The End of On-Call Scheduling?
Retailers have been ...
Retailers have been under intense pressure from labor groups, regulators, and their own employees to end on-call scheduling—the practice in which shift workers are called to work on short notice, and are often uncompensated if it turns out to be a slow day. On Friday, New York attorney-general Eric Schneiderman’s office announced that J.Crew will end on-call scheduling nationwide this month. The retailer joins Urban Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, Gap, and Victoria’s Secret, which all have announced changes since Schneiderman’s office launched an inquiry into the practice at over a dozen companies.
“After discussion with my office, J. Crew has agreed to end on-call shifts nationwide and to provide one week of advance notice about schedules to employees at all New York store locations,” said Schneiderman in a statement. “Workers deserve protections that allow them to have a reliable schedule in order to arrange for transportation to work, to accommodate child-care needs, and to budget their family finances.”
This is the sixth agreement Schneiderman has reached with a major retailer. In April, the New York attorney-general’s office sent letters to 13 retailers asking for information regarding their scheduling policies: “We have been informed that a number of companies in New York State utilize on-call shifts and require employees to report in some manner, whether by phone, text message, or email, before the designated shift in order to learn whether their services are ultimately needed on-site that day,” said the letter.
The letter expresses concern that the practice might be in violation of a state regulation that employees who report for work must be paid for at least four hours (or the number of hours in a regular shift) of work. It cites the financial and personal strains for workers without predictable schedules—from being unable to work another job or attend school, to the strains of finding childcare last minute. Further, a report by the Economic Policy Institute found that the lowest income workers face the most irregular work schedules.
A spokesperson for Gap Inc. confirmed that all five brands—The Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Intermix, and Athleta—has phased out on-call scheduling globally by the end of September.* L Brand—the parent company for Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works—also confirmed that they have ended the practice nationwide.
Gap is also working on a pilot project with Joan Williams, a professor and director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law, and Susan Lambert, a professor at the University of Chicago who studies scheduling issues, on new ways to stabilize worker schedules. Lambert’s researchfound that 64 percent of food-service workers and half of retail workers receive less than a week’s notice for shifts.
For now, the shift away from on-call scheduling seems to be only gaining momentum: Earlier this week, Forever 21 was hit with a lawsuit from a former employee over unpaid on-call scheduling. And, for the seven remaining companies that Schneiderman’s office contacted (the identities of which are unknown), such momentum may soon be overpowering.
Source: The Atlantic
Newark Police first in N.J. to refuse to detain undocumented immigrants accused of minor crimes
The Star-Ledger – August 15, 2013, by James Queally - The Newark Police Department has become the first law enforcement...
The Star-Ledger – August 15, 2013, by James Queally -
The Newark Police Department has become the first law enforcement agency in New Jersey to refuse the federal government’s requests to detain people accused of minor crimes who are suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, according to immigration advocates.
In enacting the policy, Newark becomes the latest city to opt out of the most controversial part of the “Secure Communities” program implemented by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in 2011, which allows the agency to ask local police to hold any suspect for up to 48 hours if their immigration status is called into question.
In the past two years, cities and states across the nation, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have adopted similar policies. Earlier this week, Orleans Parish sheriffs also said they will stop honoring the detainer requests.
“Secure Communities” was designed to enhance ICE’s ability to track dangerous criminals who are undocumented immigrants. Under the policy the Department of Homeland Security reviews fingerprints collected by local police during an arrest, which then allows ICE to issue the detainer requests. Immigration advocates, however, argue the policy has been misused, leading to the deportation of people accused of low-level offenses and inhibits collaboration between police and people who are undocumented.
Udi Ofer, the executive director of the state chapter of the ACLU, said Newark’s policy was a collaborative effort between the city, the ACLU and several immigrants rights groups.
“With this policy in place, Newark residents will not have to fear that something like a wrongful arrest for a minor offense will lead to deportation,” said Ofer. “It ensures that if you’re a victim of a crime, or have witnessed a crime, you can contact the police without having to fear deportation.
Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio signed the directive on July 24. Newark will no longer comply with ICE requests to hold suspects accused of crimes like shoplifting or vandalism.
City police will continue to share fingerprint information with federal investigators, according to DeMaio, who said the department received only eight detainer requests in 2012.
“If we arrest somebody for a disorderly persons offense and we get a detainer request we’re not going to hold them in our cell block,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ve ever gotten a detainer request on a guy with a misdemeanor.”
