The Perils of Ever-Changing Work Schedules Extend to Children’s Well-Being
Abercrombie & Fitch announced last week that it would stop requiring workers to be on call for shifts that could be canceled with little notice, making it the latest retailer to pull back from...
Abercrombie & Fitch announced last week that it would stop requiring workers to be on call for shifts that could be canceled with little notice, making it the latest retailer to pull back from such scheduling practices.
Williams-Sonoma ended on-call shifts in the last several months, while Gap has scaled back the practice ahead of a study it has commissioned on scheduling. Last year, Starbucks announced that it was bringing more “stability and consistency” to its employees’ hours after an article in The New York Times highlighted the company’s habit of giving workers little advance notice on their schedules and requiring some to close and open stores in consecutive shifts, known as “clopening.”
Although the workers directly affected by unpredictable schedules are the most obvious winners, the biggest beneficiaries of a change in the practice could be their children.
A growing body of research suggests that children’s language and problem-solving skills may suffer as a result of their parents’ problematic schedules, and that they may be more likely than other children to smoke and drink when they are older.
“Young children and adolescents of parents working unpredictable schedules or outside standard daytime working hours are more likely to have inferior cognitive and behavioral outcomes,” the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal advocacy group, said last week in a report.
Last year, two Democratic representatives introduced the Schedules That Work Act, which would require employers to give workers more say about their hours and provide them with incentives to encourage more stable schedules.
“We are all talking about this today,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, who is one of the bill’s lead sponsors. “Five years ago, it was an issue people would have brushed to the corner.” The bill has 69 co-sponsors; two Democrats also introduced companion legislation in the Senate.
Among the needs that policy makers and activists working on the issue identify is finding stable, professional child care on a schedule that shifts from week to week.
“The arrangements families put together are usually ad hoc,” Ms. DeLauro said. “They have to rely on other family members, friends. If something breaks down in that chain, they have a problem.”
While all shifting schedules pose a challenge in this regard, on-call work may be unique in the way it complicates child care arrangements.
Kris Buchmann of Albuquerque worked a retail job at a local mall when her son, now 3 ½, was about 1 year old. She said she was frequently scheduled for on-call shifts that never materialized or that lasted less than an hour when they did.
“I still had to pay a babysitter,” said Ms. Buchmann, who is active in a New Mexico organizing group called Organizers in the Land of Enchantment, or OLÉ. “Sometimes I would have to go pick her up, take her back to my house because she didn’t have transportation, drive to work, get sent home, still have to pay her, and drive her home.”
When Ms. Buchmann demanded a more stable schedule, her employer refused, an experience that is not uncommon. After that, she left the job.
As practices like unpredictable scheduling have proliferated in recent years, fed by a shift toward lean staffing models made possible by sophisticated software, they have attracted public criticism.
In a nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll in May, 72 percent of Americans favored requiring chain stores to provide at least two weeks’ notice for any change in schedule, or else compensate workers with extra pay.
Regulators have also taken notice. In April, the office of the New York State attorney general sent letters to 13 retailers, questioning their use of on-call shifts. The letters, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, said retailers were providing workers with “too little time to make arrangements for family needs, let alone to find an alternative source of income to compensate for the lost pay.”
Several companies that received letters from the New York attorney general have denied that they use on-call scheduling for low-wage workers, or that it is common in their stores. Some retailers say that only a small fraction of their workers who have been on unpredictable schedules care for children.
“Very few of our store associates are working parents,” said Michael Scheiner, a spokesman for Abercrombie & Fitch, which was among the letter’s recipients.
But the problem appears to be widespread. A 2012 study of nonfood retail workers in New York City by Stephanie Luce of the City University of New York and by the Retail Action Project, a workers’ advocacy group, found that more than half of the surveyed workers who cared for others, like children or elderly family members, had to make themselves available for last-minute shifts.
Because the practice is relatively new, however, scholars must infer its likely impact from research over the last decade showing the effects on children of parents working nonstandard hours, including night shifts, that have been more common for years.
