Scheduling Stability: The Landscape of Work Schedules and Potential Gains From Fairer Workweeks in Illinois and Chicago

Persistent Unpredictability: Analyzing Experiences with the First Statewide Scheduling Legislation in Oregon

“…We found the provision that requires the right to request schedules, though celebrated by scholars as having the potential to provide workers more control over their schedules (e.g., Lambert and Henly 2009; Dickson et al 2018; Miggo 2019), had mixed results for workers in Oregon. Because Oregon’s law contains language that states: “Employees may identify any limitations or changes in the employee’s work schedule availability .…”

“…Inadequate hours result in workers being willing to sacrifice their personal time to obtain more hours (Dickson, Golden, and Bruno 2018). This temporal aspect of precarious work arrangements (Schneider, Harknett, and Collins 2019) has been shown to seriously impact workers’ lives, limiting their ability to arrange care for their dependents, attend medical appointments, work multiple jobs, participate in family events, pursue further education, and sometimes even get enough sleep (Kelly, Moen, and Tranby 2011; Henly and Lambert 2014; Golden and Kim 2017; Schneider et al 2019).…”

“…These legislative efforts are, in part, a result of policy recommendations from scholarship on unpredictable scheduling. Policy recommendations focus overwhelmingly on increasing workers’ control over scheduling, limiting manager-controlled scheduling flexibility, minimizing managerial discretion, and offering workers a guarantee of a certain minimum number of hours (e.g., Lambert and Henly 2009; Dickson et al 2018; Miggo 2019). While policy recommendations target important components of precarity, outcomes can be limited by employees having little knowledge of the laws (Milkman and Appelbaum 2013; Clawson and Gerstel 2014; Gupta and Goldman 2019) and by general lack of enforcement of labor laws (Defilippis, Martin, Bernhardt, and McGrath 2008; Milkman, González, and Ikeler 2012; Alexander and Haley-Lock 2015), particularly in precarious workplaces (Bernhardt, Spiller, and Theodore 2013).…”

“…The Oregon Fair Workweek law includes many policy recommendations that have been called for by workers and scholars (e.g., Lambert and Henly 2009; Dickson et al 2018; Miggo 2019). The law includes provisions for seven days advance notice of work schedules (expanded to 14 days as of July 2020), a minimum of 10 hours of rest between shifts, right to input on work schedules, and compensation—called predictability pay—for accepting last-minute schedule changes, such as being called in for an unscheduled shift, coming in early for a shift, or extending a shift more than 30 minutes beyond what had been scheduled.…”

Time Theft in the Los Angeles Retail Sector: The Need for New Labor Standards and a Fair Workweek

“…Failure to provide adequate advance notice results in time theft. Like other retail workers across the United States(Ben-Ishai et al 2016;Dickson, Golden, and Bruno 2019;Henly and Lambert 2014;Lambert, Haley-Lock, and Henly 2012;…”