CPD IN THE NEWS

The District of Columbia Council scheduled a hearing for Jan. 13 on a bill that would require stores and restaurants to tell employees what their work schedules will be several weeks in advance and require employers to compensate employees for last-minute schedule changes.

“This movement is under way across this country,” lead sponsor Vincent Orange Jr. (D-At Large) said when he introduced the measure Dec. 5. “San Francisco recently passed regulations to address this issue and bills have been introduced in seven states.”

The Hours and Scheduling Stability Act of 2015 wouldn't apply to all stores and restaurants, but it would have a big impact, Orange told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 17. If passed, the measure “will assist tremendously with providing [the district's] workforce and their families with certainty,” the councilmember said.

The bill would require employers to tell workers what their schedules will be at least three weeks in advance. A change in schedule less than three weeks out would require the employer to pay an extra hour of wages. Less than 24 hours' notice would require four hours of wages.

Orange's bill would cover any D.C. franchisee of a restaurant chain with at least 20 locations nationwide or a retail store chain with at least five.

Unpredicatability Affects Planning, Benefits Eligibility

It's hard enough for families to balance work and personal life, Orange said when he introduced the bill. “Having a schedule you can count on leads to a better work environment and better harmony in scheduling family obligations.”

Liz Ben-Ishai, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, which supports legislation requiring employers to provide workers with advance notice of schedules, told California lawmakers in March of 2015 that volatile schedules affect workers’ ability to arrange child care. Such volatility also interferes with their ability to hold second jobs and pursue education or training, she said.

There's another problem with unpredictable schedules, Ben-Ishai told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 22. Many public assistance programs ask participants to estimate their income or number of hours they will work, she said. “Because they have these erratic schedules or insufficient hours they can't predict how much they'll make,” she said.

Utah is “an example of a good approach,” she told Bloomberg BNA. State eligibility assessors use “professional judgment” to draw on multiple sources of information, including paychecks and conversations with employers regarding anticipated hours and overtime, to determine an applicant's’ eligibility, Ben-Ishai wrote in a policy brief. Utah encourages workers to follow up on information applicants provide that may not reflect their current eligibility, such as out-of-date wage information

Ben-Ishai also suggested a different time frame for evaluating applicants’ incomes and work hours. She pointed to the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which “requires a longer authorization period” and “accounts for fluctuation in people's hours.” This federally funded program allows states to determine eligibility “over a period of 12 months to provide a more realistic picture,” she said.

Bills Introduced Around the Country

The Washington, D.C., bill is one of several under consideration in state and local legislatures, as well as on the federal level. Within the past two years, there have been similar proposals in 13 other cities and states, plus one on the federal level.

San Francisco has been the first and, so far, only jurisdiction to pass a predictable scheduling law. It passed Nov. 25, 2014, by a 10-0 vote of the 11-member Board of Supervisors and became law without the signature of Mayor Ed Lee (D). Lee said he was “concerned about large numbers of impacted merchants who said there was little meaningful discussion” in the drafting of the law (243 DLR C-1, 12/18/14).

Lizzy Simmons, the National Retail Federation's senior director, government relations, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 30 that the San Francisco law has a “carve-out that allows unions and their collective bargaining agreements to waive out” of its requirements. She said she's concerned that allowing employees to contractually waive the law's requirements grants outsize influence to labor organizations “since a lot of the unions have been behind” efforts to pass predictable scheduling laws.

The San Francisco law actually “takes away and impedes on employee flexibility,” Simmons said. Retail managers and employees should work together to come up with schedules that can accommodate individual needs, she said. “A one-size-fits-all government mandate” makes that harder to accomplish, she said.

Part of the problem with scheduling bills is that there's little guidance on how to implement them, said Robin Winchell Roberts, the federation's senior director, media relations. For example, the San Francisco law exempts employee-requested changes from triggering schedule change compensation, which Roberts calls “penalty pay.” The key factor in determining when an employer must pay schedule change compensation is who requests the change, Roberts said. It isn't clear whether it is due when a retailer requires an employee who can't work a scheduled shift to find a co-worker to work the shift in her place, Roberts said.