An ICE spokesman declined to comment directly on the policy. But immigrants rights advocates hailed the move as an olive branch to undocumented immigrants, who often hesitate to cooperate with police who are investigating serious crimes in their community for fear of deportation.
That fear has been evident in a series of community meetings in the Newark’s immigrant-heavy Ironbound neighborhood, which began after “Secure Communities” was implemented in New Jersey last year, said East Ward Councilman Augusto Amador.Amador has been present for a number of those sessions, and said the culture of fear created by the program stopped many undocumented immigrants from reporting crimes committed against them in the area.
“I agree totally with the policy,” he said. “The Newark Police Department already has enough problems to worry about, rather than being involved with matters that don’t belong to them.”
A representative for Mayor Cory Booker’s administration said the policy is a smart move that strengthens ties with city residents and maintains a relationship with ICE.
“The Newark Police Department’s policy improves community relations, while saving taxpayer money and ensuring that city, state, and federal officials continue to share critical information needed to prosecute criminals and keep our streets safe,” said city spokesman James Allen.
Nisha Agarwal, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said ICE has misused the “Secure Communities” policy in other areas, and Newark’s directive will slowdown the agency if it attempts to start deportation proceedings against someone for a small-scale offense.
“They often will (issue) detainers in cases where it’s really minor, when the person is not a threat to society in any way,” she said.
New Jersey has one of the country’s largest immigrant populations and the state is home to more than 500,000 undocumented immigrants, according to Amy Gottlieb, director of the American Friends Service Committee. Gottlieb said she hopes to see other New Jersey law enforcement agencies echo Newark’s policy.
“Any detainer policy where people are aware that the police department is acting in support of the immigrant community is going to be helpful for police and immigrant relations,” she said.
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Elizabeth Warren, Workers Take Aim at ‘Walmart Economy’
RH Reality Check - November 19, 2014, by Emily Crockett - When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. George Miller (D-...
RH Reality Check - November 19, 2014, by Emily Crockett - When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA) invited Walmart workers to brief Congress on Tuesday about the retail giant’s abusive practices, the conversation was about more than just Walmart.
“No one in this country should work full-time and still live in poverty,” Warren said.
“This is about the simple dignity of the people you have hired to work,” Miller said. “When you have a higher minimum wage, fair scheduling, and equal work for equal pay, the perception of the business goes up in the people’s mind, the customers go up and the revenues go up.”
Cantare Duvant, a Walmart customer service manager, said at the briefing that since Walmart is the nation’s largest retailer, it sets the standard for others in the industry. “So not only do we as Walmart workers deserve better, our economy also deserves better,” she said.
Duvant is a member of OUR Walmart (Organization United for Respect at Walmart), a union-backed group of Walmart workers who are, in Duvant’s words, “struggling to support our families on low pay and erratic scheduling” in what is now “Walmart’s low-wage economy.”
“Walmart specifically is worth discussing not only because of the 1.3 million workers it directly employs, but also because of the impact its employment practices have on the rest of our economy,” said Amy Traub, senior policy analyst at Demos. She said Walmart does this by “pushing down wages, limited workers hours, and squeezing its suppliers and its competitors.”
A majority of Americans are paid by the hour, and about half of early-career adults have no say in their work schedules, said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. “This isn’t just a narrow section of people,” she said.
Sen. Warren, a progressive hero who was recently appointed to a position in the Senate Democratic leadership, said that the issue of low-wage work in America is “deeply personal” for her.
When her father lost his job after having a heart attack, Warren said, her working-class family couldn’t pay the bills, lost their car, and almost lost their home. Then one day, “My mother, who was 50 years old and had never worked outside the home, pulled on her best dress, put on her lipstick, put on her high heels, and walked to Sears to get a minimum-wage job.”
“But here’s the key: It was a minimum-wage job in an America where a minimum-wage job would support a family of three.”
That could never happen today, Warren said, when “a momma and a baby on a full-time minimum-wage job cannot keep themselves out of poverty.”
Warren used the briefing to promote three pieces of legislation aimed at helping low-wage workers, including but not limited to people working at Walmart.
Those bills would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, give workers more reliable and flexible schedules, and help women address unequal pay based on gender.
Equal pay came up because women make up about two-thirds of the low-wage work force, and many are family breadwinners. Warren said that women in about half of American jobs can be fired just for asking whether their pay is unequal to their male coworkers.
