The Fair Workweek laws are designed to solve this problem. “They enforce fair scheduling practices to ensure workers have ample notice (typically two weeks) of their schedules and paid accurately and on time for their work,” Hardwick says. “As the name suggests, Fair Workweek laws aim to make unpredictable scheduling practices tenfold more fair — and predictable — so that workers can manage their lives outside of shiftwork more easily.”
That’s the pretty side of socialism.
In practice, however, things are different. Implementing a fair workweek is a complex task, according to Hardwick. “As fair as the laws are for workers, they are incredibly lengthy and complex, and national food and retail chains with hundreds of locations across the country have as much trouble implementing them as more localized chains,” she says.
And that imposes a big compliance cost on employers, who eventually pass it on to consumers in the form of higher prices, and, in some cases, they go out of business and send workers to the unemployment lines.
That’s the ugly side of socialism.
But there’s a more fundamental problem in setting schedules ahead of time.It requires the guessing of market conditions, the number of customers who are expected to visit restaurants and retail stores a couple of weeks down the road. “It is tricky when evaluating these kinds of workplace changes for locations like NYC and SF because they have atypical norms when it comes to hiring, especially in certain industries,” says Jono Bacon, CEO of Jono Bacon Consulting and author of People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brand, and Teams.
www.forbes.com
That’s the pretty side of socialism.
In practice, however, things are different. Implementing a fair workweek is a complex task, according to Hardwick. “As fair as the laws are for workers, they are incredibly lengthy and complex, and national food and retail chains with hundreds of locations across the country have as much trouble implementing them as more localized chains,” she says.
And that imposes a big compliance cost on employers, who eventually pass it on to consumers in the form of higher prices, and, in some cases, they go out of business and send workers to the unemployment lines.
That’s the ugly side of socialism.
But there’s a more fundamental problem in setting schedules ahead of time.It requires the guessing of market conditions, the number of customers who are expected to visit restaurants and retail stores a couple of weeks down the road. “It is tricky when evaluating these kinds of workplace changes for locations like NYC and SF because they have atypical norms when it comes to hiring, especially in certain industries,” says Jono Bacon, CEO of Jono Bacon Consulting and author of People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brand, and Teams.
San Francisco And NYC Begin To See The Ugly Side Of ‘Fair Workweek’ Laws
San Francisco and NYC retail and restaurant sectors are beginning to see the ugly side of socialism: store closures and layoffs, as their owners cannot keep up with local government mandates that raise the costs of their businesses.
www.forbes.com
