Shouldn't AI help us push this down to 30h for everyone? Who in their right mind wants to work more? Most of the 40h week is wasted with doing pointless things anyway.

I hope the German workers (can) negotiate to keep the 35 hour/week arrangement.

(I'm not German, nor do I work there).

and I hope somehow we are able to bring a less than 40 hour/week arrangement in the US.

Workers in the US work, by far, the most of any other country. And yet, only a relative few are able to afford quality medical care, and decent quality of life. (The workers in the tech sectors like Bay area, NYC, etc. are, IMHO, an outlier with respect to pay packages compared to the rest of the country.)

It's a devil's bargain: you either work your a* off, 60-80 hours/week, and hope to get paid $$$$ one day; or you work "reasonable" hours and get paid for a shitty qualify of life.