In one of the most respected studies, published in 2005 in the journal Child Development, Prof. Wen-Jui Han of New York University looked at children during their first three years of life, controlling for such demographic variables as their mothers’ income, education, and race and ethnicity.
Professor Han, who was then at Columbia University, found that children of mothers who worked nonstandard schedules performed lower on problem-solving, verbal comprehension and spoken language tests than children of mothers who worked traditional schedules. Part of the explanation, she concluded, was increased stress on the part of the parents.
“Parents try their best to attend to their children in a sensitive and warm manner, but the physical and emotional exhaustion from nonstandard schedules makes it difficult,” Professor Han said in an interview. “With young children, if they’re crying, asking for food, asking for something, it’s all about how you interact with them.”
Another key issue, she found, was access to quality child care. Children whose mothers worked nonstandard schedules during their first year of life were significantly less likely to be enrolled in professional day care centers throughout early childhood. This type of child care setting, she noted in the paper, tends to be associated with better cognitive development than informal arrangements like relying on extended family members, a frequent alternative.
As for adolescents, Professor Han and two colleagues published a second paper, in the journal Developmental Psychology in 2010, which said that the longer mothers worked odd hours, the more likely their children were to smoke, drink, act out and engage in sexual activity.
The specific effect of on-call work and other frequently changing schedules — as opposed to work hours that fall outside the traditional workday — is only beginning to be studied, but social scientists worry that it has similar implications for children.
In a study of female workers at a large clothing retailer published last year in the Industrial & Labor Relations Review, Julia R. Henly and Susan J. Lambert of the University of Chicago found that the unpredictability of the workers’ schedules was related to higher stress and difficulties juggling work and family demands.
While the study did not examine the way this affected children, Dr. Henly suggested that the challenges posed by unpredictable work hours could take a toll on children as well. She also predicted that mothers with constantly changing work schedules would be less likely to enroll their children in preschool and other high-quality child care facilities.
“Some amount of early childhood education is important,” she said. “But it’s impossible to take advantage of those opportunities if you have a schedule that doesn’t allow you to get your kid there.”
According to Carrie Gleason of the Center for Popular Democracy, a nonprofit organization that helps community groups organize, such complications may explain why there appear to be fewer parents who work on-call shifts.
“A lot of times we find that they don’t last very long,” she said. “It’s absolutely impossible for working parents to meet their responsibilities to their families and hold down a job at a company with on-call shifts.”
Still, even parents who don’t work on-call jobs often have little advance notice of their schedules. In many companies that officially promise to make schedules available in advance, Ms. Gleason said, “managers edit the schedule up until the hours someone is supposed to come in.”
Correction: August 14, 2015
Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about the effects on children of their parents’ unpredictable work schedules misstated part of the name of a group in which Kris Buchmann, who left a retail job because of the difficulties in arranging child care, is active. It is Organizers in the Land of Enchantment, not Organizers in the Land of Enrichment.
Source: New York Times
April 15: National Protests on Tax Day Demand Trump Release His Tax Returns
April 15: National Protests on Tax Day Demand Trump Release His Tax Returns
WASHINGTON - Today, the National Working Families Party announced their participation in the Tax Day March. President Trump’s financial ties to Russia are causing growing questions for both...
WASHINGTON - Today, the National Working Families Party announced their participation in the Tax Day March. President Trump’s financial ties to Russia are causing growing questions for both Democrats and Republicans. As a result, thousands of people plan to gather in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, April 15, 2017, at 11 a.m. The Tax March was an idea that started on Twitter, but has gained momentum on and offline, with over 135 marches planned in cities across the country...
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New York City Council Expected to Approve 2 Plans Aiding Immigrants
New York Times - June 26, 2014, by Kirk Semple - A long-sought initiative that would provide municipal identification cards to...
New York Times - June 26, 2014, by Kirk Semple - A long-sought initiative that would provide municipal identification cards to all New Yorkers, including those without legal immigration status, has been finalized, and will come before the City Council for a vote this week, officials said.
Undocumented immigrants could use the cards as proof of residence, and to check out library books, sign leases and open bank accounts, among other benefits.
