Underwork, Work‐Hour Insecurity, and A New Approach to Wage and Hour Regulation

Abstract

When it was passed in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sought to address the “evils” of underpay and overwork by establishing an hourly minimum wage and requiring premium overtime pay. However, today's low‐wage, hourly workers more often face underwork than overwork, as well as fluctuating, unstable schedules, neither of which is addressed by the FLSA. This paper presents and assesses the effectiveness of an alternative approach to wage and hour regulation, the “reporting pay” guarantee. We begin by examining the problem of work‐hour insecurity, particularly employers’ practice of sending workers home early from scheduled shifts. We then move to a detailed assessment of state laws that require reporting pay, as well as reporting pay guarantees in union contracts and private‐employer practices that attempt to address the problem of work‐hour insecurity. We conclude by considering paths for strengthening such protections in law.

Worker Power and Class Polarization in Intra-Year Work Hour Volatility

“…Recent scholarship suggests that this within-job intra-year work hour volatility is caused in part by "just-in-time" human resource management practices, which firms have implemented in order to minimize labor costs and effectively transfer payroll risk once borne by the firm to individual economic risk borne by workers and their households (Houseman 2001;Hacker 2006;Lambert 2008;Schneider and Harknett 2019). As part of these scheduling practices, employers may ask employees to work on call, schedule workers for different numbers of hours each week, cancel their employees' scheduled work shifts in the hours before their shifts start or even after they have arrived at work, or ask employees to start earlier or stay later than initially scheduled (Lambert 2008;Lambert et al 2012;Alexander and Haley-Lock 2015;Halpin 2015). These practices appear to result in substantial work hour variation for employees, even conditional on being consistently employed at the same employer and net of any employee-driven variability stemming from care or other personal obligations (Lambert et al 2014;Schneider and Harknett 2019).…”

“…The second data source that researchers have used to study the national prevalence of intra-year volatility in hours worked is the CPS (e.g., Golden 2001;Alexander and Haley-Lock 2015). Since 1994, the CPS has allowed respondents to say that their usual weekly work hours (as distinct from actual hours in the previous week) varied, instead of providing a numerical estimate.…”

“…Unpredictable schedules make it difficult to arrange non-work obligations in order to accommodate work schedules (e.g., Alexander and Haley-Lock 2015). This can lead to more work-family conflict (Henly and Lambert 2014), increased difficulties in accessing childcare (Carrillo et al 2017), transportation, and further education (Ben-Ishai et al 2014), and delayed starting of romantic relationships or marriage (Lewchuk et al 2015).…”

IT Induced Employment Irregularities and Deskilling: Impacts on Temporary Worker Welfare

“…From a legal perspective, the American FLSA sets a minimum hourly wage and mandates premium overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The legal protection of workers has not caught up with the reality of work-hour inadequacy, variability and unpredictability, which are the main problem low-wage workers are facing today (Alexander and Haley-Lock 2015). The current statute does not mandate employers to provide minimum hours, or regular, predictable work schedules.…”

“…There are three distinct components of employment irregularities: work hour inadequacy, variability and unpredictability (Alexander and Haley-Lock 2015). Work hour inadequacy is characterized by workers having fewer paid hours than they would like to work on a regular basis.…”