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.
   #   #   #


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