they would have to live with some type of homogenous approach to maybe even what we are talking about and i think even for most business owners, if they can, they are going to weave that into what they are able to offer their employees. and we have had the conversation. big corporations that are in places where they have cornered the market, i think there is a legitimate discussion of how you spread that wealth within between employees and public companies and a lot of times, professional management, that would seem to, you know, rake in levels of pay that i never thought were possible. what i want to get back to is how i do disagree with trying to do anything from this place that would impose upon the

preponderance of businesses out there to where i just don't think they could survive. i think that it is a legitimate issue to talk about voluntarily and if you are good at what you do, and you are going to keep employees, you will want to weave it in. it is a legitimate issue to bargain for at that highest level of large workforces. that is as far as you can go. most businesses would not be like your's, mr. leeland. he would not be in business if you are not open six days a week for almost any retail business i am aware of including my wife's business in our downtown that has been there for now nearly 45 years. it just would not work. keep that in mind. i want to start with this particular question. i want to focus on how this would work and with small

businesses. i am not worried about big corporations. they generally are going to land on their feet anyway and i believe they ought to be negotiated with for all the things you might do to improve the position of a worker there. but what about mainstreet and small business? we will start with you. mr. king. >> part me. sorry. >> i should have gotten there at this point. i think it's really important to note that so many of these studies that have been done in these pilots that have shown incredible things is that it is self-selection. these companies are choosing to be part of this. so they are able to cut out extraneous meetings and able to shorten coffee breaks. they are able to go to remote meetings for something -- whatever it is. >> i never heard of anything you just mentioned in a small business. that just is not there. we try and do it so we don't run

out of time because i do have a final question for mr. leeland. mr. king, would you weigh in on that? >> good to see you again, senator. this doesn't work for small business, for any type of business. if you can't measure productivity correctly and have that productivity gap satisfied, the proposal that the chairman is putting in legislation today would require overtime, overrate . it would require overtime over 32. it would require overtime doubletime, over 12. so a small business needs to have flexibility. employees have family obligations in their committee. they employer needs them sometimes more than any, sometimes less and you know that from your business. the bill we are talking about here today interferes with that flex ability. it just is not sound policy. >> thank you.

mr. leeland, would you agree that your business has certain characteristics that probably made it securely or to you being able to do that or do you honestly believe that would be transferable into the multitude of businesses, especially out on main street? >> our business has characteristics that are not unique but lend themselves towards an easier transition to a four day work week. however, the pilots that dr. sure has worked on show that this is possible across multiple industries. it looks different. the transformation looks different but we have seen manufacturing, construction, health care, police departments all do this successfully. >> thank you. >> thank you. senator murphy. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think this is a really important conversation to have regardless of where you stand on this issue and i think the

fundamental question here that we are asking is where has all this wealth gone that has been gathered in this economy from these massive increases in productivity? if it hasn't been going to workers? if the uaw and other unions have to fight tooth and nail just to be able to get living wage increases? i will tell you something we have not talked about yet. a lot of that money is going to trust funds. a lot of that money is going into inherited wealth. and at some point, you know, we should have a conversation about that a little bit more openly as a committee and as a congress. here is a stunning piece of data . for the first time last year, the majority of wealth for new billionaires -- these were people who became billionaires in 2023 -- came not from their work but through inheritance. it is the first time ever that that has happened.

1000 billionaires are expected to pass down $5.2 trillion worth of wealth to their heirs in the next 20 years. and so, you hope that if the money isn't going to the workers, it is at least being recycled back into the economy. it is just not true. a lot of that money is being passed down to kids who, you know, in previous ages, would not have been able to enjoy that level of benefit from their parents success. i wanted to talk to you just a little bit about leisure time. you have talked about this already. you really importantly talk about the importance that your faith plays in the work that you do in your life. this is a pretty wild thing happening in america today. 2070% of americans belong to a religious institution, but today, that number is 50%. this has been a pretty precipitous decline in the

ability or willingness of americans to go to church or to a religious institution on a regular basis and i think that has lots of broad impact on our society, but there are a lot of reasons for that. one of them is that americans just have less free time. when you have to work 70 hours to get the same standard of living for your family that 40 hours would have gotten you a few decades ago, you don't have time to go to wednesday night bible study. you might not have the ability to even attend church services on a sunday. you can talk about church if you want or if you don't want, but it is just true that some of the leisure time activities, some of the institutions that americans found value and meaning in our less accessible when you have to work these long hours. i would love to hear your thoughts on that. >> i mean, you know, it's one of

