Fast-food workers have long complained of unstable schedules that make it difficult to plan 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 expanding the city's reach. Fair Work Week The law, which requires employers to give retail workers their schedules in advance, covers about 2,500 large fast-food restaurants that employ about 50,000 workers.
It also proposes a mandatory annual six-hour paid training period to help educate workers about their rights. And it would require fast-food workers to accrue one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours they work, on top of the paid sick leave they are already entitled to.
The initiative is the latest move by lawmakers across the state to improve working conditions for low-wage fast-food workers who have struggled to make ends meet in expensive cities like Los Angeles. Earlier this year, California adopted a minimum wage for fast-food workers. $20 an hour.
But the proposed city ordinance is likely to face strong opposition from industry groups.
Several business and trade groups have said this type of predictable scheduling policy complicates the staff scheduling process.
The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce had said a similar measure in Los Angeles County would hurt businesses already struggling to compete with e-commerce companies. And the California Merchants Association said it would make last-minute staff changes “extremely difficult.”
Soto-Martinez said the idea behind the Los Angeles measure is to give fast-food workers the ability to attend a wedding, a quinceañera, a doctor's appointment or their child's graduation — rights that many white-collar workers have.
“Fast food workers, their needs and their desires, are often ignored. As a city, we need to do our part,” she said.
The proposal has the backing of the California statewide fast food workers union, which was formed earlier this year. California Fast Food Workers UnionCreated with the help of the Service Employees International Union, it is the culmination of years of employee strikes over issues including the handling of sexual harassment claims, wage theft, safety and pay, such as Fight for the $15 movement 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 ordinance aren’t just fast food workers — we’re parents, grandparents, students and food 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. newly formed Fast food tip.
Julieta Garcia, 36, who has worked at a Pizza Hut in historic Filipinotown for a year and a half, said her hours are very irregular, averaging about 20 hours a week.
“Mentally, I’ve been suffering from the stress of having to figure out how I’m going to cover all my bills,” she said.
Garcia said she has also found it difficult to be with her family. Paid time off would help her attend her son's school plays or visit a terminally ill family member, she said.
Los Angeles is among several cities in the country, including Seattle, New York and Chicago, that have programming laws adopted.
The Los Angeles Fair Workweek law, passed by the Los Angeles City Council in 2022, already requires large retail and grocery chains like Target, Ralphs and Home Depot to provide employees with their work schedules at least two weeks in advance. It also requires companies to give workers at least 10 hours of rest between shifts or pay them extra wages for that work.
Researchers at Project Shift, a Harvard University and University of California, San Francisco initiative that focuses on service sector workers, have found that unpredictable work schedules lead to unstable income as well as lack of sleep and psychological discomfort.
