The minimum wage that workers earn has long been a matter of public policy. Now some city and state governments are weighing how employee hours are set in an attempt to give shift workers more predictability and stability, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The new laws require certain retail, fast-food and hospitality employers to set schedules as much as two weeks in advance, pay for hours when workers are on-call and allow for mandatory rest periods between shifts.
Six jurisdictions—including Seattle, New York City and Oregon—have implemented so-called fair-workweek legislation, while city councils in Chicago and Philadelphia are considering new rules, too.
Worker advocates behind the laws point to research from two arms of the University of California—at Berkeley and San Francisco—that says schedules can have more of an impact on worker well-being than pay. Last-minute changes and so-called clopenings, where employees work late one night and then early the next morning, take a toll on sleep and mental health, the research indicates.
It is unclear whether the new laws are fully solving workers’ scheduling issues, especially worries about getting enough hours to make ends meet. On the employer side, companies are wrestling with a complex web of rules and finding that staying on the right side of the law can take extra time and money.