The Council is expected to consider the item on Thursday, the same day it is slated to earmark $4.9 million to provide a lawyer for every poor, foreign-born New Yorker who has been detained by immigration authorities and is facing deportation, officials said. The initiative would make New York the first jurisdiction in the nation with a fully covered public defender system to assist detained, indigent immigrants in deportation proceedings.
Taken together, the measures, which officials said were expected to pass, would further cement New York’s reputation as one of the most accommodating places in the world for immigrants.
“The city is sending a strong message to its residents that we have your back,” City Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who has championed both initiatives, said in an interview on Tuesday. “These are clear messages, indicators, commitments that we mean we’re serious about how we take care of our immigrants and, really, all New Yorkers.”
With the passage of the municipal identification bill, a pledge made by Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York would join several other cities that have already introduced similar measures, including Los Angeles, New Haven and San Francisco.
The terms of the bill were hammered out in meetings involving City Council members, the mayor’s office and city agencies, including, perhaps most important, the New York Police Department. Proponents of the initiative wanted to ensure that the police would recognize the cards as acceptable forms of identification during police stops and for other law-enforcement matters.
At the crux of those negotiations was the effort to balance the demand for privacy against the need to protect against fraud, Mr. Menchaca said. Under the arrangement, the city will keep application documents on file for two years, but the police will be required to secure a judicial warrant to look at the files, the councilman said.
City officials still need to work out the bureaucratic mechanics of the program but plan to start issuing the cards by the start of 2015.
The public defender initiative, which is included in the city’s proposed budget, would be an expansion of a publicly funded pilot program started last year that inspired the admiration and envy of immigrants’ advocates across the country.
The plan, called the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, seeks to help correct a woeful lack of qualified representation in immigration court. In contrast to the nation’s criminal courts, defendants in immigration court have no constitutional right to a court-appointed lawyer.
The initiative would provide legal representation to 1,380 detained, indigent New Yorkers facing deportation at the immigration courts on Varick Street in Manhattan as well as in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J.
The program “marks a sea change in the quality and quantity of justice that will be afforded to New York City’s immigrants,” said Peter L. Markowitz, a Cardozo School of Law professor who has helped lead the initiative.
Mr. Menchaca said he expected the program to inspire other municipalities and states to start similar initiatives.
“We are the first doing this kind of work at this kind of level, and it’s really going to send a ripple effect across the country,” he said.
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Car wash activists release report on John Lage
Amsterdam News - June 20, 2013 - According to a recently released report by car wash workers and their advocates, the owner of several car washes with labor law violations is still paid by the...
Amsterdam News - June 20, 2013 - According to a recently released report by car wash workers and their advocates, the owner of several car washes with labor law violations is still paid by the city to clean city-owned cars.
Created and distributed by Make the Road New York, Center for Popular Democracy, New York Communities for Change and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the report includes public documents that they believe show that city taxpayers have “spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting” John Lage and his associate Fernando Magalhaes.
According to the report, between 2007 and 2013, Lage Car Wash Inc. had contracts with the New York City Police Department and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) worth over $300,000 combined. Also, the city paid Lage Car Wash at least $135,924 for the past three years for car wash services and almost $38,000 to other entities that are controlled by Lage or Magalhaes. Last year, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation in Lage’s business practices.
Currently, car wash employees of Lage’s report that they work over 50 hours a week for an hourly wage of $6 without tips or about $7.30 including tips and including overtime. Back in 2005, the U.S. Labor Department sued Lage on charges he and 15 of his companies “willfully and repeatedly” violated wage laws. The suit ended with Lage paying $4.7 million in wages and fines.
None of this was of much surprise to Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union President Stuart Appelbaum.
“This report is proof that Lage Car Wash Inc. and its treatment of workers is not fair to the workers, nor do these conditions uplift and sustain our communities,” said Appelbaum. “New York City should quickly take action and truly reconsider doing business with a company who operates in this manner.”
Last week, car wash workers and supporters attended the Car Wash Workers General Assembly, where they discussed their experiences working for Lage-owned companies.