The Schedules That Work Act, Warren said, is about the “basic fairness” of workers being able to plan for a second job, child care, or schooling. It would require employers to give workers their schedules two weeks in advance, compensate them for showing up for work only to be sent home, and not retaliate against workers for requesting more flexible or predictable schedules.
All three bills have been blocked by Republicans, which Warren openly acknowledged.
“I know that change is not easy. We might not pass these bills right away,” she said. “But don’t kid yourself about the importance of these bills, and the assurance that we’re eventually going to get them through.”
The Schedules That Work Act in particular would help Fatmata Jabbie, a Walmart worker and refugee from Saudi Arabia whose story was read at the hearing.
“Although I am not full-time yet, I am virtually on call seven days a week to pick up extra hours,” she said in her written statement. Her reward for that trouble is usually only 30 to 36 hours of work and $150 to $200 in take-home pay.
“I am a mom with two beautiful children, so I am not the only one who relies on that salary to survive,” Jabbie said.
OUR Walmart is pushing for bigger reforms than the three bills Warren promoted though. Members of the group are calling for their aggressively non-unionized employer to pay a minimum living wage of $15 an hour, provide stable, full-time schedules, and stop retaliating against workers who speak out against the company’s practices.
Duvant, for instance, already makes the $10.10 per hour that the federal minimum wage bill would guarantee—but that doesn’t do her much good, she said, when Walmart will only schedule her for 16 hours of work per week.
And Evelin Cruz, who worked for Walmart for 11 years, said at the hearing that the company fired her a few weeks ago for her activism with OUR Walmart.
“We spoke out for change, and Walmart did what it does best, which is bully, retaliate, and fire me,” she said.
Cruz told RH Reality Check that even though she no longer works at Walmart and is looking for other work, she’ll keep up the fight with OUR Walmart.
“That’s what they count on, for people to be out of Walmart and no longer want to participate,” she said. “But this is an issue that is not only affecting people in Walmart. It’s a widespread problem of scheduling, lack of hours, and a minimum wage that you can’t survive on.”
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New Video: Preying on Puerto Rico, The Forgotten Citizens of Hedge Fund Island
New Video: Preying on Puerto Rico, The Forgotten Citizens of Hedge Fund Island
Last month I returned to my native Puerto Rico to attend a wedding and was catching up with family still on the Island...
Last month I returned to my native Puerto Rico to attend a wedding and was catching up with family still on the Island one evening. A couple of sips of whiskey in, and the truth came out: My wife’s father reported that he hadn’t received a paycheck in 3 months.
He is a doctor. A highly specialized one, And, with most of his patients coming through government insurance, he hadn’t seen a dime in payment.
Most Puerto Rican health care professionals try to hang on as long as possible. They want to stay in their homeland, be with their families and help make things better. But increasingly, they have no choice. Now many doctors are among the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have become economic migrants, forced to flee from home because they simply cannot survive on patriotism and hope.
In 2014, 364 doctors left the island, the Puerto Rican Surgeons and Physicians Association reported. Last year, 500 practitioners packed up and got out.
“Don’t get hurt on a Sunday or a holiday,” one man recently told CNN after his uncle died because only 2 neurologists were on duty to serve the island’s 3.5 million “forgotten citizens.” (His family now calls the lines at the hospital “the walking dead.”)
Behind those staggering numbers is rapacious, hungry, heartless greed as embodied by two simple words: Hedge funds.
Just like Detroit, Greece and other places rocked by the recession and government mismanagement, Puerto Rico’s debt ballooned over the last decade, further exacerbated by colonial status and expiring tax incentives.
In 2012, hedge fund managers began to circle the Commonwealth, looking to reap billions – and experiment with new wealth extraction strategies that could be imported back to the American mainland. The short version: They bought Puerto Rican bonds after the price fell.
Now these “vulture” managers (as they are literally called for their creditor and distressed buying schemes – los buitres in Spanish) insist that any package from Washington that allows Puerto Rico to renegotiate its $72 billion debt puts Wall Street investors at the front of the line to get paid.
A handful are holding out for even more; refusing to accept any restructuring and demanding even more severe austerity measures and suffering so they don’t have to take any losses on their risky investment.
These carrion feeders are in fact, real human beings, acting in inhumane ways: Mark Brodsky, of the $4.5 billion Aurelius Capital and Andrew Feldstein, of the $20 billion BlueMountain Capital are two leaders of the vulture flock of hedge fund billionaires circling Puerto Rico trying to make huge profits from what’s turning into a full-scale humanitarian crisis.
