Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
A recent proposal by a group of “progressive” congressional staffers demanding a 32-hour workweek for Congress drew some interesting responses on Twitter: “LOL read the room guys” and “Why not be bold and ask for a 0-hour work week?” And those were just the responses from Democrats.
The letter was formally withdrawn the day after the staffers released it to bipartisan criticism, but it’s still worth analyzing the proposal’s origins. This incident reveals yet again how leftist elites live in their own bubble and don’t understand the “real world” around them. It reinforces November’s election results and why Democrats face significant problems with working-class voters as the party gets further and further out of touch.
More and Less Than Meets the Eye
On the one hand, the letter the Congressional Progressive Staff Association sent to party leaders in the House and Senate seems more innocuous than the headlines, and snark, it generated. The association asked for Washington-based staff to work fewer hours when Congress is in recess, and for constituency-based staff to work fewer hours when members of Congress are in Washington.
I won’t speak for constituency offices, but as a practical matter, many, if not most, Washington offices already operate on these principles. Many congressional staff make themselves scarce when Congress is out of session. Even before pandemic-era work-from-home habits, Capitol Hill office buildings often resembled ghost towns during recess periods. While all staff aren’t so lucky, most of the offices I worked for on the Hill were generally flexible about working hours and even let me work from home as I recovered following surgery.
On the other hand, it takes a special degree of chutzpah to issue demands to one’s superiors about how a congressional office should run — particularly when those superiors, unlike staff, have the blessing of voters in their constituencies. As one of my bosses used to tell me (and not in a hostile manner), “If you don’t like the working conditions, don’t take the check.” Heck, if staff don’t like the way their office is run, they have another option beyond simply going elsewhere: They can put their money where their mouth is and run for Congress themselves.
Therein lies the problem for the leftist staffers: They believe they have a God-given right to a 32-hour workweek, just like they believe they have a right to attend their “dream college” free of charge, and so many other things besides. Being coddled within left-wing institutions, with their education paid for by Joe Biden’s student “loan forgiveness,” allows them to believe in and demand “rights” that are not theirs to ask for. For a group of individuals that likes to talk about “checking one’s privilege,” they should look in the mirror.
Out-of-Touch Elites
That gets to the other point Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., made in the tweet mockingly referring to a zero-hour workweek: “I wonder how blue-collar Americans would feel about white-collar workers demanding a 32-hour work week.” He continued that point in a follow-up tweet where he asked a similar question: “Why would you want to work less than the very working people who elected your employers?”
Torres’ questions — and the fact that he had to ask them publicly — get to the heart of one of his party’s political problems. Very few Democrat leaders think about or prioritize the needs of the working class because they are so removed from them.
Think about it: Even the most junior staff assistant in a Washington, D.C., congressional office likely has a college education — still the exception, not the norm, among the American people as a whole. They sit in climate-controlled comfort at a desk all day — again, not the norm for many Americans. And if you asked them about the difference between people who shower in the morning compared to people who shower in the evening, they would probably look at you like you were from Mars.
Perhaps the congressional staffers demanding a 32-hour week should get it — performing manual labor on a factory floor, working as an overnight janitor, or milking cows at 5 a.m. After a 32-hour week performing those tasks, I’m guessing they would prefer 64 hours behind a desk in an air-conditioned office. They might also spend less time asking for things they have no right to demand and more time focusing on the needs of people who have spent the past four years struggling to make ends meet.