He admittedly borrowed that term from Republican politicians, who coined it in the 1980s, to refer to social issues and lifestyle choices.
Sanders, running on a platform widely seen as representing the more progressive wing of his party, feels the 40-hour week has largely gone the way of the Model T Ford. He would remind voters that organized labor fought hard in the early years of the 20th century to combat sweatshop conditions and achieve a shorter work week for average Americans. The result of that grass-roots movement was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 – the federal law that established the minimum wage (itself once again a hot-button political issue in 2015) and required employers to pay overtime to employees working more than 40 hours per week.
Unfortunately, Sanders says, the law has less clout today than it once did, because the threshold for full-time workers to qualify for overtime is only $23,660. The Senator has proposed that President Obama raise the threshold to $57,000, to cover many more individuals. He also advocates mandatory paid annual vacation leave of at least 10 days at companies where an employee has worked for at least one year.