A three-day weekend may not be just for Friday and Monday holidays anymore, at least in California.
A proposed bill, AB 2932, is journeying through that state’s government that would re-envision what standard worklife in America looks like. The proposal would redefine the workweek as 32 hours, as opposed to the current 40, for any company that employs at least 500 people.
Under the bill, the standard workday would still span eight hours, so workers would be on the clock for four days out of every week rather than five. The catalyst? COVID-19, particularly the nationwide work stoppage and the influx of government funding that gave a large portion of the workforce the time and freedom to reevaluate their lives and walk away from their jobs en masse.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 47 million people in the U.S. voluntarily left their jobs last year.
“We’ve had a five-day workweek since the Industrial Revolution,” Assembly Member Cristina Garcia, one of the bill’s co-authors, told The L.A. Times, “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.”
If enacted, the bill would impact about 2,600 businesses and over 3.6 million employees in the state of California, according to the state’s Employment Development Department, and overtime pay would be required for anyone at large companies working over 32 hours in a given week, instead of 40 as it stands now.
The concept has been tried before. Iceland switched to a four-day workweek twice, in 2015 and again in 2019. The country saw no dip in productivity or service and saw an increase in worker health and morale. In 2022, over 86% of Iceland’s workforce is on a four-day workweek.
The bill does have its detractors though.
California Chamber of Commerce policy advocate Ashley Hoffman wrote that the bill would force at least a 10% increase in wages per employee on employers.
“This significant rise in labor costs will not be sustainable for many businesses,” she wrote. “Such a large increase in labor costs will reduce businesses’ ability to hire or create new positions and will therefore limit job growth in California. This is especially true now as businesses are still recovering from the impacts of COVID-19 and resulting rises in supply chain costs.”
The bill is currently under review with the Labor and Employment Committee. No hearing date has been set as of yet.
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