The New York City Council passed the “Fair Workplace” legislative package, which regulates scheduling for fast food and retail employees. Comprised of multiple separate bills (On-Call Scheduling, Minimum Time Between Shifts, Access to Hours, Fair Work Practices, and Pay Deductions for Contributions to Not-for-Profit Organizations), the legislation acts mostly to restrict fast food and retail employers’ ability to create and modify employee schedules. It also imposes penalties for employer violations, and requires fast food employers to pay specified premiums for scheduling variations that are made outside a delineated timeframe.
Fast food employer obligations will include, but not be limited to, providing good-faith written estimates of employee work hours and dates of work, updating estimates as soon as possible, providing schedules that identify regular and on-call shifts, posting schedules in conspicuous areas, and transmitting schedules to each employee. Although fast food employers will be penalized for adding new and unscheduled shifts to existing employees’ schedules, employers are also required to offer regular or on-call shifts to currently employed employees and prohibited from hiring new employees to fill these shifts. This requirement to offer shifts to a fast food employer’s existing employees extends to employees who work at all fast food establishments owned by the same employer and is not limited to the employees at a single location. When shifts become available that must be offered to current fast food employees, employer will be required to post a notice that contains specific information about the shifts.
Retail employers that are not fast food establishments will no longer be permitted to schedule employees for on-call shifts, cancel regular shifts within 72 hours of the start of the shift, require employees to work with fewer than 72 hours’ notice, require employees to work with less than 72 hours’ notice, or require that an employee call the employer to confirm whether or not the employee should report for a regular shift fewer than 72 hours before the start of the shift.
Retail employers will be required to provide, upon an employee’s request, (1) the employee’s work schedule, in writing, for any week the employee worked within the prior three years, and (2) the most current version of the work schedule for all retail employees at that work location.
The legislative package also includes a requirement that fast food employers, upon employee request, set up payroll deductions for voluntary contributions to certain authorized not-for-profit organizations, and remit them directly to those organizations. Fast food employers will have to obtain written authorization from the employee, which includes certain identifying information about the employee and a “statement notifying the fast food employee that contributions are voluntary and that the authorization to deduct is revocable at any time by submitting a written revocation to the not-for-profit.” The requested deductions must begin/end no later than the first pay period after 15 days of its receipt of the authorization or revocation. Contributions must be remitted within 15 days after the payroll deduction.
For additional details on employer obligations, including notice and recordkeeping requirements, please follow the links listed above.
Coverage: The Fair Workplace legislative package covers any New York City employer who operates a “fast food establishment” that is part of a chain that has 30 or more establishments nationally. It also covers any “retail business” that has 20 or more employees engaged primarily in the sale of consumer goods at one or more stores within the city.
Effective: November 26, 2017
Action Required: If you are an affected employer, you should familiarize yourself with the requirements of the legislative package and prepare for the enactment of the new laws by taking steps to determine your long-term scheduling and staffing needs. As always, you should contact your Human Resources Business Partner if you have any questions.