Low-Wage Work and Flexible Availability Requirements
Employers will often seek to own or have access to an amount of your time that is significantly greater than what they are willing to pay you for. This is quite often true of full-time, salaried employees, who might be expected to work "whatever the job requires" on any given week. But it's also true, and even more problematic from an economic standpoint, for many low-wage workers, who may be required to be available for much more time than they are scheduled and paid for.
There is a common practice among employers in the retail and qsr industries that, in my opinion, does not rise to the forefront of fair labor discussions as often as it should. Let's say Suzy Sales is applying for a part-time position at a retail outlet, with the desire to work 20-25 hours per week. On the application, she will be asked to list the times she is available to work. If her total available time doesn't add up to at least 40-50 hours per week, including some evening and weekend availability so the manager can shift her schedule from week to week based on fluctuating business needs, there is a good chance she will never even receive a phone call for an interview. (This a very generalized statement I'm making, but it is based on first-hand knowledge from when I was a manager and recruiting and hiring were part of my job.)
For another illustration, let's say Suzy lists the kind of availability the employer is looking for and gets hired. Yay! And now let's say Suzy wants to pick up a second job, as 20 hours per week isn't paying the bills and more hours at Job 1 just aren't available. When she lists her availability on her applications for Job 2, she can't simply factor in the 20 hours per week she is typically scheduled for at Job 1. She must factor in the total availability that she gave to Job 1, which may be 2 or even 3 times greater than actual hours worked. And thus the employer "owns" 2 or 3 times more of Suzy's time than they pay her for, which restricts her ability to increasing her earnings with a second job.
Personally, I've come to view this practice as a significant injustice, both in principle and in the practical consequences. To be clear, I'm not arguing that the solution is a law banning availability requirements or schedule variation. Discussions with a friend who commented on one of my previous posts have led me to realize I need to clarify that I don't see government intervention as the solution to everything. If I had to give a very general, un-nuanced summary of my beliefs on that topic, I think that government intervention should almost never be a first solution, is often not the best solution, and sometimes is the only solution.
So then what is the solution here? I have some thoughts, but I will save them for the end. First, I want to look at some of the news reports and articles that have addressed this issue in recent years.
In 2014, Jodi Kantor published an article in the New York Times detailing the struggles of a single mom who was a barista at Starbucks, trying to balance college courses and family life with her erratic work schedule. The piece was a jolt to Starbucks employees and customers alike, primarily because of the company's long-held and well-deserved reputation for employee relations. The feeling was, if someone can experience these kinds of struggles even with an employer like Starbucks, surely the problem is bigger than the general public realized. Kantor wrote of the mother:
To its credit, Starbucks responded swiftly and appropriately. I worked for the company from 2011-2016, and I recall the story going viral, the reaction, and the changes it prompted. Schedules went from being produced typically less than a week in advance to at least 10 days out. The dreaded "clopening" shift was ended by a mandated minimum of 8 hours between shifts. Managers were directed to quickly approve transfer requests if the reason was to shorten employee commutes.
These were positive changes. At the time, I didn't pay a whole of attention to it all, to be honest. I was a shift supervisor, loved my job, was working towards promotion, didn't care when I was scheduled, didn't have a family, never called in sick, etc. I actually liked working a variety of shifts from week to week as I felt it helped to avoid a sense of monotony. At the time, I wasn't as aware of the problems many employees face around scheduling. Upon hearing about the NYT story, I was a bit jarred, but I chalked it up to an isolated incident with seemingly-poor management in specific circumstances. I was glad we made the changes that we did, and it prompted me to think about our scheduling practices a little more deeply than I had before. I remember suggesting to my boss that even 8 hours between shifts seemed a little low. An employee scheduled to work until 9:30 pm one night and report back to work at 5:30 am the next morning would certainly not get a good night's rest. I offered my opinion that 12 would be more reasonable, and her response was, "That'll never happen." She made a good point though that someone wanting to work that kind of schedule in an effort to maximize their hours should have the freedom to do so. I agree with that; employees should have the option. They should have options for maximizing their earnings and protections from employer abuse of power. There's no reason it has to be only one or the other. But I digress.
It wouldn't be until years later, especially after a brief stint as a manager, that I began to see the extent of the hardships imposed on hourly employees by the scheduling practices of these sorts of businesses. It hit me how odd it is that 10-day notice for scheduling and 8 hours minimum between shifts is considered an industry-leading practice for employees of a fairly progressive corporation. And it wouldn't be until, as a manager, I myself was responsible for balancing the scheduling needs of my employees with the lean, mean, scheduling machine kind of software that drives the labor practices of our business, that I began to see things a little differently. Last year, when I myself was responsible for slashing employee hours, even after they were already scheduled, as the company panicked in its efforts to meet fiscal targets, my perspective shifted dramatically. The 2014 changes were good, but in hindsight they were relatively modest when compared with the changes that are still needed. Since that time, nothing quite as reform-driving as the NYT article has occurred, but scheduling issues have continued to be a source of discontent among Starbucks baristas.
