“‘I happen to believe that as a nation, we should begin a serious discussion — and the UAW is doing that — about substantially lowering the workweek.’”
Artificial intelligence can help people cut through time-consuming, labor-intensive work, and it’s poised to revolutionize the many ways people go about their jobs — if used wisely, that is.
Nearly 13,000 United Auto Workers members walked off the job late last week, and one of their demands is a 32-hour workweek for 40 hours of pay. If carmakers agree to the idea, it would launch the four-day workweek concept from its “early adoption” moment to workplace mainstream, experts say.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, also made the connection between AI, a four-day workweek and the UAW strike against Ford
F,
General Motors
GM,
and Stellantis
STLA,
after appearing at a rally in Detroit, Mich.
Benefits of a shorter workweek
Sanders — who spoke Friday at a UAW rally — told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the idea of a shortened workweek isn’t tied to one labor dispute. There’s an “explosion” of robotics and AI that will boost worker productivity, he said.
“The question, as a nation, that we have got to ask ourselves is, who’s going to benefit from that increased productivity?” Sanders asked.
Instead of corporate leaders reaping the profits, Sanders said, “it seems to me that if new technology is going to make us a more productive society, the benefit should go to the workers.”
He said that during a time when people are “stressed out for a dozen different reasons, it would be an extraordinary thing to see people have more time” for themselves, their families or to pursue a better education.
There are many people who would agree that a four-day workweek would be an extraordinary benefit, polls suggest. Eight in 10 people support a four-day workweek instead of a five-day week, according to a Bankrate survey released in August.
Workers worry about the impact of AI
Of course, as with other revolutions, there’s also the worry that things may not go as hoped.
In a worst-case scenario, many people worry that if the rise of AI technology renders their position obsolete, they will end up with a zero-day workweek.
Almost half — 49% — of 31,000 people polled in 31 countries said they worry AI could replace their jobs, according to a separate Microsoft
MSFT,
survey from May.
The same survey highlights the mix of excitement and apprehension over what AI could mean for people.
More than two-thirds of people say they don’t have sufficient time to focus during the workday, and 70% said they would want to offload as much work as they could to AI-powered methods in order to lighten their job duties.
Auto workers want a shorter workweek
A UAW win on a 32-hour workweek would also be a big win for the broader four-day week concept, said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, director at Four Day Week Global, where he helps employers consider how to implement the idea.
One of the reasons is that “it would re-establish the idea that the benefits of automation and technological innovation should be shared with workers in the form of living wages and more free time, not just converted into higher stock dividends and CEO bonuses,” he said.
“The idea that we should use innovation to make work better, rather than use it to destroy jobs and thus communities, family stability [and] faith in the American system, would be a huge turnaround in our thinking,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether the four-day workweek will gain traction in the current labor talks. A Stellantis spokeswoman previously told MarketWatch that the company would have to incur major extra costs to keep up production schedules if workers moved to a curtailed work schedule.