Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that...
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said Wednesday the campaign against the measure will be based on showing them how much wages in Arizona have gone up since voters enacted the first minimum wage law in 2006.
Prior to that, Arizona employers had to pay only what was mandated in federal law, which was $5.15 an hour. The ballot measure pushed that to $6.75, with a requirement for annual adjustments based on inflation.
That has pushed the current state minimum to $8.05.
"The public will say, 'Enough's enough,'" Chucri said. And he said polls done for the industry in the spring show people believe that $12 is "too much."
The comments come as Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families is planning to submit its petitions for the $12 wage plus required paid leave today to the secretary of state's office.
Spokeswoman Suzanne Wilson said organizers have collected more than 250,000 signatures. That is 100,000 more than are needed to qualify for the ballot.
But Chucri said he's not convinced his organization will even have to fight the battle in November. He questioned whether petition circulators, both volunteer and paid, were careful to ensure that those who signed are qualified to vote in the state.
Arizona has become the latest battleground over what can be considered a living wage.
Several states have enacted their own laws, often through legislation. Most recently, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure that will take that state's minimum, now $10 an hour, up to $15 by 2022 for large employers; small companies will get another year to comply.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be to remind voters here that Arizona already has a minimum wage that's higher than what federal law requires.
And that same law requires annual revision. Chucri pointed out that has meant a boost every year except for two when the rate of inflation was too small for even a nickel more, the bare minimum adjustment.
The difference, though, is not great: That $8.05 an hour is just 80 cents more than the federal minimum.
What Chucri also faces is that $8.05, assuming it's a family's sole source of income, translates out to $16,744 a year.
For a single person, the federal government considers anything below $11,880 a year to be living in poverty. That figure is $16,020 for a family of two and $20,160 for a family of three.
That's part of what has driven similar living wage efforts elsewhere in the country. But Chucri said the idea of a $12 minimum won't sell here.
"That is too high of a wage for a place like Arizona,'' he said.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be the argument that higher wages mean fewer jobs.
"Restaurateurs are going to survive,'' he said. But what they will do, Chucri said, is simply hire fewer people.
He pointed out the push toward automation already is underway.
At Panera Bread, customers place their orders through computer screens and then can pick up what they want. And even at more traditional sit-down place like Applebee's, orders can be placed through tablets at each table.
Chucri conceded, though, that is happening even in places where the minimum wage is not going up. What approval of this measure would do, he said, is hasten the day.
"I don't think it's a matter of 'if,' '' Chucri said. "It's a matter of 'when.' ''
He would not say how much his group and other business organizations intend to spend to kill the measure.
The most recent campaign finance reports show campaign organizers have raised more than $342,000. Virtually all of that comes from Living United for Change in Arizona. But Tomas Robles, former executive director of LUCHA, said much of that is from a grant to the organization from The Center for Popular Democracy, an organization involved in efforts to establish a $15 minimum wage nationally.
Another $25,000 came from The Fairness Project which has its own efforts to push higher minimum wages on a state-by-state basis.
By Howard Fischer
Source
Why U.S. Cities Are Fighting to Attract Immigrants
Backyard barbecues. Fireworks. A day off work. Among these traditions we look forward to on the Fourth of July, there...
Backyard barbecues. Fireworks. A day off work. Among these traditions we look forward to on the Fourth of July, there is an even more patriotic rite of passage: the oath immigrants take to become American citizens.
Read the full article here.
Fed Up Campaign Celebrates Victory for Working Families as Fed Holds Off on Rate Hikes
“This is a victory for the working families who stepped up with innovative organizing to send the Fed a clear message:...
“This is a victory for the working families who stepped up with innovative organizing to send the Fed a clear message: Our voices belong in the debate about our economy,” said Ady Barkan, Campaign Director for Fed Up. “With the recovery still far too weak in too many communities, it would have been economically devastating – and immoral – to slow the economy.”
“We applaud Chair Yellen and the Federal Reserve for resisting the pressure being put on them to intentionally slow down the economy. Weak wage growth proves that the labor market is still very far from full employment. And with inflation still below the Fed’s already low target, there is simply no reason to raise interest rates anytime soon. Across America, working families know that the economy still has not recovered. We hope that the Fed continues to look at the data and refrain from any rate hikes until we reach genuine full employment for all, particularly for the Black and Latino communities who are being left behind in this so-called recovery.
