Shawn Fain, Jacobin, March 15 https://jacobin.com/2024/03/shawn-fain-thirty-two-hour-workweek-speech
*On Thursday, March 14, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders introduced a Senate bill that would mandate a standard thirty-two-hour workweek with no loss in pay. The same day, Sanders chaired a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to discuss the legislation; among those invited to speak was United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain. We here provide Fain’s remarks in full; the transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.* . . . It’s sad to say that in 1933, the US Senate passed legislation to establish the thirty-hour workweek, but due to intense corporate opposition, that legislation failed. But in 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing a forty-hour workweek — eighty-four years ago. Eighty-four years ago, the forty-hour week was established. Since then, we’ve had a 400 percent increase in productivity, but nothing’s changed. That was why, in our Big Three campaign and our stand-up strike, we raised the flag for a thirty-two-hour workweek. This isn’t just a union issue, contrary to what some people want to talk about. This is a working-class issue. That’s why 75 percent of Americans stood with us in our contract fight. Because they’re all living the same reality. . . . Our union is going to continue to fight for the right of working-class people to take back their lives and take back their time. We ask you to stand up with the American workers and support us in that mission. # # # -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29534): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29534 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105017805/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
