On-Call Scheduling May Hurt Employees and Families

 In a recent class action investigation, some California retail workers have been allegedly violating California labor laws by misusing on-call work schedules.

Employees have complained that on-call schedules force them to be available for shifts that might never happen and never get paid for, only to receive abysmal amounts of work hours when they actually do get a shift.

On-call shifts normally require employees to call their employers several hours before their shift begins, in order to determine if they are needed for the shift.

For the past several years, retail stores have been designing their schedules to on-call basis in order to prevent paying standard minimum wage during tough economic times.

Employees often find on-call scheduling highly inconvenient as most cannot plan future events or adequately take care of other obligations. However it is not just the on-call employees who are effected by this practice, as children and family members are also heavily inconvenienced.

On-Call Scheduling Complications

In a recent report published in the New York Times by the Economic Policy Institute, research showed that on-call scheduling can have a negative impact on the children of these employees.

While this has been a problem for years, it has only been recently noticed by retailers and experts state that it is only due to possible labor law violations. Several retail giants have already abandoned the practice of on-call scheduling, including Abercrombie & Fitch and Williams-Sonoma. In April 2015, the New York state attorney general singled out 13 retailers for their on-call scheduling practices, for not giving their employees enough notice for schedule changes.

Even with the recent negative attention on-call scheduling has received, the damage has already been felt by a number of families. The Economic Policy Institute analyzed non-standardized and on-call retail work schedules and found a definite negative connection to the developmental impact of children.

The study suggested that because parents could not adequately spend time with these children, they are stunted cognitively, faced an increased risk of negative behaviors, and do not have regular family mealtimes.

This study was supported by an earlier study in 2010, by Dr. Wen-Jui of New York University, which indicated that inconsistent work schedules of parents negatively impacts toddlers and adolescents. The study went further to say that this practice had also raised a greater risk of teenage smoking, drinking, and other acts of rebellion.

While this correlation has yet to be definitively proven, consistent results show that on-call schedules project negative consequences. Parents are forced to accept on-call scheduling in order to make some sort of income, but they are severely limited in regards to their ability to juggle jobs with other everyday responsibilities.

Now that this problem has finally been addressed, two democrats in Congress introduced the Schedules that Work Act last year, in order to promise employees a stable and consistent work schedule for low-wage jobs like retail and food service.