Fast-food workers have long complained of unstable schedules that make it difficult to plan for finances, child care, medical appointments and other obligations.
Now, a proposal from Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez aims to give these workers more stability and consistency in their schedules, as well as access to paid time off.
The proposed ordinance, which Soto-Martinez plans to introduce Tuesday, proposes to expand the city’s reach. Fair Labor Week The law, which requires employers to provide advance notice of their schedules to retail employees, now applies to some 2,500 large fast-food chains that employ about 50,000 workers.
The bill also proposes a mandatory annual six-hour paid training period to inform workers of their rights. It would also require fast food workers to accrue one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked, in addition to the paid sick leave to which they are already entitled.
The move is the latest by state lawmakers to improve working conditions for low-wage fast-food workers struggling to make ends meet in expensive cities like Los Angeles. Earlier this year, California passed a minimum wage for fast-food workers of $20 per hour.
But the proposed municipal ordinance is likely to encounter strong opposition from industry groups.
Several business and trade groups have said that this type of predictable scheduling policy complicates the workforce planning process.
The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce said a similar measure in Los Angeles County would hamper businesses that already struggle to compete with e-commerce companies. And the California Grocers Assn. said it would make last-minute staffing changes “extremely difficult.”
Soto-Martinez said the idea behind the Los Angeles measure is to give fast-food workers the opportunity to attend a wedding, a quinceañera, a doctor’s appointment or their child’s graduation — rights that many white-collar workers enjoy.
“Fast food workers, their needs and wants are often ignored. We have to do our part as a city,” he said.
The proposal is supported by the California Fast Food Workers Union, formed earlier this year. California Fast Food Workers UnionThe union, founded with the help of the Service Employees International Union, is the culmination of years of employee strikes over issues such as the handling of sexual harassment complaints, wage theft, safety and compensation, as well as Fight movement for $15 to raise the minimum wage, which was organized by the SEIU in 2012.
“The 50,000 of us who stand to gain important workplace protections through this order aren’t just fast food workers, we’re parents, grandparents, students and service providers,” Anneisha Williams said in a union statement.
Williams, who works at a Jack in the Box in Los Angeles, is a member of the state young recruit Fast food advice.
Julieta Garcia, 36, who has worked at a Pizza Hut in the historic Filipinotown neighborhood for a year and a half, said her hours are very irregular, averaging about 20 hours a week.
“Mentally it took a toll on me – the stress of having to figure out how I’m going to pay all my bills,” she said.
Garcia said it also makes it difficult for her to visit her family. Paid leave would allow her to attend her son’s school plays or visit a terminally ill family member, she added.
Los Angeles is among many cities across the country, including Seattle, New York and Chicago, that have Planning laws adopted.
The Los Angeles Fair Work Week law, approved by the Los Angeles City Council in 2022, already requires major retail and grocery chains such as Target, Ralphs and Home Depot to provide employees with at least two weeks’ notice of their work schedules. It also requires companies to give workers at least 10 hours of rest between shifts, or pay extra for that work.
Researchers at the Shift Project, a Harvard University and UC San Francisco initiative focused on service sector workers, found that unpredictable work schedules lead to unstable income as well as poor sleep and psychological distress.