Brodsky bought up the Island’s debt for as low as 29 cents on the dollar and now is demanding full repayment (Think Greece, and Argentina). He is helping fund economists who argue that vital government services must cease – and schools and hospitals must close - to extract full payment.
Feldstein has teams of lawyers fighting basic protections for Puerto Ricans in court and lobbyists taking the same case to Congress. On his dime they have launched a high profile and highly fraudulent media campaign to make sure Congress keeps working for the billionaires – and against teachers, students, the elderly… and my former neighbors and relatives.
Together with John Paulson – who literally bragged to his bros that together they could create the “Singapore of the Caribbean” and create a tax haven for themselves – these vulture investors are consuming the living, for their greed.
That’s why I’ve been working with Brave New Films and a large coalition, including Make the Road, New York Communities for Change, Organize NOW, Florida Institute for Reform & Empowerment, AFT, SEIU, NEA, New Jersey Communities United, Grassroots Collaborative , Center for Popular Democracy, Strong Economy for All, and Citizen Action, under the campaign banner Hedge Clippers, to help ordinary Puerto Ricans expose the truth about these bad actors and their flock.
Preying on Puerto Rico: Forgotten Citizens of Hedge Fund Island is a series of short film videos that Puerto Rican activists helped create to kick off an escalated series of large actions calling on those with the power to help to stand up for Puerto Ricans and stand up to los buitres.
These same leaders are behind a growing wave of protests on Capitol Hill, Wall Street, the Trump Towers and at the Federal Reserve Board offices in cities across the U.S.
They are getting attention and being heard, but the path forward is uphill. We need your help. With unemployment at 14% and 45 percent of Puerto Ricans living below the poverty line Puerto Rico is in a humanitarian crisis. PROMESA, the bill that just passed out of the US House and is on its way to the Senate, is a bad deal that will help the hedge funds, but not the Puerto Rican people.
Preying on Puerto Rico: Forgotten Citizens of HedgeFund Island is only the beginning of how we can use our voices and votes to help my father in-law remain on the Island to help save lives – and end this suffering caused by these vultures and the politicians that do their bidding.
Join us today to share these films – and call Feldstein and Brodsky to ask them: how many more billions do you need to make before you stop pillaging the poor?
By Julio López Varona / Brave New Films
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Warren allies demand answers from Clinton on Wall St. ties
“On behalf of our nine million supporters across the country, we are writing to request more information about your...
“On behalf of our nine million supporters across the country, we are writing to request more information about your positions regarding the revolving door between Wall Street and the federal government,” reads a statement backed by Democracy For America, Rootstrikers, CREDO Action, MoveOn.Org Political Action, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, The Other 98%, Friends of the Earth Action, and American Family Voices.
The missive, which comes as Clinton interrupts her Hamptons vacation to unveil her rural policy platform in Iowa on Wednesday, specifically notes that Clinton has yet to support or comment on Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s Financial Services Conflict of Interest Act. Progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has ties to many of those who signed the letter — has encouraged all presidential candidates to back the legislation, as both Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have done.
“These types of ‘golden parachute’ compensation packages are highly controversial, and for good reason,” the letter reads. “At worst, it results in undue and inappropriate corporate influence at the highest levels of government — in essence, a barely legal, backdoor form of bribery.”
The letter concludes by posing two questions to the Democratic front-runner: “Do you still support the use of this controversial compensation practice?” and “If you become president, will you allow officials who enter your administration to receive this sort of bonus?”
While Clinton has made steps to appeal to the types of progressive voters behind this letter, she has so far resisted pressure from the left to support reviving the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking before it was repealed in 1999. And members of these groups who wanted bank antagonist Warren to run for the presidency are on high alert this week after news broke that the Massachusetts senator met with Vice President Joe Biden over the weekend as he considers his own presidential ambitions.
“It’s hard to imagine Democrats’ 2016 nominee will be truly tough on Wall Street banks that break the law, if they won’t commit to banning their advisers from receiving legalized bribes from those same banks,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a group founded by former Vermont governor and current Clinton backer Howard Dean.
The letter names a pair of Clinton associates who moved from banks to the State Department: Robert Hormats, an undersecretary who came from Goldman Sachs, and Thomas Nides, a deputy secretary who came from Morgan Stanley.