The campaign held a rally outside the building where Chair Janet Yellen made the announcement this afternoon. Fifty workers gathered to tell their stories and call on the Fed not to intentionally slow down the economy. They were joined by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who introduced today the Full Employment Federal Reserve Act of 2015, which would enhance the Fed’s full employment mandate.
Throughout late 2014 and 2015, the Fed Up campaign has elevated the voices of working families, meeting with four of the five Fed Governors and six of the twelve regional Fed presidents. Workers across the country have talked about the tremendous racial and economic disparities that still afflict the economy, and the need for genuine full employment that creates rising wages and more jobs for all communities. It has enlisted the support of economists like Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, the involvement of four of the nation’s largest progressive digital advocacy organizations, and over 120,000 supporters around the country.
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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
Im Hinterhof eines Mythos
Silicon Valley - Sitz von Google, Facebook und Co.: If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere. Was aber, wenn...
Silicon Valley - Sitz von Google, Facebook und Co.: If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere. Was aber, wenn man es nicht schafft? Oder wenn man kein Hightech-Jünger ist, sondern einfach nur Busfahrer? Das Silicon Valley ist das krasseste Exempel der immer weiter auseinander driftenden US-Gesellschaft.
Das Silicon Valley ist die Pilgerstätte der Hightech-Jünger, ein Magnet für Talente aus aller Welt. Eingeklemmt zwischen Pazifik und San Francisco Bay, liegt die Heimat von Apple, Intel, Google, von Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Facebook und etlichen weiteren Technologiefirmen - und von knapp drei Millionen Menschen. Während die Hard- und Softwarefirmen Spitzengehälter zahlen, fallen die Einkommen der weniger noblen Jobs.
Wer als Lehrer, Verkäufer, Busfahrer oder Maurer arbeitet, kann sich ein Leben im superteuren Silicon Valley kaum mehr leisten, die Zahl der "working poor" wächst - also derjenigen, die trotz Job in Armut leben. Auch die Zahl der Obdachlosen nimmt zu. Der soziale Abstieg kommt mitunter rasant: Eine Trennung, eine Firmenpleite oder ein Unfall können auch einen Aktienmillionär über Nacht zum Sozialfall machen. In den Hinterhöfen des Valley finden sich immer mehr Asyle und Ausgabestellen für Essen und Kleidung. Die Schlangen sind lang für die, die im Schatten des amerikanischen Traums leben.
Das Silicon Valley
"Silicon Valley" ist nur ein Spitzname. Weil Silicon – Silizium – der Grundstoff der Computerchips ist, die hier erfunden wurden. Computerchips, die längst auch in Smartphones, Autos, Spielzeug und Küchenmaschinen stecken. Das Silizium-Tal liegt zwischen San Francisco und San Jose auf einer Halbinsel, die im Westen vom Pazifik und den Santa Cruz Mountains begrenzt wird, im Osten von der San Francisco Bay und, dahinter, dem Höhenzug Diablo Range.
Source: Bayern
Can We Forgo Wells Fargo?
When disgraced Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was forced to resign a few weeks ago, it was a victory for economic justice...
When disgraced Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was forced to resign a few weeks ago, it was a victory for economic justice. But this move, however dramatic, does not go far enough to fix the problems with Wells Fargo and Wall Street.
Christina Livingston, executive director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
A diverse array of progressive organizations are joining forces to not only end Wells Fargo's predatory practices, but also increase the pressure for broad Wall Street reform that puts people and communities first.
Through a new "Forgo Wells" campaign, they are pushing city councils, state legislatures, school boards, and other public bodies to stop doing business with Wells Fargo. And they've already scored some wins.
The groups launching this divestment campaign include national organizations like Jobs with Justice, the Communications Workers of America, and Center for Popular Democracy, as well as local groups like New York Communities for Change, Minnesota-based Isaiah, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
Inequality.org co-editor Sarah Anderson interviewed ACCE's executive director, Christina Livingston, about her involvement in the Forgo Wells campaign.
Sarah Anderson: How did you come to be involved in this campaign?
