To the surprise of no one, the Seattle City Council yesterday approved the most restrictive employee-scheduling mandate in the country. Coined "secure scheduling" by the labor groups that backed the effort to pass it, the new law – which goes into effect next July – is far-reaching. As The Seattle Times reports,

Employers would be required to give good-faith estimates of hours an employee can expect to work upon hiring, post work schedules two weeks in advance, provide at least 10 hours rest between opening and closing shifts, give available hours to existing part-time employees before hiring new workers, and pay additional “predictability pay” when employers make changes to the posted schedule.

The measure also requires employers to keep records for three years, documenting everything from responses to employee requests for schedule changes to good-faith estimates of the number of hours an employee could expect to work.

 

Unionized workers could negotiate an alternative for secure scheduling through collective bargaining.

More details from a Seattle City Council fact sheet:

Employers must give employees their schedules 14 days in advance.

• When the employer subtracts hours, the employee is paid for half of the hours not worked.
• When an employer doesn’t ask an on-call employee to report for duty, the employee is paid half the hours not worked.
• When the employer adds hours, the employee is paid for one additional hour.

Predictability pay doesn't apply:

• When an employee requests changes to a schedule.
• When employee finds replacement coverage for hours through an employee-to-employee shift swap.
• When an employer provides notice of additional hours through mass communication and receives a volunteer to cover hours.

Employees have a right to decline closing and opening shifts that are separated by less than 10 hours.

• If the gap between the closing and opening is less than 10 hours, time-and-half kicks in for the difference.  e.g. 8 hour gap = 2 hours of time-and-a-half.

Enforcing this byzantine set of rules will be the city's Office of Labor Standards. Also, the city will hire researchers to study the law's effects and after two years the Council and Mayor will "determine whether to extend" the law to other employers.

The new law is certainly an astonishing intrusion by city government into the workings of both employers and employees (many workers not affiliated with the union lobbying campaign testified against the scheduling mandates). And it places what appears to be an unreasonable expectation of "predictability" on two sectors – retail and restaurants – where customer habits are frequently unpredictable. It's not quite as astonishing, though, if you consider it from the viewpoint of the labor unions who very ably orchestrated its passage.

Labor union membership is dwindling across the country, and labor leaders have been looking for ways to boost their ranks. This law could be just the ticket for them. Remember, it allows an exemption for union members who "ratify, through a collective bargaining agreement, an alternative structure for secure scheduling." In other words, if retail and restaurant employees were to unionize, their employers wouldn't be subjected to this new law's requirements.

The executive director of Working Washington, the conglomeration of labor unions that backed the scheduling mandate, indicated to the Puget Sound Business Journal that a push for similar mandates is going nationwide:

the goal now is to make sure the new regulations are enforced and to take it to the rest of the country.

"We know that what happens in Seattle, doesn't just stay in Seattle," she said. "But it starts here."