5 Reasons The May Day 2028 Strike Should Focus on the 4-Day, 32-Hour Workweek
Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, workers are burned out, overworked, and time-starved. Americans The labor movement needs a real answer and a real vision to that problem, one that goes beyond what we’re used to fighting for.
Our job in the labor movement is simple: raise expectations and then “raise hell” to deliver on them. In 2023, UAW President Shawn Fain started the process. Coming off the Stand Up Strike — where UAW members fought for cost-of-living adjustments, the return of pensions, and a 4-day, 32-hour workweek — Fain issued a bold call: a coordinated general strike on May Day 2028. Across industries. Across unions. Across the country.
It’s been two years since that call, and the clock is ticking. We’ve now got less than three years to decide what we’re going to raise hell about—and we need to figure that out. Strikes and collective bargaining campaigns only succeed when they’re grounded in clear and shared priorities. A general strike is no different. To build the kind of solidarity and power this moment demands, we’ll need to focus on a small number of bold, unifying demands with real, tangible impact. A laundry list of niche, union- or industry-specific priorities might check boxes, but it won’t mobilize and unify millions of workers.
There are plenty of demands that matter: just cause protections, fair scheduling, heat protections, Medicare for All, defending Social Security, a functional NLRB. But there’s one demand should be at the top of the shortlist that can unite a fractured working class, rally public support, and put the labor movement back on offense: a 4-day, 32-hour workweek with full pay and benefits.
1.Workers Need Shorter Workweeks Due To Burnout and Automation
Everyone knows the cost of living is up. Groceries, rent, childcare, gas — it all eats more of our paychecks every month. But too often, we only talk about the cost of living in dollars and cents. We forget that it’s also paid for with our time spent working — time that’s not spent with our families, for our rest, and for our lives outside of work.
Workers work hard but capitalism works harder. Since the adoption of the 5-day, 40-hour workweek 85 years ago, worker productivity has skyrocketed by 400%. And yet the average American household works more hours today, not less. The cost of living – as measured by time spent working – has gone up despite increased productivity. We were promised progress, but what we got instead is exhaustion. There is a cost to this crisis, one felt unequally: three-fifths of Americans have experienced burnout, with higher levels amongst low- and middle-wage workers, essential workers, workers of color, and young workers. We’ve built a society where burnout, not happiness, is the norm.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a nurse, a barista, a teacher, a warehouse picker, a white-collar worker on Zoom all day, or a factory worker pulling doubles on no sleep. Everyone is fried. The whole country is running on fumes. People are parenting between shifts, aging without care, and suffering under the weight of endless hours from multiple jobs.
Burnout—and the accompanying feeling that the work takes too much of our time–is experienced most by those already on the margins but is felt by everyone. Everyone’s feeling squeezed. That’s also what makes this such a powerful organizing opportunity. The need for more time cuts across job titles, pay rates, zip codes, and generations.
When was the last time the labor movement had a demand that could mean something to everyone? Every worker wants more time. To rest. To raise a kid. To take care of their health. To actually live. A 4-day, 32-hour workweek with full pay and benefits is the kind of demand that could finally pull all of us into the same fight, making us feel like we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Burnout isn’t the only crisis on the horizon. As AI’s capabilities accelerate and its use proliferates, we’re also staring down the possibility of widespread job displacement. The labor movement needs a response to this that doesn’t position us as technophobes or Luddites, but as people fighting for a fair share of the gains and for control over the free time that automation promises. Shorter hours is that answer. Instead of letting automation concentrate wealth and eliminate jobs, we can fairly distribute its benefits by shortening the workweek. While proponents of AI believe it will let us “do more in less time,” the last six decades show that productivity gains don’t just automatically flow to workers in the form of time or money. We must fight for it to happen.
Some argue that a 4-day, 32-hour workweek isn’t realistic for low-wage hourly workers, many of whom are already juggling multiple jobs just to stay afloat. But that’s exactly why we need to fight for it. The goal isn’t to squeeze 40 hours into fewer days. It’s to raise the floor for everyone, so no one needs two or three jobs to survive. A 32-hour standard with full pay and benefits is about giving all workers, especially those most exploited, the time and income security they deserve. Higher wages can’t be—and haven’t been—the only counterweight to prevent overwork.
