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AKA just-in-time scheduling, on-call staffing, on-demand work, independent contracting, or the \u201cshare economy\u201d \u2013 the result is the same: No predictability, no economic security.<\/p><\/div>\n
by Robert Reich<\/em><\/p>\n These days it\u2019s not unusual for someone on the way to work to receive a text message from her employer saying she\u2019s not needed right then.<\/p>\n Although she\u2019s already found someone to pick up her kid from school and arranged for childcare, the work is no longer available and she won\u2019t be paid for it.<\/p>\n Just-in-time scheduling like this is the latest new thing, designed to make retail outlets, restaurants, hotels, and other customer-driven businesses more nimble and keep costs to a minimum.<\/p>\n Software can now predict up-to-the-minute staffing needs on the basis of\u00a0 information such as traffic patterns, weather, and sales merely hours or possibly minutes before.<\/p>\n This way, employers don\u2019t need to pay anyone to be at work unless they\u2019re really needed. Companies can avoid paying wages to workers who\u2019d otherwise just sit around.<\/p>\n Employers assign workers tentative shifts, and then notify them a half-hour or ten minutes before the shift is scheduled to begin whether they\u2019re actually needed. Some even require workers to check in by phone, email, or text shortly before the shift starts.<\/p>\n Just-in-time scheduling is another part of America\u2019s new \u201cflexible\u201d economy \u2013 along with the move to independent contractors and the growing reliance on \u201cshare economy\u201d businesses, like Uber, that purport to do nothing more than connect customers with people willing to serve them.<\/p>\n New software is behind all of this \u2013 digital platforms enabling businesses to match their costs exactly with their needs.<\/p>\n The business media considers such flexibility an unalloyed virtue. Wall Street rewards it with higher share prices. America\u2019s \u201cflexible labor market<\/a>\u201d is the envy of business leaders and policy makers the world over.<\/p>\n There\u2019s only one problem. The new flexibility doesn\u2019t allow working people to live their lives.<\/p>\n Businesses used to consider employees fixed costs\u00a0 \u2013 like the costs of factories, offices, and equipment. Payrolls might grow or shrink over time as businesses expanded or contracted, but from year to year they were fairly constant.<\/p>\n That meant steady jobs. And with steady jobs came steady paychecks along with regular and predictable work schedules.<\/p>\n But employees are now becoming variable costs of doing business \u2013 depending on ups and downs in demand that may change hour by hour, possibly minute by minute.<\/p>\n Yet working people have to pay the rent or make mortgage payments, and have keep up with utility, food, and fuel bills. These bills don\u2019t vary much from month to month. They\u2019re the fixed costs of living.<\/p>\n American workers can\u2019t simultaneously be variable costs for business yet live in their own fixed-cost worlds.<\/p>\n They\u2019re also husbands and wives and partners, most are parents, and they often have to take care of elderly relatives. All this requires coordinating schedules in advance \u2013 who\u2019s going to cover for whom, and when.<\/p>\n But such planning is impossible when you don\u2019t know when you\u2019ll be needed at work.<\/p>\n Whatever it\u2019s called \u2013 just-in-time scheduling, on-call staffing, on-demand work, independent contracting, or the \u201cshare economy\u201d \u2013 the result is the same: No predictability, no economic security.<\/p>\n This makes businesses more efficient, but it\u2019s a nightmare for working families.<\/p>\n Last week, the National Employment Law Project reported that 42 percent <\/a>of U.S. workers make less than $15 an hour.<\/p>\n But even $20 an hour isn\u2019t enough if the work is unpredictable and insecure.<\/p>\n Not only is a higher minimum wage critical. So are more regular and predictable hours.<\/p>\n Some states require employers<\/a> to pay any staff who report to work for a scheduled shift but who are then sent home, at least 4 hours pay at the minimum wage.<\/p>\n But these laws haven\u2019t kept up with software that enables employers to do just-in-time scheduling \u2013 and inform workers minutes before their shift that they\u2019re not needed.<\/p>\n In what may become a test case, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman last weekwarned<\/a> 13 big retailers \u2013 including Target and The Gap \u2013 that their just-in-time scheduling may violate New York law, which requires payments to workers who arrive for a shift and then are sent home.<\/p>\n We need a federal law requiring employers to pay for scheduled work.<\/p>\n Alternatively, if American workers can\u2019t get more regular and predictable hours, they at least need stronger safety nets.<\/p>\n These would include high-quality pre-school and after-school programs; unemployment insurance for people who can only get part-time work; and a minimum guaranteed basic income.<\/p>\n All the blather about \u201cfamily-friendly workplaces\u201d is meaningless if workers have no control over when they\u2019re working.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Professionals typically demand and receive 50% of their normal salary for being ‘on call’. But the underclass is seldom afforded benefits at all, let alone fairness in the workplace. How the New Flexible Economy Makes Workers\u2019 Lives Hell by Robert … Continue reading