Warren has suggested repeatedly that any candidate seeking her endorsement must agree not to appoint officials with Wall Street ties.
“Anyone who wants to be president should appoint only people who have already demonstrated they are independent, who have already demonstrated that they can hold giant banks accountable, who have already demonstrated that they embrace the kind of ambitious economic policies that we need to rebuild opportunity and a strong middle class in this country,” she said in July.
Source: Politico
Man with ALS confronts Flake on plane over tax bill vote
A progressive activist who identified himself as diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (...
A progressive activist who identified himself as diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on an airplane this week over Flake's vote on the GOP tax-reform bill.
Activist Ady Barkan, a staffer at the Center for Popular Democracy, questioned Flake on Thursday after the Arizona Republican voted in favor of the GOP tax-reform bill that passed the Senate in a late-night session last week. Videos of the 11-minute conversation were posted on Twitter.
Read the full article here.
The Fed’s Main Job Is Jobs, And A Coalition Plans To Keep It On Task
Campaign for America's Future - September 4, 2014, by Isaiah Poole - A lot of eyes will be on the Federal Reserve...
Campaign for America's Future - September 4, 2014, by Isaiah Poole - A lot of eyes will be on the Federal Reserve Friday when the Labor Department releases its August unemployment statistics. But where will the Fed’s eyes be focused? A group of activists are planning the next steps of their effort to keep the Fed focused on the continuing unemployment crisis, and keep the Fed from taking actions that will make things worse for millions still seeking work.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” said Shawn Sebastian of the Center for Popular Democracy, who was part of a group of activists and unemployed people who confronted members of the Fed at last month’s economic summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo. That includes following up on a promise by Fed chair Janet Yellen to meet with the group in Washington and pressing a more detailed plan for how the Fed should proceed to help the Main Street economy grow.
“We are going to be looking at the full range of policy options,” Sebastian said.
The “inflation hawks” were poised to seize the narrative when the members of the Fed attended the Jackson Hole summit. These Fed members, egged on by conservative academics and policymakers, want the Fed to put the brakes on economic growth and turn its attention to fighting inflation, even though there are no signs that inflation is an imminent threat. On the contrary, wages as a percentage of economic output are at their lowest level since the late 1940s (while corporate profits as a share of the economy are at record highs), one sign that there are far more people looking for work than there are jobs for them.
What the hawks did not count on was the Center for Popular Democracy’s ragtag group of 10 unemployed people and activist supporters. They trekked to Jackson Hole to confront Fed members with their stories of struggling to find decent jobs, along with a demand that the Fed not abandon its unfinished role in rebuilding the middle-class economy, in the form of a letter endorsed by more than 70 organizations. Their biggest success, Sebastian said, was a two-hour meeting with Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George, who just before Jackson Hole said in an interview with CNBC that it was time for the Fed to begin thinking about raising interest rates “when you see the economy getting as close as we are to full employment.”
But Sebastian and his group told George that the economy was nowhere near full employment and that the analysis of the inflation hawks was “lacking in relevance, substance and rigor.” One member of the group told of how she went from being an MBA who had risen to a management job over 15 years to being laid off and unable to find work for months, finally settling for a job that paid half as much as the job she lost.
It’s not clear what substantive effect hearing these stories had on George and other inflation hawks on the Fed, Sebastian said. “But I do hope we contributed to her thinking and we also started an engagement” with the Fed, he said. Fed members now know that when they discuss economic policy, “you can’t make decisions without public scrutiny anymore, because we’re paying attention now.”
One of the ideas that the group will refine and attempt to build consensus around would have the Fed invest directly in infrastructure bonds and similar government instruments, in much the same way that it purchased billions in bonds to prop up the financial sector in the years following the 2008 financial crash. The bond-purchasing program, known as quantitative easing, helped boost Wall Street share prices, according to most experts, but had no direct effect on job-creation or on bringing the economic recovery to communities around the country hardest hit by the crash – as the nation has now vividly seen in Ferguson, Mo.
Having the Fed directly buy bonds that would enable federal, state or local governments to fund transportation projects, school construction or other public facilities would put the Fed’s power to work in ways that directly creates jobs in the short run and assets that enhance the nation’s competitiveness and well-being in the long run.
The Fed could also better use its regulatory authority to prod the banks to pour into the economy the close to $2 trillion that is now sitting in its vaults. That hoarded cash could be put to work creating jobs and lifting the wages of working-class people.
