Dive Brief:
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The office of New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said Monday that six more retailers — Aeropostale, Disney, PacSun, Zumiez, Carter’s and David’s Tea — are ending on-call scheduling policies, to the total benefit of some 50,000 employees, The Washington Post reports.
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Algorithms in software have helped retailers lower costs through efficient staffing, cutting loose workers in slow times and keeping them "on call" for busy periods, but the practice makes it more difficult for retail workers to manage households, attend school, work additional jobs or simply earn enough money to get by.
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Under pressure from Schneiderman and other attorneys general nationwide, at least 13 other retailers including L Brands, Gap Inc. and Abercrombie & Fitch last year ended the practice as well.
Dive Insight:
While lawmakers in several areas nationally (and possible even Congress) are looking at outlawing on-call scheduling, several retailers have backed off of it already. And attorneys general in some areas, including Schneiderman, say it actually violates existing law.
Retailers including Macy’s, H&M, Bloomingdale’s and Modell’s Sporting Goods have unionized workers in New York, and as a result, staffers know their schedules three weeks ahead, can work full time, and have guaranteed hours, even if a shift sees few customers due to the weather or because fewer than anticipated shoppers show up for a sale.
Starbucks, an early adopter of the on-call system, backed off of it two years ago when the company realized how hard it made their workers’ lives (though it’s not clear that its policy meets requirements in many of the bills being contemplated). In any case, retailers should be prepared to see more such concerns, warnings and even legislation as the scheduling practice earns more scrutiny, says Gail Gottehrer, a labor & employment litigator at Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider in New York who works on behalf of employers: The practice was a major concern when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors two years unanimously passed its Worker Bill of Rights law, for example.
“This can be especially difficult for multi-state employers,” Gottehrer told Retail Dive last year. “If you’re in a lot of jurisdictions, it can be complicated to get things right.”