Flexibility is key, not more mandates

Should businesses consider a 32-hour workweek? Sure, businesses should always be open to new ideas, new practices, new arrangements of how work gets done. Should governments mandate that certain employers adopt a 32-hour workweek? No, government mandates are a blunt instrument and illequipped to weigh the costs and benefits of such sweeping mandates. It's really as simple as that.

Last summer, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, proposed federal legislation that called for a 32-hour workweek. This past Sunday, he wrote an oped explaining his rationale for backing the concept.

Citing positive results in trials of four-day workweeks in nations like Iceland and Spain testing out the 32-hour workweek, Takano notes that, “Workers have reported improved work-life balance, taken fewer sick days and spent less on child care. More flexible working schedules have also led to heightened morale and productivity.”

Even if one grants that this is all true, there's only so much one can extrapolate from trials of a 32-hour workweek from countries with a fraction of the population of the United States.

Iceland, for example, has fewer than 400,000 people.

And what might work for some companies that have trialed the practice in Japan might not necessarily translate to the wide-ranging and constantly evolving businesses here in the United States.

At best, it's far too early to conclude an economy-wide 32hour workweek is likely to do more good than harm.

But even if it did more good than harm, that ought to be something for individual businesses and employers to find out for themselves. What might work for a tech firm isn't necessarily the same as what will work for a newspaper company or a factory or a retail store or a small business.

Meanwhile, California Democratic Assemblymembers Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens and Evan Low of Silicon Valley have proposed legislation (Assembly Bill 2932) that would require employers with more than 500 employees to pay overtime for work beyond 32 hours per week.

Business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, have warned that even this limited proposal could threaten between 340,000 and 1.02 million jobs and could result in many employees seeing reductions in work hours rather than benefiting from overtime pay.

“Instead of imposing new costs on employers, the Legislature should reform California's unnecessarily rigid wage and hour laws to allow employees flexibility in their weekly schedules that would better align with the modern workplace,” the business groups argued in a letter opposing AB 2932.

The business groups noted widespread public support for policies like allowing individualized alternative workweek schedules (like working longer hours on given days in exchange for working fewer days per week), letting workers to take rest periods at a time of their choosing (rather than rigidly required times) and “allowing employees to split their shifts to accommodate personal needs.”

If Sacramento freed up employers to offer more flexibility, it could be a win-win for employers and employees alike without risking the wide array of unintended consequences like AB 2932 would bring.

As a general rule, giving employers and employees more options would be preferable to imposing sweeping mandates.