the things we talk about with the 32 hour workweek when we put that in our contract talks was the fact that we wanted to create worklife balance. because it's just, in this country, we are the most productive -- i mean, sadly, i say, not proudly, we are the most productive nation in the world which means our people are working more and more hours with less and less people and something has got to give. you know, this is -- it is worklife balance. when you are working multiple jobs to live paycheck-to-paycheck or you are working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, something else is sacrificed in that. and that is what ends up happening. you have to sacrifice, you know, the ability to go to church, something else to do on a sunday. maybe you get a sunday off when you have not slept all week and spend the whole day sleeping. that is the reality a lot of workers face on some of the schedules they work. and you know, the thing to me

that i think -- i hear all this -- we have heard my whole life about good for business is good for people, trickle-down economics and all those type things but to me, we have to focus -- i do believe congress has an obligation on spending priorities and regulations and that may be an ugly word to people who represent business but you know, the point of this is it should be done to create more jobs. more jobs at a better rate of pay that people have more free time to live. if government is going to invest in business, the trillions of dollars we invest in business that our taxpayers invest in business, those benefits should be going to working-class people , not strictly business, and that is the problem. all this money goes to business but it never seems to funnel its way down to benefit working-class people. >> listen, i agree with you. i think we should have an

interest in leisure time. i think we should have an interest in making sure that people are able to find value outside of work. i'm glad they do but a lot of people find more value by the institutions by the social clubs and churches that they affiliate and spend time with outside of work but that is just less accessible for people today and that should be a public policy interest of the united states congress and i appreciate this hearing allowing us to talk about that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator cassidy? although we have a little exercise, we got a lot of questions so i will ask you to be tight with your questions. i totally agree with you. i was in a hospital for the uninsured. folks ron johnson decent pay. i agree with that entirely. there is a little bit of confusion in what you are saying and i want to put out that confusion. when you say people are working longer to work more money, if

you just cut them down to 32 hours a week, they are still making the same money so for them to grow their income, they would have to either work overtime and/or take a second job. and yes, there's companies that work 24/7 but the people don't work 24/7. they work 40 hours a week or 41.3 hours per week. so i think we have to be kind of clear on that and lastly, of course, productivity is not more hours to make the same money. productivity is more work per hour and it's oftentimes aided by machines in which case there's less wear and tear on the body, not to say that there's not wear-and-tear on the body. we think of construction workers but still, that is the whole point. when you mention that decreasing hours worked per week increases productivity, it makes total sense to me. when i go to spain and go to mcdonald's, they don't have somebody at the front desk to take my order for a hamburger. they have a machine that i push

a button on and it dispenses it and our department of labor has said that if we raise minimum wage, there will be a net loss of jobs because people automate in order to decrease their labor cost. how would, if you are speaking of the service industry, why would raising the labor costs by having fewer hours worked per week for the same salary be any different than raising the minimum wage in terms of an incentive for net loss of jobs by replacing workers with automation? >> yes, thank you for that question. let me just respond. two points. resting no increase in second job holding in our studies, by the way. the impacts that we are seeing here are not labor displacing because people are able to make up that productivity in the four days that they had in the five

days. >> that surprises me. intuitively -- i am a doctor -- so intuitively, when i read about the nurses working shorter hours, i will just say that according to the pennsylvania hospital association, 30% of our impositions -- of our positions are unfilled and the hospital spent the $5 million for nurse overtime because of a nursing shortage. so i am not sure how to swear that because they work less hours but they had to pay more for overtime. >> these are for their nurse managers because the other nurses are on these three-day schedules and so forth. so -- and this was put into place two years after the pandemic started. >> so the nurse managers are working less, not the rns themselves. >> correct, because they are not on five-day schedules. >> i am almost out of time.

i'm going to move. we are going to get a health bill. my staff is working 80 hours a week. any time they call me on a saturday or sunday or monday on a holiday, they are fully prepared. when you all have a big crunch time, deadline has to hit and you have to move. people still only work 32 hours? >> no, it is a norm. it is a question of what is your standard work week? >> that is all i was going to check. i look at france's unemployment rate among the youth and it's like 17%. it's pretty amazing. for the next group, it's like 7% or 8%, much higher than ours. they have other labor laws as well but you had mentioned that this kind of sugar high of more satisfaction -- and then it goes away but also that there is a lots of work as workers need to go and temporary workers are offshore. can you elaborate on that please

