BILL NUMBER: AB 357	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Members Chiu and Weber
   (Principal coauthor: Senator Leyva)
   (Coauthors: Assembly Members Bonta, Chu, Gonzalez, and Roger
Hernández)

                        FEBRUARY 17, 2015

   An act relating to employment.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 357, as introduced, Chiu. Employment: work hours: scheduling.
   Existing law, with certain exceptions, establishes 8 hours as a
day's work and a 40-hour workweek, and requires payment of prescribed
overtime compensation for additional hours worked.
   This bill would make legislative findings and declarations
relating to work hour scheduling for employees of food and general
retail establishments.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Fair
Schedule and Pay Equity Act.
  SEC. 2.  The Legislature finds and declares the following:
   (a) More than one-half of food and general retail store employees
nationally receive their work schedules one week or less in advance.
   (b) According to a recent survey of employees at chain stores and
large stores, only 40 percent of those surveyed have consistent
minimum hours per week and the vast majority of employees find out
from a supervisor if they are needed for the on-call shift a mere two
hours before the shift starts. Retail industry research in New York
City found that more than one-half of family caregivers in the retail
industry are required to be available for on-call shifts, forcing
them to arrange for child or elder care at the last minute.
   (c) Women are also more likely than men to work part time and
experience unpredictability in their work schedules; one study found
that women were 64 percent of the frontline part-time workforce among
retail workers.
   (d) Unpredictable scheduling practices and last-minute work
schedule changes cause workers who are already struggling with low
wages to live in a constant state of insecurity about when they will
work or how much they will earn on any given day. These practices
also make it hard for employees to plan their finances and to plan
for and obtain child care. These practices also prevent part-time
employees from pursuing educational opportunities or holding a second
or third job that those workers may need to make ends meet.
   (e) According to census data, since 2006, the number of
"involuntary part time employees" in California nearly tripled to
1,100,000 employees. According to the federal Bureau of Labor
Statistics, less than one-half of the retail workforce nationwide
works fulltime, and the number of those working fewer than 20 hours
per week has grown by 14 percent in the past decade.
   (f) According to a survey conducted in 2014 of workers who sell
food in California, the largest producer of food in the United
States, they are twice as likely as the general populace to be unable
to afford sufficient quantities of the food they sell or the healthy
kinds of food their families need, despite the financial health of
the food retail industry. According to this same survey, workers who
were Black or Latino were far more likely to be sent home early with
no pay, to have a shift canceled on the same day it is scheduled, to
not be offered a lunch break, or not be paid for all hours worked.
   (g) For these reasons, to ensure family and financial stability
for a vast segment of California's workforce, those employed by food
and general retail establishments should be afforded some
predictability and dignity in how they are scheduled to work.