The compensation might also be triggered if business is better than expected, Simmons said. For example, a store might want to extend a sale that's going well. If the store wants to staff up to respond to the additional customer demand, it might incur unexpected expenses on account of employees who weren't scheduled, she told Bloomberg BNA. “I don't think you can just say after the fact sales made up for that,” she said when asked whether the unexpected increase in revenue would offset the unexpected increase in expenses.

Flexibility Essential, Industry Group Says

“Flexibility is a trademark of the restaurant industry,” Christin Fernandez, director of media relations and public affairs at the National Restaurant Association, told Bloomberg BNA by e-mail Dec. 23. Businesses operate around the clock “with business models unique to each restaurant,” she said.

Starbucks is an example of a business that pursued its own scheduling model. The company announced in August 2014 that it would voluntarily change its scheduling practices. It said it would provide employees with schedules a week in advance. It also said it would prohibit scheduling employees to close a store one night and return a few hours later to open the next morning (157 DLR A-6, 8/14/14).

But 11 months later, a report by the Center for Popular Democracy, an organization that describes itself as advocating for a “pro-worker” agenda, concluded that the company hasn’t kept its promises. The report, “The Grind: Striving for Scheduling Fairness at Starbucks,” drew on comments from a survey of employees who say back-to-back closing and opening shifts continue. Reached for comment Dec. 22, Brent Gow, global director for payroll at Starbucks, told Bloomberg BNA he couldn’t speak on the record because the company is still working on the issue.

Reporting Time Pay Laws Exist in Some States

Predictable scheduling laws don't take into account that “some of the people that go into these jobs to begin with do it for exactly the flexibility that's being challenged here,” said Diane Saunders, a shareholder in the Boston office of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart P.C. who advises employers as co-chair of the firm's Retail Practice Group.

Saunders advises her clients to ensure that they comply with reporting time laws that are already on the books. In Washington, D.C., and eight states, employees are guaranteed a minimum number of hours of pay if they report to work but are sent home because business is unexpectedly slow, she wrote in a Novemberblog post.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's labor bureau chief, Terri Gerstein, wrote to 13 retailers in April 2015 as part of a review of on-call scheduling. In the letters, Gerstein reminded the companies that New York state law requires that an employee who reports for work must be paid four hours, or the number of hours of a regularly scheduled shift if that is less than four hours.

Gerstein told the retailers the attorney general's office had received reports that an increasing number of employers require their employees to call in “just a few hours in advance, or the night before.” Threatening enforcement action over this practice goes beyond what New York law says, said Jim Evans, a partner in Alston & Bird LLP's labor and employment practice who represents employers.

Whether the proposals become law, employers should focus on “the human aspect” of predictability in scheduling, he said. Employers that voluntarily change their practices and lawmakers who draft predictable scheduling laws should consider the “harsh economic consequences” of last-minute shift cancellations, he said.

New Application for Existing Laws

The New York attorney general's letters were sent to companies with household names such as Gap Inc., J. Crew and Burlington Coat Factory. One recipient was Abercrombie & Fitch Co., which is facing a class action in California over its use of on-call scheduling.

In the absence of laws requiring pay for on-call shifts, one team of lawyers is attempting to use wage and hour laws that are already on the books to help their clients. Hallie Von Rock and Carey James, of Aiman-Smith & Marcy, filed a lawsuit in December against Abercrombie & Fitch on behalf of C’endan Claiborne and a class they estimate includes between 15,000 and 65,000 members in three states.

In the lawsuit, Von Rock and James allege that the company's practice of requiring California employees to call in one hour before their scheduled start time in order to find out whether they're required to work the shift should be considered reporting to work. When an employee calls and is told to stay home, the employee is entitled to a few hours of pay, Von Rock and James told Bloomberg BNA.

Under wage and hour laws already on the books, Abercrombie should pay its employees for the time they spend calling in, Rock and James said. The calls last between two and 20 minutes, which adds up to several hours of unpaid wages per month, they said.

Von Rock and James contend that employees—who aren't paid for the time they spend on these phone calls—are reporting for work when they make these calls. “Even though they're not physically showing up” at the store, the phone call is the beginning of a work shift, Von Rock said. Abercrombie, which is represented by Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP and Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease LLP, denies the lawsuit’s allegations.

