California bill to make a 4-day work week stalls in the legislature.
Authored by Assembly members Evan Low, D-Campbell, and Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, Assembly Bill 2932 had been referred to the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, but missed the deadline for the end of April for legislative policy committees to send to fiscal committees for considerations.
“I am disappointed that AB 2932 is not moving forward this year, but we must continue to elevate the conversation about the 4 day work week and in general ensuring our workforce has a better work life balance. There have been so many societal advances in the last 100 years. It doesn’t make sense that we are still holding onto a work schedule that served the industrial revolution. It’s long overdue that this progress is shared with our workforce which deserves an improved quality of life. This has been true for a while, but the pandemic and the Great Resignation have made it crystal clear the time is now to figure out how we return to better and not what we had before the pandemic,” Garcia said in a statement Monday.
The bill “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,” according to a CalChamber statement announcing that the bill had stalled.