National AFL-CIO promotes
Schedules That Work for Workers
By LIZ SHULER
Last month, President Obama con-
vened a White House Summit on
Working Families, an event attended by
national leaders in business and labor.
The event was designed to put the is-
sues of working families under a na-
tional spotlight.
I was proud to participate in this
event, representing the AFL-CIO and
millions of workers throughout the
country, and I wrote at the time that
collective action following the summit
would be the true measure of the sum-
mit’s success. While the summit
brought much-needed attention to ur-
gent issues facing working families, we
need real solutions to help us meet the
challenges we face.
So I applaud Reps. George Miller
(D-Calif.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-
Conn.) for taking an important step to
deliver on the promise with their intro-
duction of the Schedules That Work
Act.
Millions of hourly workers struggle
under the burden of last-minute, unpre-
dictable work scheduling practices. If
you’re a full-time salaried employee,
try to imagine finding out a day or two
ahead of time what your work hours for
the week will be. Now imagine you
have no control over that schedule,
whether your shift gets canceled unex-
pectedly and there is no way to make
adjustments so you can manage care
for your children, take care of a parent
or make your own medical appoint-
ments. This is the reality for too many
working families, especially those with
jobs in retail, food service and clean-
ing. And part of the reality is that the
vast majority of these jobs are held by
women.
If we want families to succeed — a
PAGE 8
L IZ S HULER
goal endorsed, without exception, by
policy makers of every stripe — work-
ers need schedules that work for their
families.
The Schedules That Work Act
would help America’s workers by:
• Allowing workers to request a
flexible schedule without fear of retali-
ation;
• Implementing a process that helps
employers consider their requests;
• Mandating that workers in retail,
food service and cleaning fields would
receive their schedules at least two
weeks in advance and they would be
paid for at least four hours of work if
they report to work when scheduled but
are sent home early; and
• Providing an extra hour of pay if a
worker has split shifts on the same day.
These issues rarely make the
evening news, but each night, in every
corner of this great nation, these issues
are on the minds of more and more
people.
Much more needs to be done, of
course. While some states have in-
creased the minimum wage, millions of
hourly workers remain in poverty as
they struggle to make a living wage.
Millions more lack paid leave, a severe
restriction on their ability to manage
their families.
In fact, Walmart, the nation’s largest
private employer, hits employees with a
double whammy, paying about two-
thirds of its employees less than
$25,000 and maintaining irregular
scheduling that prohibits most of its
workers from earning what they need
to support their families.
Our work is just beginning. For
working families, the summit was an
important milestone. And the Sched-
ules That Work Act is an important first
step to fulfilling the promise of the
summit.
Support the Schedules That Work
Act by contacting your elected officials
today.
(Liz Shuler is secretary treasurer of
the national AFL-CIO and a member of
Portland-based IBEW Local 125.)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
IN MEMORIAM
A celebration of
life was held Aug. 10
in Berkeley, Calif.,
for J IM G ALLAGHER ,
a retired associate
professor at the Uni-
versity of Oregon’s
Labor Education and
Research Center (LERC). Gallagher
died in Portland May 22 after a long ill-
ness. He had suffered a stroke about
three years ago, and had aphasia.
Gallagher played a significant role
in starting LERC because he had a re-
spected track record as a trade union-
ist, and he could convey that knowl-
edge in the classroom. He was the
second staff member to be hired at
LERC. His biggest accomplishment
there was establishment of an ongoing,
tri-partite (labor, management and neu-
trals) conference on public-sector labor
relations. The Public Employment Re-
lations Conference (PERC) continues
to this day.
He was founder and editor of the
LERC Monograph Series. The 11
monographs are recognized both in
Oregon and nationally as a tool for
practitioners and as a reference for pro-
fessionals and academics. The LERC
Monograph Series is the only publica-
tion from other than a law school
which is listed by the prestigious West-
law Publications directory.
J AMES J OSEPH G ALLAGHER was
born July 3,1934, in Irvington, New
Jersey.
He enlisted in the Air Force at the
age of 18. Stationed in Europe, he
wrote for one of the armed forces
newspapers.
He moved to California in the late
1950s. He majored in sociology at the
University of California, Berkeley and
graduated in the early ’60s.
Gallagher’s career in labor relations
started in Eureka, Calif., when the
American Federation of State, County,
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
hired him as a business agent for the
Humboldt County Employees Associa-
tion. He worked there for two years be-
fore accepting a job at the California
Nurses Association in San Francisco.
Gallagher represented registered
nurses through the early part of the ’70s
and then went to work for Municipal
Employees Federation/AFSCME Lo-
cal 101 (San Jose), the California Fed-
eration of Teachers, the McGovern La-
bor Committee, the UCLA Institute of
Industrial Relations, and finally LERC,
from where he retired in 1992.
Gallagher was preceded in death by
his wife, Pat Cook. She was a staffer at
the national AFL-CIO. They met while
attending George Meany National La-
bor College. They married in 1991.
Gallagher is survived by three
daughters from previous marriages; six
grandchildren; and an older brother.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2014