Seattle City Council Might Actually Do Something About Unpredictable Scheduling for Low-Wage Workers

[eridani]

http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2016/02/04/23529476/the-city-council-might-actually-do-something-about-unpredictable-scheduling-for-low-wage-workers

Working Washington—a labor advocacy group funded in part by Service Employees International Union 775—organized a panel of food and coffee workers this morning to talk about how difficult it can be to go to school, care for their families, or do just about anything else without a predictable work schedule. Two city council members attended and promised to work on legislation requiring more predictability in scheduling for low-wage workers.

Crystal Thompson, a Domino's Pizza worker who was also prominent in the push for a $15 minimum wage, described not finding out her schedule until Sunday nights for the week beginning the next day. Former Starbucks worker Grant Medsker said he got work schedules ranging from as few as eight hours one week to as a many as 40 the next. "What I used to call a love-hate relationship with the service industry," Medsker said, "I later recognized was more of an abusive one."

The concerns are the same ones workers have been expressing repeatedly over the last few months, including at a march downtown in November. Along with insufficient notice of work schedules, Starbucks workers have spoken out against the company's "lean staffing" policies (an effort to save money by staffing fewer people, making it especially difficult when someone calls in sick), requirements that workers find their own coverage if they're sick, and clopenings. A 2015 report from the Restaurant Opportunity Center United found that about a third of restaurant workers surveyed in King County had unpredictable schedules and "workers reported that unstable schedules served as a barrier to taking up additional work or attending higher education, and made consistent arrangements for childcare difficult."

While the workers' concerns weren't new, the presence of two city council members was. Newly elected citywide Council Member Lorena González and West Seattle Council Member Lisa Herbold attended the panel and told workers they plan to work together on legislation requiring employers to give workers more notice of scheduling.

[Rybak187]

1. I am surprised Kshama Sawant was not there.

I guess since she already supports scheduling reform she did not think that she needed to be there.

[eridani]

2. Likewise. Thought thqt would have been her thing

Maybe a scheduling conflict. I'd hate to think it was because she didn't want newbies to be visible leaders.