by Rebecca Melancon, Executive Director
Several employee benefit issues are being brought before the Austin City Council for new regulation such as the Paid Sick Leave ordinance in February. AIBA is seeking to engage our members and the larger local business community in dialogue about possible upcoming issues with the intent of having a voice in the larger community debate.
The process for the Paid Sick Leave ordinance was destructive and divisive. We want to help steer the next process to be one where all parts of our community come together to produce better policies.
So what is coming? It is called many things, but some of the common names are: “Predictive scheduling”, “fair scheduling” or “secure scheduling”. We will call it “predictive scheduling”.
What is it? Predictive scheduling, as it is commonly called, is a policy being proposed across the nation that requires business owners provide employees with their schedule a certain number of days in advance (in some municipalities it is X days and others are proposing as much as 60 days in advance). This type of policy can be especially problematic for many on-call employees, including restaurants and landscaping. The policy says, if the employee is not given their schedule that many days in advance, the business must pay time and a half for those shifts without adequate advanced notice. Since the Austin policy has not been written yet, we don’t know what the advance notice is or the penalty for non-compliance but those are the key provisions.
The City Council will likely address this issue with specific parameters that must be adhered to or penalties will be applied. The specific ordinance is yet to be written but it will determine specifications such as how much advance notice is required (could be a few days to several weeks), what happens if an employer needs to change the schedule after it is set and what penalties will apply.
We would really value your input on this issue. Please take a few minutes to give us your thoughts. We will share your voice with our elected officials.
This survey was created by AIBA’s Better Process Committee. The Committee seeks to add civility and respect to the governance of our city and the creation of its policies. The information gathered in this survey will help us advocate for local business. All indetity and contact information will be kept confidential.