James said the law “is undeveloped in California” as to what qualifies as reporting for work under the reporting time law. “To me, report is a straightforward word and it could just as easily mean call,” he said.

Von Rock expressed concern about a power imbalance between employers and employees. Predictable scheduling laws attempt to level the unequal bargaining power, she said.

Simmons, with the National Retail Federation, views it differently. These laws insert friction into the employer-employee relationship, she told Bloomberg BNA. “These bills punish job creators,” the federation says in its restrictive scheduling toolkit. A better approach would be to continue to allow the market to strike a balance, Simmons said.

Common Ground

One thing on which supporters and opponents of predictable scheduling laws agree is that it's too soon to tell what kind of impact San Francisco's law is having. Ben-Ishai, the policy analyst, and Simmons, of the National Retail Federation, told Bloomberg BNA it is too early to have meaningful research.

Evans, the employer-side attorney, offered advice on balancing employers' need for flexibility with workers' need for predictability. “Focus on the human aspect of it,” he said. “I represent large corporations, many of which are very focused on the human aspect of it. I think that the human aspect of the legislation and the impact of the practices can't be overemphasized.”

“It's just not fair to subject people to that last minute change and kind of harsh economic consequences,” he added. “When you measure who has the ability to absorb the impact of a last minute change in schedule, the answer's kind of obvious.”

Source: Clasp

Today, a group of Toys "R" Us employees met with Senator Bernie Sanders in Washington D.C., later marching alongside representatives from The Center for Popular Democracy and Rise Up Retail as they took to the AIC in protest of private equity destruction at the hands of Bain Captial, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Vornado Realty Trust.

Read the full article here.

Main Street activists and community groups plan to turn up the pressure on the Federal Reserve at an annual conference of the economic elite this month, in hopes of convincing the central bank to maintain its support of the American recovery.

The campaign, known as Fed Up, is staging a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., that will run at the same time as the invite-only gathering of the world’s top financial and economic policymakers and academics hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The campaign’s organizers said they expect at least 50 people -- ranging from workers to economists -- to attend the so-called “teach in,” which will be held in the same hotel as the Fed’s gathering. Topics include income inequality, efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and whether the Fed should invest in municipal bonds.

The conference in Jackson Hole comes as the Fed nears an historic crossroads. The central bank has kept the target for its benchmark interest at zero since 2008, a legacy of the darkest days of the financial crisis and a reflection of the lumbering economic recovery since then. Over the past year and a half, amid faster economic growth and a rapid improvement in the job market, the Fed has taken small steps toward reducing its support.

But the big decision to raise its target interest rate still looms ahead, and Fed officials are seriously considering whether to finally abandon its crisis-era stance at its meeting next month.

“For inexplicable reasons, the Fed seems primed to intentionally slow down the economy in September,” said Ady Barkan, campaign director for Fed Up. “ The real crisis in America is stagnant wages and a lack of good jobs. We are going to Jackson Hole to remind the Fed of this stark reality: slowing the economy down now will leave African-American and Hispanic communities permanently mired in a Great Recession.”

The Fed Up campaign made history last year when about a dozen demonstrators showed up at the conference to draw attention to the country’s uneven economic progress, particularly among minority communities. The protest led to meetings with top Fed officials over the past year, starting off with Kansas City Fed President Esther George, one of the central bank’s most vocal supporters of tightening the reins on the economy, who met with the group for two hours in Jackson Hole. In the fall, Fed Chair Janet Yellenhosted the group, and organizers have reached out to other officials since then with mixed success.

The campaign is returning this year with a more concrete agenda and the backing of a growing number of established left-leaning academics and think tanks, including the Roosevelt Institute, the AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute. The campaign is led by the Center for Popular Democracy.

The group is also slated to release a report touting the economic benefits of an economy at full employment, which it pegged at a jobless rate of 4 percent -- significantly lower than the Fed’s estimate of about 5 to 5.2 percent. The lower rate would amount to 14.3 million more jobs, boost the economy by $1.3 trillion and generate an additional $261 billion in tax revenue, according to the analysis by PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California.

