We’ve become increasingly alarmed by some of the scheduling practices used in the retail and service sectors — and we’re working to change them in Oregon. Can you help us today by:
- Sharing your own experiences with “just-in-time” and other unpredictable scheduling practices, and
- Inviting your friends and family who experience these practices to share their experiences with us, too?
Just click here to share your experience now — or email Sharon@familyforward.org and she’ll be in touch soon if that’s easier.
When we can share Oregonians’ real experiences with these difficult scheduling practices, we’re better able to make the case for ending them.
What’s the problem?
If you work in retail or the service industry, you probably already know about “just-in-time” scheduling – a practice where employers give their employees a work schedule with just a few days (or hours) notice. A schedule that is then subject to frequent changes. Where you can be called in or sent home from work early without much notice. Where you can be put “on-call” without pay, so you have to be available if the employer needs you, but don’t know if you’ll be working until just hours before a shift begins.
These practices make it impossible to know how much you’ll earn from week to week, how to manage a second job (that you likely need to cover the bills), how to arrange needed child care, when to schedule doctor’s appointments, and so much more. Simply put: they wreak havoc on working families’ lives.
These practices don’t work for employees in any way, yet large retail employers are increasingly using them to try to minimize labor costs and maximize profits — at their employees’ expense. Have you experienced any of these practices? Tell us about it!
What’s the solution?
We’re working on a new law that will improve how retail and service employers schedule their employees. Our goal is to make it possible for employees to be able to plan ahead for childcare and other needs, to have more of a say over last-minute schedule changes, to be able to request flexibility and predictability without retaliation, and to avoid on-call shifts that can result in either no pay or a last-minute childcare scramble.
Please tell us your experience with unfair scheduling.
Sharing your experiences with unfair scheduling would really help us make the case to decision-makers in our state legislature that this is a problem facing too many working families across the state.
Just click here to tell us what’s happening with your work scheduling – or email Sharon@familyforward.org.
Too often, those who don’t experience these problems aren’t aware of them or don’t fully understand their impact. We really appreciate you helping us bring them up to speed on the reality of today’s unfair scheduling practices. That’s the only way we can improve them!
Learn more about unfair scheduling:
- We All Need Schedules that Work (NWLC blog)
- Working Anything but 9 to 5 (New York Times)