Others argue that because the 32-hour workweek would benefit all workers, including white-collar and higher-paid ones, it’s either too broad to organize around or not worth prioritizing. But that’s exactly what gives it power. Only strong and durable solidarity can hold a patchwork of labor coalitions together. To build that level of solidarity, we need demands that would have both a broad and deep impact.
[include that one challenge in advocating for other workers’ rights pieces has been that they only speak to the most exploited workers; decreasing their powerful since it requires getting people to advocate beyond their self interest.
Others argue that because the 32-hour week would benefit everyone — including white-collar and higher-paid workers — it’s too broad to organize around. But that’s exactly what gives it power. Many fights for workers’ rights struggle to win broad solidarity because they ask people to fight only for someone else’s interests — to stand up for the most exploited, even when they themselves aren’t directly affected. This might help explain why the minimum wage has lagged so badly: it affects only the poorest workers, so other workers often don’t feel compelled to fight side by side. That’s morally right, but solidarity is fragile when it’s disconnected from people’s self-interest.
To build the kind of strong, durable solidarity we need, our demands must have both a deep and broad impact. When workers see what they personally stand to gain — as they would with a 4-day, 32-hour workweek — solidarity becomes real. Fighting for someone else is noble. Fighting for everyone’s time, health, and control over life is how we build a movement and a general strike powerful enough to win. Pulling off a general strike will take more than coordination. It will take solidarity rooted in shared self-interest. Demands like worktime reduction help us organize across differences. They give people a reason to show up and stay in the fight. A shorter workweek won’t erase our differences but it targets the crisis we’re all living: too much work, not enough time.
Too often, the solutions offered to struggles are individual: download a mindfulness app, make sure you’re taking your lunch break, fine-tune your resume, or take a vacation you can hardly afford. But when burnout is already endemic and job displacement could soon be, we can’t treat them like a personal failure. They’re structural problems. And what we need are collective solutions, not coping mechanisms.
2. It brings new people into the labor movement.
In the last few years, we’re already seeing the power of the 4-day, 32-hour workweek movement. It has wide appeal across party lines, generations, and industries — especially among young workers who will shape the labor movement’s future. It is more than just popular however, it also holds the possibility to grow the labor movement.
Most workers in this country aren’t in unions–in fact, only about 1 in 10 workers is in a union. Despite an ascendant labor movement, unionization rates have actually decreased, even during Biden’s pro-union administration. But that doesn’t mean workers don’t want something better. The labor movement needs demands bold enough to capture the imagination and the hearts of those who aren’t already part of it. A 4-day, 32-hour workweek is exactly that kind of demand. It’s ambitious. It’s tangible. It’s something any worker can immediately understand and want.
It also re-energizes the people already in the fight. Too often, members are called to action around defensive fights or incremental demands. But when we go on offense and articulate a vision for the world we want to build, we remind people why they joined in the first place — to build power and improve their lives in real ways.
We’re already seeing this play out. The Minnesota Association of of Professional Employee’s campaign for a 32-hour workweek sparked widespread interest from members and non-dues paying members alike. It turned a demand into an organizing vehicle.
We win in May 2028 not just by organizing shop by shop, but by shaping the national conversation around work. We must show labor has a vision for how to address the biggest problems working people face: time, money, and job security. And if we do, we will bring more people into the labor movement.
3. It’s ambitious but winnable in workplaces and in legislatures.
Those who think the 4-day, 32-hour workweek is too ambitious are missing the tipping point we’re already reaching. During COVID, the rules of work didn’t just shift–they were rewritten in real time. Schedules changed, commutes disappeared, and millions of people reassessed what they were willing to give to their jobs. The pandemic revealed that work can change quickly if we want it to. It also revealed a deeper truth: people don’t just want more flexible work, but they want less of it so they can spend more time on what matters—family, health, rest, and life outside the job.