“We learned from the strike at Sunny Day [in the Bronx] and the struggle at Soho [in Manhattan] that we can defend our rights and win, and we are no longer going to accept mistreatment and poverty wages,” said Hector Gómez, a car wash worker who worked at the recently closed Lage Car Wash in Soho and currently works at Sutphin Car Wash. “Just think how much more we can win when all the car washes in New York City are organized and united.”
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Fed Up Campaign Celebrates Victory for Working Families as Fed Holds Off on Rate Hikes
“This is a victory for the working families who stepped up with innovative organizing to send the Fed a clear message: Our voices belong in the debate about our economy,” said Ady Barkan, Campaign...
“This is a victory for the working families who stepped up with innovative organizing to send the Fed a clear message: Our voices belong in the debate about our economy,” said Ady Barkan, Campaign Director for Fed Up. “With the recovery still far too weak in too many communities, it would have been economically devastating – and immoral – to slow the economy.”
“We applaud Chair Yellen and the Federal Reserve for resisting the pressure being put on them to intentionally slow down the economy. Weak wage growth proves that the labor market is still very far from full employment. And with inflation still below the Fed’s already low target, there is simply no reason to raise interest rates anytime soon. Across America, working families know that the economy still has not recovered. We hope that the Fed continues to look at the data and refrain from any rate hikes until we reach genuine full employment for all, particularly for the Black and Latino communities who are being left behind in this so-called recovery.
The campaign held a rally outside the building where Chair Janet Yellen made the announcement this afternoon. Fifty workers gathered to tell their stories and call on the Fed not to intentionally slow down the economy. They were joined by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who introduced today the Full Employment Federal Reserve Act of 2015, which would enhance the Fed’s full employment mandate.
Throughout late 2014 and 2015, the Fed Up campaign has elevated the voices of working families, meeting with four of the five Fed Governors and six of the twelve regional Fed presidents. Workers across the country have talked about the tremendous racial and economic disparities that still afflict the economy, and the need for genuine full employment that creates rising wages and more jobs for all communities. It has enlisted the support of economists like Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, the involvement of four of the nation’s largest progressive digital advocacy organizations, and over 120,000 supporters around the country.
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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
Under pressure, U.S. Federal Reserve takes baby steps toward a more transparent and inclusive era
Under pressure, U.S. Federal Reserve takes baby steps toward a more transparent and inclusive era
Last year’s behind-the-scenes selection of three men with ties to Goldman Sachs to serve atop the Federal Reserve did not go over well with outspoken civic groups and many Democrats, including...
Last year’s behind-the-scenes selection of three men with ties to Goldman Sachs to serve atop the Federal Reserve did not go over well with outspoken civic groups and many Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, who have all called for a more transparent and inclusive central bank. In response to the critics, the Fed has rolled out a series of announcements, online forums and face-to-face meetings with Americans to portray a more open process of selecting its 12 district presidents that is also more sensitive to racial and gender diversity.
The Minneapolis Fed, like its counterparts in Philadelphia and Dallas last year, named a president in Neel Kashkari with a past at Goldman, the Wall Street bank. But it also broke ranks from others when it released video testimonials from directors shedding light on the year-long search process, and even published a “summary of attributes” sought in the candidate. The Atlanta Fed said last month it seeks a “diverse set of candidates” to replace outgoing chief Dennis Lockhart, and this month its board chair hosted a pubic webcast to explain the historically shrouded search process, raising hopes it would name the first black or Latino Fed president in the central bank’s 103-year history.
“In the Federal Reserve system we are taking this very seriously, but it’s not just because we want to go and say we’re diverse,” Loretta Mester, the Cleveland Fed President, told a gathering of low-wage workers and progressive economists organized by Fed Up, a labor-affiliated coalition of civic groups pushing for reforms. “It really is about … getting different view points that are very helpful to us in setting policy and thinking about the economy and understanding the trends,” she said at the Cleveland Fed on Friday. Mester met the group a day after her bank launched an online application form for the public to recommend people “diverse in backgrounds and perspectives” for board positions and advisory roles across her Midwest district. Asked to what extent outside pressure prompted the move, a spokeswoman said it was “just the latest in our ongoing efforts to broaden our outreach.”
