Can I talk to you about the 32 hour workweek?
It seems like with Fox business, it seems like Democrats want businesses
to be taxed more, pay their workers.
- Is that what you think? - Pay their.
Pay their workers?
- Excuse me. - I didn't get to ask the question.
Okay. Thank you.
Senator, you want to hold it?
Okay, so that is obviously a testy exchange between Senator Bernie Sanders
and Hillary Vaughn of Fox Business, who swears that she's going to get to the
question after she rattles off her list of talking points against Bernie Sanders,
who, as you probably are aware, earlier this week put forward legislation
to establish a 32 hour workweek with no loss of pay, effectively trying to improve
the standard of living the lives of working people or to give them a chance to
provide a little bit more detail on that.
- Senator, you want to hold it? - Okay.
We held a hearing on a 32 hour workweek, because what we have seen is that over the
last 50 years, despite a huge increase in worker productivity, almost all of the new
wealth has gone to the top 1%. While 60% of the people living paycheck to paycheck.
Many of our people are exhausted.
We worked the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world.
I think it's time for a shortened workweek.
- Can I ask. - You a question about that?
It seems like Democrats want businesses to be taxed more to pay their.
That's not my pay.
Their workers more lower prices and now pay people not to work.
You know what? I would like to see.
How our business is going to survive that. That's the question.
How can businesses survive all of those proposals when.
Mr. Bezos pays an effective tax rate lower than the average worker?
I think we have a real problem in our tax system.
I think that billionaires have got to stop paying their fair share of taxes.
Thank you.
And I have to say, I think that that was Bernie Sanders being kind of rude.
She had a bullet point list of talking points
that she needed to desperately read.
And how is she supposed to advance a Fox business if she doesn't read the talking
points the billionaires want to hear?
All he's calling for is a slightly shorter workweek to be phased in over the course
of four years and effectively establish a new baseline where and if you work more
than that, you'll receive overtime pay.
And that is obviously radical and it can't be borne.
I want to remind everyone that the 40 hour workweek that most people have access
to right now was the product of literally decades of labor organizing and was
enshrined in federal law back in 1940, which was a damn near a century ago.
And I guess it can never get better. 100 years of as Bernie Sanders points out,
productivity gains almost every single year, creating an economy that is
the wonder of the world that has produced untold wealth, the work of regular people,
that has created the millionaires and the billionaires that we have in America.
1940, it was 40 hours, and it cannot be 39 hours in 2024 if you even hold a hearing,
if you even debate the possibility you're going to be ambushed in the hallway
by reporters sent there to advance the interests of the wealthiest people
in the country, perhaps in the world.
- Jake, what do you think? - Yeah.
So, okay, buckle up, because I partly disagree.
Oh. They're going to get interesting.
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But my opinion here is quite nuanced.
So number one, I kind of love what Bernie did.
Not just because I like Curmudgeons, but I do.
I agreed with everything he said, minus the 32 hour workweek.
But I thought the funniest part was the reporter was he was like,
corporate media personified, like, boil down all of corporate media
into human being and then send them as a robot to talk to Bernie Sanders.
Why are you hurting the poor businesses?
Businesses cannot get a break in America. Okay?
The average man is so rich, but the billionaires are so poor.
What?
Okay, so all the things that Bernie listed off are absolutely right.
The billionaires don't pay their taxes. They do loopholes.
Deregulation, productivity is sky high. Wages haven't kept up.
So I just have a different fix.
I think that number one thing you got to do is end corporate rule in the way
you do that is take money out of politics, and then you could get into
wonderful debates about what we should do to fix the current system.
I think higher minimum wage, which then pushes up other wages,
obviously universal health care, there's a thousand things I would do.
And John is right about the role of unions.
I remember, you know, I've seen the bumper sticker, which I think actually my
original co-founder, Ben Mankiewicz's dad, Frank Mankiewicz, might have come up with,
which is, if you like the weekends, thank the unions, because they're the ones
who got you the weekends.
And all of that is true.
I just think that 32 hour workweek is my least favorite
of all of those proposals, partly because I don't really agree with it.
And we could have that debate. Eight.
And yes, if you don't know, I also run this company.
So I that comes from management. So you take it with a giant grain of salt.
Okay. But that is my real opinion.
But also because I don't think it's great optics.
So I think we have 100 issues on this topic, you know, within it, right?
The minimum wage and all the others where we have enormous popularity,
where the American people agree with us, 67%, 70%, 84%, on and on and on.
I bet 32 hour workweek does not poll well, so it's leaning in in the wrong direction
in terms of both, in my opinion, policy and politics.