Christina Livingston: Since our doors opened in 2010, Wall Street accountability work has been a staple issue. That's because so many of the issues people are battling have connections to Wall Street banks. From the foreclosure crisis, to wealth stripping of cities and municipalities, to student debt, and beyond, Wall Street banks and hedge funds are behaving in ways that harm you and me for the sake of unchecked power and greed.
Last year we engaged in a campaign organizing bank workers under our worker justice campaign umbrella and quickly realized that bank workers were being treated poorly by the big banks in many ways, including the use of unrealistic sales goals.
Working with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), we began to research how widespread these sales goals were and the impact they were having on workers. We didn't know then that because of these sales goals Wells Fargo workers were being compelled to open fraudulent accounts. However, given our interactions with Wells Fargo in the past, we were not surprised to find that such a widespread fraudulent practice existed. In fact, this is very reminiscent of the robo-signing practice Wells Fargo was found guilty of during the height of the foreclosure crisis.
What role will ACCE be playing in the Forgo Wells campaign?
Given that Wells Fargo is based in San Francisco, we felt compelled to immediately begin working with some of our largest California cities to call on the city government to take action. Already the Los Angeles City Council and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have moved to suspend business with Wells Fargo and we plan to move at least 2-3 other cities in the coming months to take action. We are also encouraging organizing groups in other states to work with their legislators to suspend business with Wells at the state or city level.
Why is this a strategic moment for targeting Wells Fargo?
First, hubris and exploitation is in their DNA. They have never worked with community organizations, and racially biased marketing and fraud is baked into their way of doing business. It is sort of like a game of Jenga (or house of cards). Once you pull out that piece that makes the tower fall, which in this case was the fraud that front-line workers were forced to commit, you unearth many more parts of fraudulent behavior, and realize it is pervasive through everything.
Just a couple days ago, Wells reached a $50 million settlement for mortgage appraisal fraud. There are so many ways in which they are corrupt, and their tentacles are everywhere. They are invested big in private prisons, police foundations, the Dakota Access pipeline, Puerto Rican bonds. Basically, they are invested everywhere, and bad things come from their investments.
Do you see any potential for building alliances that cut across partisan lines in this campaign?
We think so. Part of the right-wing pushback against Hillary Clinton is that she has been friends with Wall Street. People do not trust her to stand up to the banks and hedge funds. Some of Trump's economic appeal has been his willingness to "tell it like it is." And there are unfortunately some Bernie followers who are supporting Trump. The anti-Wall Street message holds both major parties accountable.
Is this campaign just about Wells Fargo or are you trying to address broader problems with Wall Street?
This is absolutely not just a campaign about Wells Fargo, it is about all the big banks and hedge funds that are implementing practices and policies that hurt communities in order to deliver for the wealthy few at the top. Wells is emblematic of what everyone else is doing.
What would victory look like for you?
If we are really successful, we would see the break-up of Wells Fargo and would send a message that banks will be held responsible for the ways they treat their workers, shareholders, and customers. Along the way, we hope to get a fair amount of justice in monetary settlements, rights for workers, and divestment from a host of racist and exploitative investments.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
By Sarah Anderson
Source
Conyers presses Federal Reserve for more diversity
Washington — Rep. John Conyers, the longest serving member of Congress, is leading a group of 127 lawmakers who are...
Washington — Rep. John Conyers, the longest serving member of Congress, is leading a group of 127 lawmakers who are urging the Federal Reserve System to add more diversity to its leadership ranks and become more attuned to economic problems in minority communities.
The lawmakers complained that all but one of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents across the nation are white and 10 of them are men. In addition, they said none of the current Federal Reserve presidents are African-American or Latino, and the system has never had a regional president who is black.
“Far too often, the voices of minorities are silenced because they aren’t sitting at the table,” Conyers, the longtime Democrat and African-American Detroiter, said in a statement. “The Federal Reserve needs leadership that models the diversity that exists in this Nation.”
The Federal Reserve has banks in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas and San Francisco. Detroit is part of the Chicago bank.
Conyers said the diversity of the bank’s regional presidents is important to Detroit and other urban cities, however.
“Detroit and cities across the country with high minority populations have the highest unemployment rates and will be harmed if the Federal Reserve does not consider our needs when they make key policy decisions,” he said. “Increasing diversity at the Federal Reserve will help ensure that the needs of people of color, women, labor, and consumers are part of the crucial conversation in our nation’s central bank.”
