San Francisco passes nation’s first
Retail Workers Bill of Rights
The San Francisco Board of Super-
visors, in a unanimous vote Nov. 25,
passed a pair of city ordinances that in-
tervene forcefully on the side of workers
jerked around by big chain employers.
The measures affect chain retail and
food stores with 20 or more locations
worldwide that have 20 or more em-
ployees in San Francisco. Starting next
summer, the companies will be required
to give workers their schedules at least
two weeks in advance, and pay workers
one hour of pay for schedule changes
made with less than a week’s notice, and
two to four hours for changes made with
less than 24 hours’ notice.
Workers will also get compensation
for “on-call” hours, and when they’re
sent home early from their assigned
shifts. And employers will be required
to offer extra hours to current part-time
workers before bringing on more part-
time or temporary workers. Janitorial
and security contractors for the retailers
will face the same requirements.
The ordinances are a reaction to the
widespread adoption of just-in-time
scheduling, with companies using soft-
ware to decide at the last minute how
many workers are needed based on traf-
fic, sales, and even weather. Backed by a
labor-community coalition led by Jobs
with Justice San Francisco, the ordi-
nances will improve the lives of an esti-
mated 40,000 hourly workers, about 5
percent of the city’s workforce.
Laborers Local 483 cartoon asks
City of Portland to ‘play fair’
Laborers Local 483, which repre-
sents workers at the City of Portland
Bureau of Parks and Recreation, has a
new publicity campaign calling on the
City to end reliance on low-wage em-
ployees who are classified as seasonal
even when they serve year-round, year
after year.
The campaign, called “Play Fair
PDX” launched Nov. 23 with a two-
and-a-half minute video on YouTube.
The video (http://ow.ly/EOewb) was
produced pro bono by Mike Chastain of
Umami Media, and includes cartoons
by comic book artist Hazel Newlevant,
who used to work for a Rec center. The
campaign also has a Facebook page
(facebook.com/PlayFairPDX) and a
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Seattle - 206.623.2666
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Twitter handle, @PlayFairPDX.
Parks alone has over a thousand
workers classed as seasonals, the union
says. Many are in fact seasonal, but oth-
ers work year-round in a great variety
of jobs.
Local 483 President Erica Askin said
the union is challenging the bureau’s
deployment of seasonal workers to do
the work of union members, in a griev-
ance that’s heading to arbitration. But
the goal of the Play Fair PDX campaign
is to build community awareness about
it, and put pressure on the City.
As one of the cartoon characters in
the video puts it: “When the community
backs up the rec workers, we have a fair
shot.”
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DECEMBER 5, 2014
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 5