Some Good Ideas

This is from waaaaay back on 30 June:

• Workers in several industries in Chicago will have new rights that protect them from sudden changes to their work schedule. The Fair Workweek Ordinance was passed unanimously by the Chicago City Council last summer and takes effect Wednesday. Other cities, including New York, Seattle and Philadelphia, have adopted similar plans.

And what would these changes be?

• The ordinance requires employers to give advanced notice of work schedules and to pay employees additional wages for sudden schedule changes.
• Employees must be given at least a 10-day notice of their new schedule. The time period for the notice will extend to 14 days in two years.
• Workers will receive one hour of additional pay for every change made with less than the 10-day notice, regardless of how many hours they may or may not have lost.
• Workers will receive 50% of their base pay for every hour lost if changes are made less than 24 hours before a shift starts.
• Workers also will be given the “right to decline” any additional hours added to their schedule with less than the 10-day notice.
• The law also grants a “right to rest,” allowing employees to decline work hours that are less than 10 hours after the end of their previous shift. If an employee chooses to work those hours, he or she will receive time and a quarter for the shift.

Of course, none of this covers city employees, but it would certainly be a good starting point in future negotiations to prevent the outright abuses of the Groot.