Yesterday a Seattle City Council committee discussed a proposed “secured scheduling” ordinance. (A summary is available here.) The city council process will continue at least into September.

This follows the release of a study commissioned by the city that was inconclusive on the need for scheduling legislation. The proposed ordinance argues that

increased wages will not help decrease the income inequality gap if employees can not work sufficient hours to support themselves and their dependents or know what hours and therefore what income they can count on that week.

But, as the study noted, reducing the cost of living in Seattle “would ease many scheduling-related burdens more effectively than any direct regulation of worker scheduling.”

Some key aspects of the proposal:

• The proposed ordinance would apply to employees working at least 50 percent of the time in Seattle at retail and food services establishments employing 500 or more worldwide, including chains, integrated enterprises, and franchises (when franchises are “associated with a franchisor or network of franchises that employ more than 500 employees”).
• Under the ordinance, an employer would have to provide new employees “a written good faith estimate of the employee’s work schedule” to include median number of weekly hours and whether the employee will be expected to be on call. Additionally, when hired, employees would have to specify “any limitations on their availability,” and they would have “the right to request that they not be scheduled during certain times or at certain locations.”
• If the request not to be scheduled is due to the employee’s own serious health condition, responsibilities as a caregiver, enrollment in an educational or training program, or other jobs, the employer “shall grant the request unless the employer has a bona fide business reason for denial.” Even if the employee’s request is not for one of those reasons, the employer must still “engage in a timely, good faith, interactive process with the employee to discuss the request,” but the employer “may grant or deny the request for any reason that is not unlawful.”
• Under the ordinance, employers would not be allowed to require an employee to work less than 10 hours after the end of the previous day’s shift. If employees request such hours, they would have to be compensated with time and a half.
• Employers would have to provide a written schedule at least 14 calendar days ahead of time. If there are any changes to the schedule, the employer would have to provide “predictability pay.” Employees would get an hour of pay at their regular pay rate in addition to regular wages if hours are added or the start or end time of the shift changes. Employees would be paid one-half their regular rate of pay for any scheduled hours not worked if hours are cut from a regular shift after the employee reports for duty, if changing the start or end time of a shift results in a loss of hours, if a shift is cancelled, or if the employee was scheduled for an on-call shift and then is not needed for work. There are some exemptions to the predictability pay requirements, including if shift swaps are mutually agreed to by employees, if the employee has agreed to work additional hours in response to a mass communication from the employer about available hours due to another employee being unable to work, if the employee has voluntarily made changes to his own schedule, if employee hours are cut for disciplinary reasons, or if operations must be stopped due to threats, public utility failure, natural disaster, etc.
• Employers would have to offer additional hours to existing employees before hiring new employees.
• The ordinance would require substantial recordkeeping by employers. (If they don’t keep adequate records, the presumption would be that the employer violated this ordinance.) It would also allow a private right of action.
• The ordinance would require a study to evaluate the impacts of the ordinance on businesses and employees over two years. Importantly, the ordinance specifies that “The Council shall use the results of the evaluation to identify possible areas for revision and to determine whether to extend application, in whole or in part, to employers in different industries and/or with different thresholds for coverage.” (Emphasis added.)

San Francisco is the only other jurisdiction in the country to have a similar law. The Seattle Times writes that this ordinance would affect employers like “Starbucks, Safeway, QFC, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Costco, REI, Red Robin, IHOP, McDonald’s, Subway, Denny’s and Ivar’s seafood bars (though not its sit-down restaurants).” Of course, as the ordinance itself signals, the number and types of businesses affected could increase in the future.

This proposal seems to represent a pretty significant intrusion into how businesses are managed. As the Washington Retail Association said,

Employee scheduling is an extraordinarily complex process for businesses. A myriad of factors impact how businesses schedule their employees, from the size and type of business to weather and employee illness.

We wrote about the scheduling issue in a report earlier this year, noting that working conditions (like scheduling) are part of the compensation mix, and “when the government mandates specific benefits or working conditions, the optimal mix for a given employee may no longer exist.”