In just the last few years in the U.S., hundreds of companies have piloted or implemented 4-day, 32-hour workweeks, and some unions have already bargained it into their contracts. These examples have shown that the 4-day, 32-hour workweek is a win-win—for both workers and the organization. Productivity and revenue are going up, not down. Retention is up. Morale is up. Workers are happier, less stressed. The 4-day, 32-hour workweek makes a concrete, measurable, and tangible difference in the lives of those fortunate enough to have it. For these reasons, 91% of the companies in the United States that have piloted a 4-day, 32-hour workweek have stuck with it.
And the momentum isn’t limited to private workplaces. In just the past four years, local, state, and federal policymakers in over 17 states have introduced efforts to advance four-day, 32-hour workweek legislation. Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Laphonza Butler introduced a federal bill last March. And just this May, a Republican, Maine State Senator Rick Bennett, introduced the first Republican-backed 4-day workweek pilot bill in U.S. history. The breadth of this coalition, cutting across party lines and reaching from Congress to state legislatures to local governments, speaks to the widespread appeal of a shorter workweek, and thus the very real possibility that it could become law if we mobilize ordinary people towards it.
This isn’t a question of whether or not the 4-day, 32-hour workweek is economically possible or logistically feasible. It is. It’s a question of can we build the power to make it politically inevitable.
4. It’s what May Day is for.
Lastly, fighting for shorter hours takes us right back to the roots of May Day. The first modern May Day parade—which resulted in the Haymarket massacre–was organized around a simple but then-radical demands: eight-hour days. [include picture of rally posters: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will” and “Eight-Hour Day With No Cut In Pay.”]
May Day has always been about reclaiming time and power for workers. The labor movement back then understood something we need to relearn today: the opposite of burnout isn’t just leisure— it’s control. It was about having enough freedom, time, and power to decide what our lives looks like. And accordingly, there’s a deep history of general strikes in the U.S. being driven by the fight for worktime reduction, from the May Day Strikes of 1886 to Seattle in 1919 to San Francisco in 1934 and Oakland in 1946.
Labor’s most enduring victories reveal the deep appeal of worktime reduction. When people think of the labor movement, they think of weekends, the 8-hour workday, paid family leave, rest breaks, and paid vacation. At its core, the fight for more time — time to rest, care, and live — is one of the most powerful tools workers have to improve their life. It’s an inflation-proof, lasting way to win real gains that can’t be eroded by price hikes or employer clawbacks.
The five-day, 40-hour workweek standard isn’t a natural rule of law. It was won by people who risked their jobs, their futures, and sometimes their lives to force the issue. Shorter hours and workweeks was a captivating and unifying demand then, as it is now.
5. It can shape the national conversation in an election year.
May Day 2028 arrives just six months before the general election at a moment when the whole country will be asking big questions about the future of work, the economy, and what kind of country we want to be. It’s a rare window, not just to be heard, but to define what’s at stake. That timing gives the labor movement an incredible opportunity to elevate its demands beyond the bargaining table and into the national policy spotlight.
By organizing a general strike around something as concrete and popular as the 32-hour workweek, we can force the political system to respond to workers' needs, not just corporations'. We can shape the debate, spotlight real solutions, and center the voice of working people in an election year. It’s not about endorsing candidates. It’s about making sure the things that matter most to workers are too loud to ignore.
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To close, we’re at a critical moment shaped by three converging crises: a post-COVID workforce still reeling from burnout and overwork, a rapidly advancing AI revolution threatening to displace jobs and intensify exploitation, and escalating attacks on workers’ rights and security.
Where there are crises, there is opportunity, and we must seize it in May 2028. We have to fight for more than just protection. We have to put forward a bold, unifying vision for what work should look like in the 21st century. Worktime reduction is that vision. It’s how we reclaim control, spread the gains of productivity, and build lasting power.
May Day 2028 needs to be about more than just holding the line, it’s about drawing a new one.