A newly put forth proposal out in California seeks to chop out a section of the standard full-time work week and change it from a 40 hour week to a 32 hour week for all companies sporting more than 500 employees.
This new bill, titled AB-2932, would set the official workday at eight hours, as it currently is, and then require overtime pay for working that put in more than 32 hours or four full days of work in a week.
This new bill would also set the standard of paying double the standard wage of an employee for working for over 12 hours in a single day, or for working seven days a week. The consequence of this would end up increasing hourly wages by almost 25% with the pay for overtime potentially creating additional costs for the companies in wages.
Roughly 2,600 companies across the state would be affected by the new changes being talked about within the bill.
Cristina Garcia, a California Democratic Assemblywoman and co-sponsor of this new bill, stated that employees do not want to fall back into the same old routines in the wake of the pandemic measures being rolled back.
“We’ve seen over 47 million people voluntarily leave their jobs for better opportunities. We’re seeing a labor shortage across the board from small to big businesses,” stated Garcia to Fortune. “And so it’s very clear that employees don’t want to go back to normal or the old way, but to rethink and go back to [something] better.”
Officials with the California Chamber of Commerce stand in opposition to this new bill, making the argument that it would just end up destroying more jobs all across the state.
“Significantly increases labor costs by imposing an overtime pay requirement after 32 hours and other requirements that are impossible to comply with, exposing employers to litigation under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA),” stated chamber officials in a recent press release speaking on AB-2932.
Jennifer Barrera, the Chamber President and CEO, has also gone on record issuing criticism of the bill as being extremely harmful to the state’s economy, claiming it will “hurt job creation” throughout the state.
“California companies are the economic engine that drives innovation and job creation in our state and are responsible for the record revenues the state is currently experiencing,” claimed Barrera in said press release.
“Yet, the bills on this year’s job killer list reflect a lack of appreciation of the economic realities and regulatory challenges employers—and especially small business employers—face as they continue to emerge from the impacts of this pandemic. A shrinking workforce coupled with California’s oppressive legal climate, penchant for overregulation, and continued push for even higher taxes, will hamper the ability of California companies to remain competitive in the future. This year’s job killer list highlights policies that will hurt job creation and will shut down or reduce investment in our economy,” she continued.