True full employment, the report argues, would translate into a much lower jobless rate among minorities. The study estimated the impact of a 4 percent unemployment rate for every gender and racial group, adjusted for disparities in age. Black households, for example, would see their income jump by 23 percent, from $37,025 to $45,568. While Fed policy is not going to be the only solution to getting to full employment for all, we see it as a critical component of a broad policy agenda,” said Sarah Treuhaft, a director at PolicyLink. “We know that we need more growth and we need more jobs to stimulate hiring of people who have been left behind.”

Treuhaft said that the report does not estimate what inflation would be under this scenario but pointed out that it remained relatively stable in 2000, the last time the labor market hovered around full employment. But many analysts believe that a 4 percent jobless rate would cause the economy to overheat and inflation to spike. And some economists -- including a vocal minority within the Fed -- believe the central bank is already in the danger zone.

Those groups are also taking their message to Jackson Hole in hopes of bending the ear of policymakers ahead of their crucial decision in September. The conservative American Principles Project is staging a conference in the shadows of the Grand Tetons that coincides with the Fed’s gathering. The group has been skeptical of the benefits of the Fed’s easy-money stance and the reach of its powers, Several members have called on the central bank to rely on prescribed rules for conducting monetary policy, a recommendation the Fed has opposed.

Steve Lonegan, director of monetary policy at APP, said the group hopes its conference will reinvigorate the public conversation about monetary policy, which he argues deserves as much attention among conservatives as cutting taxes and reducing regulations.

“This is a recent phenomenon that Americans are disconnected from the value of their money. It’s the third leg of an economic growth plan for America,” Lonegan said. “It’s their savings. It’s their wages. It’s their life’s work.”

The Jackson Hole conferences will take place Aug. 27 to 29. The theme of the official Fed meeting this year is inflation. The central bank has set a 2 percent target for price-level increases, but it has consistently undershot that goal in recent years and wage growth has been stagnant

The Fed Up campaign has called on the Fed to set a target for wage growth as well. It is also calling for reforms of the selection process for presidents and boards of directors at the Fed’s 12 regional banks.

Source: Washington Post

Hiring workers might get a little more complicated for San Jose businesses come 2017.

Measure E is a South Bay Labor Council-backed San Jose initiative aimed at giving part-time workers access to more hours.

If passed, businesses with more than 35 employees would have to offer additional hours to existing part-time workers before hiring new employees, including temps. Part-time workers would have the option to decline the hours, and employers would not be required to offer hours that result in overtime.

The City of San Jose would enforce and set guidelines for the regulation, and grant hardship exemptions for some businesses.

If approved, the law would take effect 90 days after the vote is certified.

Measure E is opposed by the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, San Jose Downtown Association and California Restaurant Association.

Opponents argue the measure will lead to a decrease in part-time jobs, burden employers with another layer of bureaucracy and hurt businesses and nonprofits (who are not exempt) that rely on seasonal and part-time labor.

Derecka Mehrens of Working Partnerships USA, a labor-aligned think tank, said the measure is necessary to address a “crisis of underemployment” in Silicon Valley. The initiative, she said, will also help people working multiple jobs, with the accompanying lack of benefits, to be able to work only one job.

Passage requires a majority vote. An October phone poll of 300 likely voters commissioned by supporters of Measure E found 62 percent supported the measure, 30 percent opposed and 8 percent undecided. The chamber declined to share its polling.

Supporters of the measure have a huge advantage in terms of money raised. As of Sept. 24, the Yes on E campaign had raised $481,700, more than eight times the $59,200 raised by the opposition San Joseans for Jobs campaign.

Chamber President and CEO Matt Mahood took a shot at the large amount of money the Yes on E campaign has raised from outside groups, which includes $250,000 from the Brooklyn-based Center for Popular Democracy.

Mehrens responded by saying that Working Partnerships is a member of CPD, and that the measure is part of a national campaign. In September, Seattle passed a “secure scheduling” law that included a provision requiring food and retail businesses with more than 500 employers to offer additional hours to part-time workers before hiring new employees.

By Bryce Druzin

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