A spokesman for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors said the system has been committed to bolstering diversity and continues to aim for increasing ethnic and gender diversity.
“Minority representation on Reserve Bank and Branch boards has increased from 16 percent in 2010 to 24 percent in 2016,” spokesman Dave Skidmore said in a Thursday statement. “The proportion of women directors has risen from 23 percent to 30 percent over the same period. Currently, 46 percent of all directors are diverse in terms of race and/or gender (with a director who is both female and a minority counted only one time).
“We are striving to continue that progress.”
The letter, which is signed by 116 House members and 11 Senate members, is being spearheaded by Conyers and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts.
Other Michigan representatives who signed the letter were Brenda Lawerence, D-Southfield; Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak; Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township; and Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn. Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was also a signatory.
By Keith Laing
Source
Diversas organizaciones en el área triestatal se preparan para manifestaciones en apoyo al trabajador inmigrante
Diversas organizaciones en el área triestatal se preparan para manifestaciones en apoyo al trabajador inmigrante
Este lunes, Día internacional del trabajo, se escucharán las voces de miles de inmigrantes indocumentados y sus aliados...
Este lunes, Día internacional del trabajo, se escucharán las voces de miles de inmigrantes indocumentados y sus aliados, que ha 100 días del mandato de Donald Trump, dicen sentirse cansados por el acoso del gobierno. Durante el 1 de mayo también se verán huelgas comerciales, paros laborales y manifestaciones estudiantiles.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
Two Reports Detail Wide Discrimination Against Transgender Americans
Windy City Media Group - February 18, 2015, by Gretchen Rachel Hammond - When the Supreme Court of the United States...
Windy City Media Group - February 18, 2015, by Gretchen Rachel Hammond - When the Supreme Court of the United States rules on the issue of same-sex marriage later this year, many of the advocacy organizations and groups nationwide that have fought for a resolution to the issue are hopeful that LGBTQ equality will take a giant leap forward. However two reports released February 18 by the Denver-based LGBT think tank The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) starkly demonstrate that the transgender community remains snared in disproportionate inequity, discrimination and oppression in almost all areas of American life—employment, housing, K-12 and higher education, healthcare, pensions, the criminal justice system, immigration, obtaining credit, loans, financial aid or identification documents and even marriage.
The ramifications to the community in terms of poverty, societal attitudes and manifestations of violence against transgender individuals have been bluntly illustrated with the deaths of eight transgender women across the United States in the first seven weeks of 2015.
The data, stories and issues raised in the reports entitled Understanding Issues Facing Transgender Americans and Paying and Unfair Price: the Penalty for Being Transgender in America were assembled and co-authored by MAP alongside the Center for American Progress, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), and the Transgender Law Center, in partnership with Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, GLAAD, National Association of Social Workers, and the National Education Association.
Understanding Issues Facing Transgender Americans details each sphere of society in which transgender Americans face daily discrimination and offers brief recommendations on a local, state and federal level. The figures are sobering.
The report states that one-in-five transgender people have been refused a home or an apartment with laws protecting them on the books in only 18 states and D.C. In schools, 40 percent of gender non-conforming youth have reported some level of harassment with only 13 states offering laws against discrimination because of their gender identity. An astonishing 78 percent of transgender individuals reported being "mistreated or discriminated against at work" while up to 47 percent noted being unfairly denied a job at all. In terms of income, the report cited National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) figures which stated transgender Americans are "four times more likely to have a household income under $10,000 per year than the population as a whole."
Within the criminal justice system, the report notes that one-in-six transgender people will have been incarcerated at some point in their lives. For Black transgender individuals that figure stands at 47 percent. "Reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics find that 35 percent of transgender prisoners report experiencing sexual abuse in the last twelve months, compared to 4 percent of all prisoners," the document states while indicating that the disproportionate numbers of low-income transgender people has led to a far greater frequency of police interactions and "higher levels police harassment, imprisonment and violence."
Unfair Price: the Penalty for Being Transgender in America examines that poverty in greater detail. The report lists what it calls two "primary failures of law' as the reason "transgender people in the United States face clear financial penalties and are left economically vulnerable"—pervasive discrimination and a lack of clear legal protections along with hostile educational environments.