? >> i think it is the same kind of ideas right when covid hit. we are all banking bread and doing whatever we are doing and as covid went on longer, at home or, you are sitting in your bed longer. it shows in the long-term studies that things just go back to normal. we just see that happen all over again with people. i think we see it clearly in terms of unemployment rates in the same way. >> the other things that occur, the disruption in the economy, etc., did more to dictate your happiness than whether or not you work a little less? indeed, there may be a loss of a job because of the impact upon you. >> that is exactly what happened in france as people lost their jobs. >> just to make the point, there is nothing to prevent a baseness like mr. lee lind or temple university hospital or a select group of employees to have a policy which would be 32 hours a week so there's no reason for a mandate per se.

companies can do that, just to make that point. >> absolutely, senator. that is the point. let's give flexibility to workers and to employers. don't have government come in and intervene. it's going directly in the opposite position of where we should be going. now, as for as the number of workers available in this country, i agree. we need to get more people back into the workforce for sure. study after study shows even if we did that, and i'm looking at a recent u.s. chamber of commerce study, we would still have 3 million jobs open in this country. this proposal is going in the wrong direction. flexibility is what we need. >> first of all, i want to ask you this. you had mentioned -- i did not quite get the association versus causation. you say that when there's more inequality, that people work longer hours. i did not quite understand that

relationship. is that an association or causation? >> these are done with macroeconomic studies so we believe they are causation but they are not controlled experiments. >> any comment? >> if you do not have a controlled extremity, you cannot find causation. that's just statistics. >> i once gave a vaccine to somebody who became pregnant. just because it happens at the same time, it is not a causation. it is an association. >> these are highly sophisticated studies once gavei really would disagree with the idea that we can only know something if we have experiments. >> i am out of time. >> because people need to work more hours to keep up. because there is a comparative dimension to the way people's sense of -- >> i am not sure the thing of milk costs more because somebody

else is making more but that is another story. yes. >> -- while i would --. i appreciate all your work and research all these years on the lives people lead in various types of jobs. you talk a little bit about the different ways that people have a shorter workweek, taking part off every day or the whole day and each month off. i got several questions. pros and cons on this. >> the majority in our studies,

and thank you, by the way. really wonderful to see you. they are doing full days off. over 90% of our studies are doing full days off and that seems to be a much more popular way to do this then shorter daily hours although there's a little bit of variation. one thing i looked at in my studies is whether or not having three consecutive days had a bigger impact on well-being and we were surprised that it doesn't and some of them, people are taking this wednesdays off to get a break in the middle of the week. >> interesting. >> great question. thank you. over 70% of the businesses in our u.s. and canada sample have fewer than 25 employees so i think this is proving to be an especially appealing thing for small businesses. they have to do with higher

levels of stress that they are seeing among their employees. i mean, one of the things is the small number of companies who are discontinuing. we are trying to figure out what is common among them. so far, the only thing we can see is they are not achieving the same levels of well-being increase that the ones who don't stop are. >> when i first became mayor of denver in 2003, we had the worst budget recession ever and one of the stopgap measures we did is he compelled all city employees to take friday afternoons off unpaid. that was not perfect. no one likes when you are on a tight budget to have to make a budget bounce again into the month and people really liked it. to this day. to give people that friday off every week -- we saw an increase in sales at local restaurants which was interesting, and other retail sales went up. so there's some accessory benefit.

i'm going to skip past year although i cannot tell you how excited i am to have the chief vision officer for kickstarter. i want to go to dr. witte just because i found compelling that she was in 2018 coolest person in scotland and that her television show, liberty's great american cookbook -- is it still showing in scotland? >> it is. i need all the viewers i can get. >> we want to make sure we don't forget to promote that because when i was the mayor and working through that and i looked up last night -- it is not a common name. it is interesting that she seemed -- because her brother was a journalist, internationally successful, admired journalist. he's based in denver when i first became mayor so he's cooled me -- educated me within the school of hard knocks as to how to think about these things.

