With over a million views in 12 days, Bernie Sanders' video appeal for 32-hour work week is going places
by Piyush Mathur
Citing multiyear statistics on job losses in the United States (US) due to automation, robotics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Bernie Sanders—the senior Senator from Vermont and a former contender for the Democratic Presidential ticket—strongly argued in a video address recently that the standard 40-hour work week be replaced with a 32-hour one for Americans without any pay loss.
Noting that ‘Americans are 400 more productive’ now than ‘in the 1940s when the 40-hour work week was first established’—and that worker productivity is only going to vastly magnify owing to the unfolding technological revolution—he presses the point that the American worker be allowed to enjoy a better quality of life through a shorter work week for the existing level of financial compensations.
Sander’s video, uploaded to YouTube on October 8, 2025, has already been viewed 1.1 million times—and upvoted 64K times. One would be lucky, however, to find it being reported, let alone discussed, on the wealthy ‘legacy’ news outlets.
Substantial board representation for American workers
Highlighting how waves of automation have handed greater and greater power and control to the richest corporate bosses over the course of the past several decades, Sanders also suggests in the video that the US ‘must require large corporations to allow workers to elect at least 45% of the members of their boards of directors’. He cites the example of Germany in this regard.
Underscoring the need for workers to have ‘a seat at the table’ in the fast-changing economic universe increasingly steered by AI, he proffers substantial board representation as the instrument that would allow them ‘to determine how AI is used in their companies.’
‘Elon Musk has said he wants Tesla to build millions of robots. And what will these robots do? Well, obviously they will replace the men and women working in our factories, warehouses, and in restaurants, and in other areas.’
— Bernie Sanders
(‘AI Could Wipe Out the Working Class’, 3:02-3:15)
Greater profit sharing & expanded employee ownership
Sanders’ concise, authoritative address ties the intensification of automation to several glaring waves of job losses across the US within the past few years as well as to bigger payouts to top corporate bosses. Citing expert statements and research-based projections, he foresees significant increases in unemployment, poverty, inequality, and worker dissatisfaction unless the aforementioned trends are checked and reversed.
To that end, Sanders recommends augmenting ‘profit sharing’ at the largest American corporations, whereby workers should be allotted ‘at least 20% of the stock in companies they work for.’
Under the assumption that ‘workers more involved in the decision-making processes’ are likelier to ‘make choices that benefit everyone in the company’, the influential senator also strongly recommends expanding ‘the concept of employee ownership in America’ for the unfolding AI era.
While he does not provide any specifics in this regard in this address, he mentions a report he has recently released—and it is likely to have greater details. A link to that report’s pdf is included further below.
A robot tax
A fifth and final suggestion Sanders offers in his address might be the most controversial just as it is also the most innovative (or creatively titled anyway): a ‘robot tax’.
Yes, Sanders remains sincere and serious while declaring to the camera that the US ‘should enact a robot tax on large corporations and use that revenue to improve the lives of workers’ who may have lost their jobs or partial incomes to the new wave of automation—or who may incur similar losses in the time to come.
The Sanders-conceptualised robot tax would thus contribute to a financial insurance policy for the American worker of the AI era.
Amazon, Foxcon, FedEx, Tesla, Walmart are prominent mentions
Sanders’ five-point roadmap for the American worker in the AI era is prefaced by some alarming statistics pointing to the parallel realities of job losses and incremental concentration of wealth, making it unmistakably clear to his audience that, in its current form, the AI-robotics revolution will generate an enormous gap between the common American worker, on the one hand, and the owners and top bosses of major corporations, on the other.
Sanders notes, for example, that Amazon—which ‘now has more than a million robots working in its warehouses’—has let go of ‘27,000 workers since 2022.’ He warns that ‘soon these robots will outnumber human workers in Amazon facilities.’
Noting that Foxcon ‘replaced 60, 000 workers’ with robots in one Chinese factory in 2016, he alerts us to the future by highlighting the fact that Foxcon is already preparing to start ‘fully automated factories’.
Sanders also mentions the rising tide of driverless transportation—already used, he points out, by FedEx (through Aurora), Walmart (through Gatic), IKEA (through Kodiak), and Waymo, among others.
Citing a report he recently released as a Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Sanders drives the viewer’s attention to the dreadful prospect ‘that AI, automation, and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs in America over the next decade, including 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, 65% of teaching assistants, and 89% of fast food workers, among many other occupations.’
Some corporate bigwigs’ statements are cleverly harnessed
Sanders also quotes key predictive statements from Jim Farley, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates regarding job losses in the near future owing to the rise of AI and robotics. Instead of challenging some of these statements’ bragging component in favour of AI’s capabilities, he takes them on their face value—and sort of wonders with fellow Americans about how best to come together to strategize in response to them.
Sanders’ own five points constitute the core of how he should like the US to respond, from the viewpoint of the commoner, to the claimed as well as already evident capabilities of the AI-robotics-led industrial revolution.
Concluding remarks
While Sanders roadmap is a rational attempt to address the growing problems of economic inequality and unemployment as well underemployment that are increasingly tied to AI-robotics-related technological progress, he overlooks the gender dimension of the tech billionaire club driving that progress into specific directions. Women are few and far between in these elite clubs; and from that viewpoint, worker representation on the board would also be an inadequate remedy unless there are strategies in place to empower women to be vigorously included in that 45% share of seats he recommends be allotted to workers.
Titled ‘AI could wipe out the working class’, Sanders’ video can be accessed via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dthbi4lzO58
Piyush Mathur, Ph.D., is the author of Technological Forms and Ecological Communication: A Theoretical Heuristic (Lexington Books, 2017).