The 12 Fed presidents have five rotating votes on U.S. interest rate policy. Unlike the five current governors at the Fed Board in Washington, who are selected by the White House and approved by the Senate, the presidents are chosen by their district directors, half of whom are themselves picked by private local banks that technically own the Fed banks. The dizzying structure is meant to ensure views from across the country are heard. But critics say it leaves the Fed beholden to bankers who are not representative of the public, and they point out that 11 of 12 district presidents are white while 10 of them are men. Among employees at the Fed Board in Washington, including service workers, 43 percent were non-white and 43 percent female last year. However at the executive level it was 18 percent and 37 percent, respectively, according to the central bank.
Clinton, the presidential candidate, has come out in favor of dropping bankers from district boards and making the Fed “more representative of America as a whole,” according to her party’s platform. That followed a May letter from 127 lawmakers to Fed Chair Janet Yellen urging more diversity.
After years of resisting more overt political efforts to curb its independence, the Fed under Yellen appears willing to take small steps in the name of transparency and inclusively. In an unusual entry in minutes of their meeting last month, Fed officials discussed a staff analysis of “differential patterns of unemployment across racial and ethnic groups.” U.S. unemployment among blacks is twice that of whites.
“While we applaud this progress, these very basic steps were available to them for the last hundred years and have only been rolled out very recently,” Shawn Sebastian, a Fed Up field director, said of the series of efforts by Fed banks.
In its latest critique, Fed Up called it “disappointing” that Nicole Taylor, a black woman and dean of community engagement and diversity at Stanford University whose term as director at the San Francisco Fed is soon to expire, would be succeeded on that district’s board by Sanford Michelman, a white man who is co-founder of law firm Michelman & Robinson LLP. John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, told reporters on Wednesday that while he has no control over the selection of directors, this board revamp “just redoubles my efforts and my team’s efforts to make sure that we are getting the voices and experiences from across the spectrum.” He added: “It’s definitely a step back in terms of what I’d like to see on our board. We’re working actively to build representation of women and minorities.”
By Jonathan Spicer
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Woman who confronted Flake 'relieved' he called for delaying Kavanaugh vote
Woman who confronted Flake 'relieved' he called for delaying Kavanaugh vote
Maria Gallagher, who on Friday confronted Sen. Jeff Flake with her story of sexual assault, said she was "relieved" when the Arizona Republican called for an FBI investigation into allegations...
Maria Gallagher, who on Friday confronted Sen. Jeff Flake with her story of sexual assault, said she was "relieved" when the Arizona Republican called for an FBI investigation into allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Gallagher, a resident of New York, stood next to Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, earlier Friday as the two held open the doors of an elevator Flake was taking on his way to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Soon after, Flake said he would vote to advance Kavanaugh's nomination to the Senate floor, but he said he wanted a vote in the full body delayed for one week while the FBI investigated the allegations.
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Advocates of minimum wage hike raise more than $1.4 million
Advocates of minimum wage hike raise more than $1.4 million
Proponents of hiking the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the November ballot and convince voters to support it.
But there’s no word on...
Proponents of hiking the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the November ballot and convince voters to support it.
But there’s no word on how much the Arizona Restaurant Association has spent so far trying to keep Proposition 206 from ever getting to voters.
New campaign finance reports due Friday show donations of $1,357,509 to Arizonans for Fair Wages and Health Families, with another $100,000 on loan from campaign consultant Bill Scheel. Most of those dollars — about $900,000 — were spent hiring paid circulators to put the issue on the ballot.
But the secretary of state’s office said Friday it has yet to get a spending report from foes. In fact, spokesman Matt Roberts said foes have not even filed to form a campaign committee, a legal prerequisite for spending any money for or against ballot measures.
There clearly has been some spending.