In 2015, outrage over the practice of "on call" shifts at many retailers reached a boiling point. J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, Gap, and Victoria's Secret all reportedly ended the practice around the same time. "On call" shifts were scheduled times in which the employee was expected to be available to come in at a moment's notice, but would not be called in if sales were lower than expected. The rejection of this practice provokes another question: is there any essential difference between "on call" scheduling and the requiring of more weekly availability than an employee is intended to be scheduled for? The difference is more of a quantitative one: the amount of advance notice the employee has as to whether or not they will be working at a given time and earning income. For "on call" scheduling. they have less than a day's notice. For "flexible availability" scheduling, they have 10 days notice or less in most retail and qsr jobs. And with most companies, even great ones like Starbucks included, they can have those hours cut with no notice at all. Hours can be cut a week in advance, a day in advance, or even in the middle of a shift. It's the same practice by a different name.
Some great developments have come by way of unions and/or legislation in recent years, but the effects have not been far-reaching yet. Employees at some union-represented Macy's stores in NYC enjoy guaranteed minimum hours and schedules set at least 3 weeks in advance. Within the past three years, many cities and states, primarily in the northwest and northeast, have passed or attempted to pass (with varying degrees of success) legislation around fair scheduling practices. Cities such as New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Emeryville have recently enacted laws that require businesses to provide schedules as much as 3 weeks in advance, offer available shift gaps to existing employees before hiring new ones, pay premiums for schedule changes made less than 14 days in advance, and minimums of 11 hours between shifts.
As more and more of this sort of legislation is passed, my hope is that more and more businesses will see these practices as the new normal for retail hourly employee scheduling. I hope that business will get ahead of the trend and enact their own policy changes before government mandate requires them to. Pressure from public awareness and unions are the preferable agents. But if it comes to government mandate, the corporations have brought this upon themselves by carelessly adopting these erratic scheduling algorithms, designed to maximize every quarter-hour of labor-to-sales ratio, with little regard for the consequences for their employees. Ultimately, any measure that takes the employer's hand off of unpaid employee time is a win for low-wage employees and advocates of fair labor.
There is a common practice among employers in the retail and qsr industries that, in my opinion, does not rise to the forefront of fair labor discussions as often as it should. Let's say Suzy Sales is applying for a part-time position at a retail outlet, with the desire to work 20-25 hours per week. On the application, she will be asked to list the times she is available to work. If her total available time doesn't add up to at least 40-50 hours per week, including some evening and weekend availability so the manager can shift her schedule from week to week based on fluctuating business needs, there is a good chance she will never even receive a phone call for an interview. (This a very generalized statement I'm making, but it is based on first-hand knowledge from when I was a manager and recruiting and hiring were part of my job.)
For another illustration, let's say Suzy lists the kind of availability the employer is looking for and gets hired. Yay! And now let's say Suzy wants to pick up a second job, as 20 hours per week isn't paying the bills and more hours at Job 1 just aren't available. When she lists her availability on her applications for Job 2, she can't simply factor in the 20 hours per week she is typically scheduled for at Job 1. She must factor in the total availability that she gave to Job 1, which may be 2 or even 3 times greater than actual hours worked. And thus the employer "owns" 2 or 3 times more of Suzy's time than they pay her for, which restricts her ability to increasing her earnings with a second job.
Personally, I've come to view this practice as a significant injustice, both in principle and in the practical consequences. To be clear, I'm not arguing that the solution is a law banning availability requirements or schedule variation. Discussions with a friend who commented on one of my previous posts have led me to realize I need to clarify that I don't see government intervention as the solution to everything. If I had to give a very general, un-nuanced summary of my beliefs on that topic, I think that government intervention should almost never be a first solution, is often not the best solution, and sometimes is the only solution.
So then what is the solution here? I have some thoughts, but I will save them for the end. First, I want to look at some of the news reports and articles that have addressed this issue in recent years.
In 2014, Jodi Kantor published an article in the New York Times detailing the struggles of a single mom who was a barista at Starbucks, trying to balance college courses and family life with her erratic work schedule. The piece was a jolt to Starbucks employees and customers alike, primarily because of the company's long-held and well-deserved reputation for employee relations. The feeling was, if someone can experience these kinds of struggles even with an employer like Starbucks, surely the problem is bigger than the general public realized. Kantor wrote of the mother:
She rarely learned her schedule more than three days before the start of a workweek, plunging her into urgent logistical puzzles over who would watch the boy. Months after starting the job she moved out of her aunt’s home, in part because of mounting friction over the erratic schedule, which the aunt felt was also holding her family captive. Ms. Navarro’s degree was on indefinite pause because her shifting hours left her unable to commit to classes. She needed to work all she could, sometimes counting on dimes from the tip jar to make the bus fare home. If she dared ask for more stable hours, she feared, she would get fewer work hours over all.