But let's get other opinions. What do you think?
Yeah, I think John, I mean I well, I agree more with John than you just on this one
and let me tell you why.
So John talked about almost a hundred years and actually
it's closer than what you said.
John, if you consider the fact that 1926 Henry Ford actually introduced the 40
hour workweek, not based on science, just on the fact that the 48 hour workweek
didn't really produce any much productivity from his workers.
So he cut their hours back to 40 hours without cutting their pay in 1926.
And he saw productivity go up.
And he helped eliminate burnout from his workers.
So I think the idea that, you know, this, this, this notion
that we need to be working people 40 hours a week is based on nothing.
And we have too much science, too much tools, too much technology
that can measure things to to base anything that affects all of us,
especially our working age people.
But on on something that's as old as 1926, I will also go and say that what I
can't stand is Republicans talking about how much billionaires pay in taxes.
Let's be clear America's 400 wealthiest billionaire families pay 8% in taxes.
Whether the average family is paying about 12%.
So you have the richest people paying a lot less amount of money
of their resources than the people who need it, people
that are living paycheck to paycheck.
So it's it's absolutely not just disingenuous for Fox to be making this Fox
business, to be making this argument.
It's an absolutely pretty damn disgusting, if you're asking me.
Furthermore.
Furthermore, if we're going to keep people at 40 hours a week, can we lower?
Can we minimize that that that wage gap between those at the top
and those actually producing something?
We have more workers than we've ever had, and we need the least amount
of workers than we've ever needed.
And tomorrow we'll need less workers because of technology.
So are we saying we're comfortable with people starving or not having enough to
basically survive, or are we going to get serious about the universal basic income?
Yeah.
Yeah, I would just, argue for higher wages and, and higher benefits as opposed to
lower hours, like if you gave me an option and I bet if you gave the average guy
or average family an option of, hey, you work a day less or you make a lot more,
I bet they go with a lot more.
But but don't get me wrong, guys, I get it.
I get it working four days a week sounds like a dream.
And if we can get society to that point where we could pull it off.
Fantastic.
And I get it that some of you think that maybe we're there yet,
but there's so many things to fix.
Look, if.
This was the only thing that Bernie Sanders was advocating for,
I'd probably disagree with it too. Of course, for Bernie Sanders, it's not.
I look, I think a lot of people the American worker has been trained
by the media for decades and decades and decades to be incredibly suspicious
towards and hostile towards anyone advocating for their interests.
They have been trained to think that that's a damn commie, basically.
And so I don't doubt that right now, a lot of people would find it to be impossible.
But it's not impossible. I mean, many countries have this.
Many experiments have been run in different countries and in this country.
And he has the stats on the number of corporations
that have instituted four day work weeks.
And then after the trial period ends, they continue it.
Because productivity has improved, workers are more happy, there's less retention.
It doesn't have to be a dream.
We may have to educate people for a few years, for a decade, but I think that we
should probably start that at some point.
And look, I want people to be paid more and have better benefits too.
But also, I think that if all of this technology is supposed to have
of achieved anything, can it not at some point let people live a little bit
more like I have a daughter now, I'd like to spend some time with her.
Like I want people to be able to go out into nature, to read a book,
to spend time with their family, to reinvigorate friendships.
Work isn't just supposed to be about toil.
Like, I'm lucky enough that I have a job that I love.
Most people don't have that benefit, but regardless of which side of that line
you fall on, like life isn't just supposed to be about generating wealth,
you're supposed to be able to enjoy it.
And two days is something I'm glad that we have that weekend, but never three.
We literally have AI models now that are replacing people's jobs,
and those at the top are anticipating far more to be replaced.
And it just seems ironic that with all that advanced technology,
the only dimunition in your hours you can get is when your job is entirely
eliminated and replaced with a robot, so you can go from 40 to 0. But.
She can't go from 40 to 38. It just seems weird to me.
Oh, listen, I'm over here smiling, guys, and I don't know if y'all can see it.
Because y'all in studio, but I'm laughing because.
Not at what you're saying, John. Because it's absolutely factual.
It's just that you're in jinx right now.
Sound like the, CNN interview, the the Don lemon interview with, with Elon Musk.
So don't lose your job. Don't fire.
Me. Don't fire me.
- Afterwards, I sent a text. - Contract terminated.
- Terminated. - Oh my God.
Anyway, yes.
And by the way, thank you for making me feel confident enough
to have this discussion.
- We got. - The same.
And I like doing my job. I'm not asking for a full day off.
Maybe a half day on Fridays would be nice, you know?
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