The restaurant association hired attorneys and filed suit on July 14 in a legal bid, unsuccessful to date, to have the measure removed from the November ballot. And the report due Friday is supposed to cover all expenses through Aug. 18.
Neither Steve Chucri, president of the restaurant group, nor Chiane Hewer, its spokeswoman, returned repeated calls seeking comment.
Roberts said his office has no legal opinion on whether the money spent in court over ballot measures has to be reported. But the legal expenses incurred by initiative supporters are listed, with their report saying the group paid $70,000 to the Torres Law Group to defend them in the lawsuit brought by the restaurant association.
Proposition 206, if approved in November, would immediately hike the state minimum wage from $8.05 an hour now to $10. It would hit $12 an hour by 2020, with future increases linked to inflation.
It also would require companies to provide five days of paid sick leave a year; small employers would have to offer three days.
There is one thing missing, however, from the report by the pro-206 group.
The report shows $998,684 of the donations coming from Living United for Change in Arizona.
But Tomas Robles, former director of LUCHA who is now chairing the campaign, said some of those dollars came from elsewhere. He said the organization has been the beneficiary of funds from groups like the Center for Popular Democracy and the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Robles said, though, that the way Arizona law has been amended by the Republican-controlled legislature does not require detailing the specific donors or the amounts they gave.
While any spending by the restaurant association to date is unknown, the campaign is likely to be overshadowed, at least financially, by the fight over Proposition 205.
That measure would legalize the recreational use of marijuana by all adults; current law limits use of the drug to those who have certain medical conditions, a doctor’s recommendation and a state-issued ID card.
So far the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has amassed more than $3 million in donations.
Of that, $778,950 comes from the Marijuana Policy Project, the national group that funded the successful 2010 campaign for medical marijuana. A separate Marijuana Policy Project Foundation kicked in another $236,572.
Virtually all of the other five- and six-figure donations come from existing medical marijuana dispensaries. Proposition 205 would give them first crack at getting a license for one of the fewer than 150 retail outlets that would be allowed until 2021.
So far the campaign has spent nearly $2.6 million.
The opposition Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy reported collected $950,011 but has spent less than $294,000.
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce is the largest single source of funds for the anti-205 campaign, so far putting in $114,000.
There’s also a $100,000 donation from T. Sanford Denny. He’s the chairman of United National Corp., which Bloomberg says is a privately owned holding company for First Premier Bank.
Another $100,000 was chipped in by Randy Kendrick, wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.
The new reports also show that a branch of the Service Employees International Union spent $2.1 million in its ill-fated attempt to put a measure on the ballot to cap the compensation of non-medical hospital executives at $450,000 a year. Proponents gave up after a lawsuit was filed contending that many of the people who circulated petitions had not complied with state law, voiding any of the signatures they collected.
By: Howard Fischer
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Hundreds march on Capitol Hill to call for a DACA replacement
The Trump administration's decision to end the DACA program means thousands of undocumented individuals are on the verge of being deported, despite having lived in the US for years. On Wednesday,...
The Trump administration's decision to end the DACA program means thousands of undocumented individuals are on the verge of being deported, despite having lived in the US for years. On Wednesday, protesters took to DC to call for the DREAM Act, which would build on DACA, creating a multi-phase process that would lead to permanent residency.
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Support Asylum Seekers From the Migrant Caravan Vilified by Trump
Support Asylum Seekers From the Migrant Caravan Vilified by Trump
With 71 percent of people detained by ICE held in privately-operated facilities, the private prison industry is one of the largest beneficiaries of anti-immigrant policies. The Center for Popular...
With 71 percent of people detained by ICE held in privately-operated facilities, the private prison industry is one of the largest beneficiaries of anti-immigrant policies. The Center for Popular Democracy, Make the Road New York, Enlace International, New York Communities for Change, and the Strong Economy for All Coalition recently released a report that found that Wall Street companies such as JP Morgan and Wells Fargo not only profit from the industry: they massively increased their investments after Donald Trump was elected president. Check out the report here, then write a letter to one of the companies and share some of the report’s most potent facts on social media using the hashtag #BackersofHate.
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2 months ago
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