Whatever policies take shape during the next phase of the Center for Popular Democracy’s campaign to keep the Fed focused on full employment, Sebastian says that the opening round has been a success in sending the message that “we’re not in an inflation crisis … we are in an unemployment crisis. You can’t ignore an ongoing crisis for the sake of a ghost of inflation that may or may not appear.”
States Expand Inquiry Into On-Call Scheduling
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies,...
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies, asking a group of national chains to provide detailed information on their use of the controversial practice.
On-call shifts, where a worker must be available to work a shift that can be cancelled at the last minute without compensation, has become popular in retail. But the practice wreaks havoc on the lives of low-paid hourly workers trying to plan plan around child care, schooling, or second jobs, as a BuzzFeed News investigation found last year.
At the time, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent a letter to 14 chains (published below), inquiring about their use of on-call scheduling and warning it may be illegal. Since then, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Workers, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Gap have committed to ending the practice.
“On-call shifts are not a business necessity, as we see from the many retailers that no longer use this unjust method of scheduling work hours,” said Schneiderman in a statement.
A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the lowest income workers receive the most irregular schedules, with unpredictability leading to increased stress.
“It’s heartening to see more and more policymakers and regulators take action,” said Carrie Gleason, Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group.
On Tuesday, the offices of the Attorneys General in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island sent a letter requesting employee handbooks, schedules, and payroll information.
In these states, the Attorneys General warn, the practice may be a violation of a law mandating a minimum of four hours of pay for employees who report for work.
The following retailers received the letter: Aéropostale, American Eagle, BCBG Max Azria, Carter’s Inc., Coach, DavidsTea Inc., Walt Disney Co., Forever 21 Inc., Ascena Retail Group Inc.’s Justice, Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., Payless ShoeSource, Tilly’s Inc., Uniqlo, VF Corp.’s Vans, and Zumiez Inc.
Spokespeople from Uniqlo and Coach told the Wall Street Journal that the companies don’t use the practice. BuzzFeed News has reached out to the companies listed for comment and will update the post with responses.
UPDATE
A spokesperson for American Eagle Outfitters said in a statement, ““American Eagle Outfitters is committed to providing our associates with a positive working environment. We decided in November 2015 to cease the use of ‘on-call shifts’ and advised our stores. We are taking steps to reinforce and assure adherence to this policy across our store fleet.”
A spokesperson for Forever 21 said, “Contrary to published reports, Forever 21 does not permit on-call scheduling nor do we have a company policy around doing so.”
A spokesperson for Vans said the company does not use on-call scheduling and will comply with the request for information.
A spokesperson for Uniqlo said that Uniqlo has received the letter and that on-call scheduling is not a Uniqlo practice or policy.
A spokesperson for Payless ShoeSource says the company does not engage in on-call scheduling, has received the inquiry and will respond accordingly.
A spokesperson for Zumiez said, “It is our practice to cooperate with any request from the attorney general or other state agencies and we will do so in this case as well.” Apr. 14, 2016, at 10:21 a.m.
By Cora Lewis
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Tax reform stumbling block
Don’t look for a tax reform roll-out as soon as Congress comes back despite the aggressive timetable laid out by White...
Don’t look for a tax reform roll-out as soon as Congress comes back despite the aggressive timetable laid out by White House legislative director Marc Short. Part of the reason is that it probably won’t be ready yet. But it also has to wait until after the GOP congress passes a budget resolution, people close to the matter tell MM.
Because if Republicans lay out their tax reform plan beforehand, Democrats could use the budget vote-a-rama process in the Senate to try and attack individual pieces of the plan.
Read the full article here.
Woman who confronted Flake 'relieved' he called for delaying Kavanaugh vote
Woman who confronted Flake 'relieved' he called for delaying Kavanaugh vote
Maria Gallagher, who on Friday confronted Sen. Jeff Flake with her story of sexual assault, said she was "relieved"...
Maria Gallagher, who on Friday confronted Sen. Jeff Flake with her story of sexual assault, said she was "relieved" when the Arizona Republican called for an FBI investigation into allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Gallagher, a resident of New York, stood next to Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, earlier Friday as the two held open the doors of an elevator Flake was taking on his way to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Soon after, Flake said he would vote to advance Kavanaugh's nomination to the Senate floor, but he said he wanted a vote in the full body delayed for one week while the FBI investigated the allegations.
Read the full article here.
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