anyway, one argument in favor of implementing a 32 hour workweek is that, you know, these tech advancements like ai are going to make such a dramatic increase. how realistic do you think that is and when would those productivity increases begin to show or begin to have a benefit? >> i think the issue that we see here is people use the word ai and don't necessarily know what that means. and as someone who works in this space, we don't know yet what abilities ai is going to give us or machine learning. we are still trying to figure out what those words even really mean, so to say that there's going to be this explosion of productivity and wealth, we just don't know yet, and no one is saying -- i am certainly not saying -- it is above my pay grade -- people should not share in that. but mandating the reduction to a 32 hour work week is not the way to do that. >> got it. >> i hear that. same question to you because i think you talked a little bit more -- you have got into ai on

a little bit of a deeper level. what is your feeling on that? >> tremendous opportunity for everybody, absolutely, but the issue of distribution of wealth, the wealth dividend senator, from ai, that is what we are really talking about here. i would point the committees intention to chart one in my testimony. productivity and compensation have gone similarly -- tracked similarly for decades. now, there have been gaps in different industries. there's been time lags, senator, but market will solve this issue. surveying will negotiate hard for 32 hours, i am sure. others will have a take for 32 hours. we see work. but let the market decide this. don't have congress impose this on employers. or employees. >> got it. great. go over just for a minute. when you were negotiating -- i

introduced this notion of a 32 hour workweek. i mean, you have talked firsthand with large employers and large groups of employees. ultimately, it was not included in the final contract, but what were some of the concerns -- unique concerns we have not heard before that were raised by the employers and what do you think it would take to get those employers to move? i think in terms of the 36 hour work week that we tried when i was mayor of the city. it is roughly a 10% pay raise. that is the way to think about doing something like that. the level of appreciation of people having that friday afternoon off was palpable. you could feel it. what is your sense on that? >> i think it is just a fear of change, doing something different. i mean, you look at -- there are studies that have been done when workers, especially factory workers in manufacturing, when they work anything after 10 hours, typically, they are not

as productive. the wear and tear that you go through throughout the day, there have been a lot of studies done on that that productivity actually drops off so there are benefits to shorter working hours and as a person who has stood on a line as an 18-year-old, i can vividly remember putting -- i would sit there. it is monotonous work, doing it over and over and over, and literally after two hours of that, you are just -- you know, your mind is wandering off. imagine doing that for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, so there are a lot of benefits to having some semblance of worklife balance, but unfortunately, with the advances in technology, companies choose to eliminate jobs and squeeze more and more people, the remaining people, working more and more hours. and that just does not work. >> i appreciate that. i have many more questions which i will throw in in writing that i yield back to the chair.

thank you all for being here. >> thank you. senator -- without objection. mr. king, you can inform your clients that my legislation probably will not be passing tomorrow. >> they will be glad to hear that. >> i am glad to hear that. >> the point of this hearing is to raise at the congressional level something that has not been discussed here for decades after decades. i think as all of us have understood, we are living in a difficult moment in american history. we have more income and wealth inequality then we have ever had before. senator murphy made the interesting point that for the billionaire class, now a majority of that wealth is being not earned by any but being

transferred to children, unearned income, if you like. we are seeing ceo's making 350 times more than their workers while 62% of the people in america are living paycheck-to-paycheck. we have the highest level of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. many of our older people are finding it hard to retire. so we have got to start asking some fundamental questions. this is an extraordinarily wealthy country. three people on top and -- according to the rand corporation over the last 50 years, the rand corporation is not exactly a socialist organization -- over the last 50 years, $50 trillion has gone from the bottom 90% of the top 1%. so in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, the vast majority of our people are struggling to put food on the table.

they are living under incredible stress. our life expectancy is significantly lower than other countries and for working-class people, they live 10 years fewer than you were if you are upper-class. these are issues that have got to be discussed. i'm not suggesting that a 32 hour work week is going to change all of that but one of the issues that we have got to talk about is stress in this country, the fact that so many people are going to work exhausted physically and mentally. and the fact that we have not changed the fair labor standards act. this was in 1940, we came up with the 40 hour workweek, 1940. who is going to deny that the economy has not fundamentally and radically changed over that period of time? so to suggest that we have to maintain that we put in place 84 years ago, it does not make a lot of sense to me so let me just conclude by thanking all of

our excellent panelists. it has been a good discussion. i hope the discussion continues and thank you all very much for being here today. for any senators who wish to ask additional questions, the questions will be due in 10 business days. i ask unanimous consent to enter two statements in support of shortened workweeks including a statement from the congressman and business owners across the country. the meeting stands adjourned.

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