Leave it to the managers and executives trying to squeeze the life out of workers to come up with the newest twist in brutal behavior, using the wondrous world of technology (you know, the thing that will save us all and make work even happier...not!) to make it all happen. Essentially, it goes like this: forget a work schedule you know in advance...the Great Wizard behind the work curtain may only decide to bestow upon you, the servant worker, the luck of some work just a few hours before you have to show up for the job.
Except it might be illegal. At least in New York.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman smells a rat:
The office of the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is investigating 13 large retailers over whether increasingly unpredictable and on-call work schedules adopted by some employers in the retail sector violate New York labor laws.
“Our office has received reports that a growing number of employers, particularly in the retail industry, require their hourly workers to work what are sometimes known as “on call shifts” — that is, requiring their employees to call in to work just a few hours in advance, or the night before, to determine whether the worker needs to appear for work that day or the next,” Mr. Schneiderman’s office said in the letters, sent Friday to Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Target, J. Crew, Sears, TJX and seven other retailers.
“If the employee is told that his or her services are not needed, the employee will receive no pay for that day,” the letters said. “For many workers, that is too little time to make arrangements for family needs, let alone to find an alternative source of income to compensate for the lost pay.”
Here is
Schneideman's full letter, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. And The Journal gives
more details:
Mr. Schneiderman is asking the retailers to provide information about how they schedule employees, including whether they use software from vendors such as Kronos and Workplace Systems to schedule labor hours, or penalize employees who don’t follow on-call procedures. He is also seeking any analysis the firms have conducted about the impact of the scheduling policies on workers’ well-being. They were told to submit the materials by May 4.
While Mr. Schneiderman’s office is only gathering information at the moment, the requests could be a prelude to a lawsuit filed under the New York law requiring that workers be paid if they are sent home from a scheduled shift.
Schedule instability has emerged as a public policy issue in recent months, highlighted in hourly workers’ campaigns for higher wages. A report last year by researchers at the University of Chicago examined the prevalence of unpredictable schedules among young adults, and found that 41% receive their schedules a week or less in advance, and half have no input into the timing of their hours.[emphasis added]
Sue away, Eric.
This is just another way to abuse workers. It's "just-in-time" workers, which, just like the Japanese-inspired manufacturing theory rolled out decades ago, sees workers no different than spare parts--only show up when needed, and only in the most cost efficient way.