Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday introduced a bill to establish a standard four-day workweek in the United States without any reduction in pay.
The bill, over a four-year period, would lower the threshold required for overtime pay, from 40 hours to 32 hours. It would require overtime pay at a rate of 1.5 times a worker’s regular salary for workdays longer than 8 hours, and it would require overtime pay at double a worker’s regular salary for workdays longer than 12 hours.
The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act would also protect workers’ pay and benefits to ensure there’s no loss in pay, according to a press release.
Are exempt employees still boned?
I would assume that salaried office workers would eventually go down to 4 days as the culture of Full-time changes. That or they’d just leave for hourly positions, causing competition.
Salaried employees aren’t the only ones that can be exempt.
I’m salaried, and collect OT. I have to log all my hours to specific contracts so we charge other groups appropriately, so we get 1.0x OT pay
True, certain positions are still exempt even if they’re hourly. In my state I think it’s managers, medical workers, and IT workers plus more.
But yet, fulltime used to be 6 days a week until we changed the definition to 5 and now that’s the standard. Changing the standard is exactly what this likely will accomplish.