The results are denial of employment or harassment while on the job, lower wages, denial of housing and even difficulty accessing homeless shelters, inordinate healthcare costs due to discrimination by insurance companies and healthcare providers and increased difficulty obtaining credit such as a credit card or student loan.
MAP Policy Specialist and Policy Researcher Naomi Goldberg was the lead author on that report while LGBT Movement and Policy Analyst Heron Greenesmith piloted the creation of Understanding Issues Facing Transgender Americans.
Goldberg told Windy City Times that both reports received their genesis from earlier and exhaustive research released by MAP detailing issues facing the LGBT community as a whole. "Beginning last year, we starting releasing issue-specific guides," she said. "Heron released one about the disparities that bisexual face in this country. Often both they and the transgender community are ignored when talking about LGBT people. So this guide about transgender [individuals] is meant to be used as an entry point for people to understand the key areas in which transgender people face challenges."
Goldberg hopes that the reports will be used in multiple areas and across a spectrum of audiences including the media, policy makers and advocacy groups. "It's meant to be another articulation of why protections are needed," she said. "As we see the transgender community gain visibility, a lot of people are coming to understand what it means to be transgender in a new way and I think this guide can be an easily accessible tool for people to talk about the real challenges transgender people face. There's a real opportunity here to articulate the concerns and the needs of the transgender community that is accessible and demystifying."
As a cisgender woman, Goldberg acknowledged that as she began to piece the report together she was surprised at the sheer breadth of discrimination against the transgender community. "It was the ways in which discrimination affects all aspects of life," she said. "In my opinion this is where the work really needs to be focused. We need to understand how to talk about the issues that transgender community face, how to provide recommendations to advance them in the policy sphere and also look at movement capacity—organizations that are doing the work and how to support [them]."
However Goldberg stressed that lack of data concerning the transgender community remains a huge obstacle in creating policy change. "We can probably say that the 2020 census will not be including questions of gender identity and expression," she stated. "There's going to be another fielding of the Transgender Discrimination Survey which uncovered and provided all of us with statistics to pair with people sharing their own stories. Gathering the data is going to be the long game but that is the path forward."
"It's not enough to say 'we're done' when we pass laws," Goldberg added. "This is something the LGBT movement post marriage-equality is going to have to address.
Source
Big Banks Face Protests Over Treatment of Rank-and-File Employees
American Banker - April 9, 2015, by Kevin Wack - The nation's largest banks are again under attack — this time over how...
American Banker - April 9, 2015, by Kevin Wack - The nation's largest banks are again under attack — this time over how they treat their own rank-and-file employees.
A coalition called the Committee for Better Banks, which includes unions and community groups, is planning protests Monday outside big-bank offices in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. The organizers are marrying long-standing complaints about the impact of bank practices in low-income neighborhoods and the large salaries of top executives with newer gripes about the banks' treatment of their own tellers and sales representatives. The central message is that the country's biggest banks should be paying higher wages, offering better benefits, and eliminating aggressive sales goals that can create stress for lower-pay employees. "While the financial industry has recovered in a big way since the crash — it's really come back strong — frontline workers have not experienced that," said Aditi Sen, a research analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy organization that released a report Thursday in connection with the upcoming protests.
In May 2014, the annual mean wage for tellers at depository institutions was $26,720, or $12.84 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It's not clear whether the upcoming protests will include a substantial number of bank employees. Erin Mahoney, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said in an email that "thousands of bank workers have been engaging with us" using petitions and other methods.
Source
Will last-minute work soon be history?
When Russell Miller worked at Abercrombie, one of his days each week had to be an on-call day. He wouldn’t know if he’...
When Russell Miller worked at Abercrombie, one of his days each week had to be an on-call day. He wouldn’t know if he’d have to show up to work until an hour in advance.
“You had to block out that time period as if you were working,” he says. One store he worked at was 45 minutes from his house. “We had to be ready to be there on time. With all the regulations about what we wear, how we look and how we present ourselves, I had to get fully ready for my shift and ready to walk out the door at the time I made the phone call to find out if they were even going to need me or not.”