To its credit, Starbucks responded swiftly and appropriately. I worked for the company from 2011-2016, and I recall the story going viral, the reaction, and the changes it prompted. Schedules went from being produced typically less than a week in advance to at least 10 days out. The dreaded "clopening" shift was ended by a mandated minimum of 8 hours between shifts. Managers were directed to quickly approve transfer requests if the reason was to shorten employee commutes.
These were positive changes. At the time, I didn't pay a whole of attention to it all, to be honest. I was a shift supervisor, loved my job, was working towards promotion, didn't care when I was scheduled, didn't have a family, never called in sick, etc. I actually liked working a variety of shifts from week to week as I felt it helped to avoid a sense of monotony. At the time, I wasn't as aware of the problems many employees face around scheduling. Upon hearing about the NYT story, I was a bit jarred, but I chalked it up to an isolated incident with seemingly-poor management in specific circumstances. I was glad we made the changes that we did, and it prompted me to think about our scheduling practices a little more deeply than I had before. I remember suggesting to my boss that even 8 hours between shifts seemed a little low. An employee scheduled to work until 9:30 pm one night and report back to work at 5:30 am the next morning would certainly not get a good night's rest. I offered my opinion that 12 would be more reasonable, and her response was, "That'll never happen." She made a good point though that someone wanting to work that kind of schedule in an effort to maximize their hours should have the freedom to do so. I agree with that; employees should have the option. They should have options for maximizing their earnings and protections from employer abuse of power. There's no reason it has to be only one or the other. But I digress.
It wouldn't be until years later, especially after a brief stint as a manager, that I began to see the extent of the hardships imposed on hourly employees by the scheduling practices of these sorts of businesses. It hit me how odd it is that 10-day notice for scheduling and 8 hours minimum between shifts is considered an industry-leading practice for employees of a fairly progressive corporation. And it wouldn't be until, as a manager, I myself was responsible for balancing the scheduling needs of my employees with the lean, mean, scheduling machine kind of software that drives the labor practices of our business, that I began to see things a little differently. Last year, when I myself was responsible for slashing employee hours, even after they were already scheduled, as the company panicked in its efforts to meet fiscal targets, my perspective shifted dramatically. The 2014 changes were good, but in hindsight they were relatively modest when compared with the changes that are still needed. Since that time, nothing quite as reform-driving as the NYT article has occurred, but scheduling issues have continued to be a source of discontent among Starbucks baristas.
In 2015, outrage over the practice of "on call" shifts at many retailers reached a boiling point. J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, Gap, and Victoria's Secret all reportedly ended the practice around the same time. "On call" shifts were scheduled times in which the employee was expected to be available to come in at a moment's notice, but would not be called in if sales were lower than expected. The rejection of this practice provokes another question: is there any essential difference between "on call" scheduling and the requiring of more weekly availability than an employee is intended to be scheduled for? The difference is more of a quantitative one: the amount of advance notice the employee has as to whether or not they will be working at a given time and earning income. For "on call" scheduling. they have less than a day's notice. For "flexible availability" scheduling, they have 10 days notice or less in most retail and qsr jobs. And with most companies, even great ones like Starbucks included, they can have those hours cut with no notice at all. Hours can be cut a week in advance, a day in advance, or even in the middle of a shift. It's the same practice by a different name.
Some great developments have come by way of unions and/or legislation in recent years, but the effects have not been far-reaching yet. Employees at some union-represented Macy's stores in NYC enjoy guaranteed minimum hours and schedules set at least 3 weeks in advance. Within the past three years, many cities and states, primarily in the northwest and northeast, have passed or attempted to pass (with varying degrees of success) legislation around fair scheduling practices. Cities such as New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Emeryville have recently enacted laws that require businesses to provide schedules as much as 3 weeks in advance, offer available shift gaps to existing employees before hiring new ones, pay premiums for schedule changes made less than 14 days in advance, and minimums of 11 hours between shifts.
As more and more of this sort of legislation is passed, my hope is that more and more businesses will see these practices as the new normal for retail hourly employee scheduling. I hope that business will get ahead of the trend and enact their own policy changes before government mandate requires them to. Pressure from public awareness and unions are the preferable agents. But if it comes to government mandate, the corporations have brought this upon themselves by carelessly adopting these erratic scheduling algorithms, designed to maximize every quarter-hour of labor-to-sales ratio, with little regard for the consequences for their employees. Ultimately, any measure that takes the employer's hand off of unpaid employee time is a win for low-wage employees and advocates of fair labor.
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