For Miller, this was more than an inconvenience.
“Having a second job wouldn’t work at a time when I was scheduled for an on-call shift. If they scheduled me for an on-call shift and they didn’t call me, that was real money lost and real time opportunity lost.”
On-call scheduling “means you have to put your life on hold,” says Rachel Laforest, director of the Retail Action Project, a division of the Retail Wholesale and Department Stores Union. “It becomes very difficult to lead full lives, so for example, if I’m a parent and I have to figure out arranging for child care, it’s impossible for me to do that” with such short notice, she says.
There isn’t good national data on the prevalence of on-call scheduling, but regional surveys suggest it’s widespread and not limited to retail, says Stephanie Luce, professor of labor studies at CUNY. “We see it in fast food, airlines, beauty services, domestic services, child care services," she says. "Smaller studies seem to suggest this practice really picked up after the recession, however, over the past couple of years, there’s been a real push back.”
After New York’s attorney general suggested Abercrombie and 12 other companies were potentially violating New York law through the practice, Abercrombie announced it would work to discontinue the practice.
The company responded on August fifth “...we understand – and share – the attorney general’s concerns about call-in shift scheduling. The attorney general’s letter helped focus our ongoing internal discussions about how to create a stable and predictable work environment as possible for our employees.”
Gap Inc. told Marketplace: “Each of our brands have made a commitment to evaluate their practices and determine where we may be able to improve scheduling stability for our employees, while continuing to drive productivity in stores.”
Gap also says it’s working on a pilot project with University of California, Hastings College of the Law “to examine workplace scheduling and productivity. Led by recognized expert professor Joan Williams, the goal of the Gap Hourly Scheduling Initiative is to use research and data to create solutions that will be sustainable and can be implemented across our company’s entire footprint and fleet."
Under pressure from a lawsuit, Victoria’s Secret discontinued on-call scheduling earlier this year.
To the extent firms are reconsidering the practice, the reasons are both technological and monetary.
On-call scheduling resulted from pressure to restrict the ratio of hours to sales and an attempt to more nimbly adapt to changes in demand, says University of Chicago associate professor Susan Lambert. It also results in companies “overhiring,” using many part time workers instead of fewer full time workers. But Lambert says “the costs of managing this way do not enter the balance sheets of firms.” Employees who work irregularly, for example, may not always be up to speed with the latest changes to the store or the layout, she says.
“From a very engineering standpoint,...[on-call scheduling] may look efficient but when you look on front lines of firms, you see all the opportunities costs there are in terms of people walking out because they can’t find something or can’t get help.”
Another factor is technology.
“New technologies give us now the ability to predict very well variations in demand,” Lambert says.
Companies don’t need to keep workers on hold; they can figure out pretty well whether they need to have someone show up to work far in advance of two hours before the shift starts, she says. Companies are so good at predicting demand that they tried to "overoptimize" down to the minute, keeping workers on call to cover even slight changes in demand.
“You don’t need to do that micro-management,” she says. “Retailers are learning that."
So it may be, she says, that workers and firms are finding on-call scheduling is a headache for everyone.
Here are the responses from the 13 companies the New York attorney general wrote warnings to:
Ann Inc.: "Staffing guidelines do not include the practice of on-call shifts."
Gap Inc.: "Each of our brands have made a commitment to evaluate their practices and determine where we may be able to improve scheduling stability for our employees, while continuing to drive productivity in stores. As part of our commitment to more sustainable scheduling practices, we are working on a pilot project with Gap Brand and UC Hastings College of Law to examine workplace scheduling and productivity."
J.C. Penney Co: "We do not utilize on-call scheduling, and JCPenney has always maintained a policy against the practice."
Sears Holdings Corp: "Sears Holdings does not use on-call scheduling for store associates. That said, we will fully cooperate with the New York Attorney General’s office’s requests."
Target Corp: "Target does not use on-call scheduling."
TJX Cos: "We don’t use on-call shifts at TJX and it hasn’t been our practice, i.e. nothing new since April."
Williams-Sonoma Inc: "We actually discontinued [on-call scheduling] for the entire country."
Burlington Stores Inc., Crocs Inc., J. Crew Group Inc. and Urban Outfitters Inc. did not return requests for comment.
Source: Marketplace
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