PAGE 2 | September 16, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
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Will Portland be next?
Seattle gets ready to pass fair scheduling law
By Don McIntosh
Associate editor
Seattle City Council is moving
forward with a major workers
rights reform — requiring big
chain retail and food franchises
to adopt more humane schedul-
ing policies.
Sponsored by Mayor Ed
Murray and backed by a labor-
community coalition, the pro-
posed ordinance would apply to
retail and food service establish-
ments with more than 500 em-
ployees worldwide. Those busi-
nesses would be required to give
workers two weeks notices of
schedules. After a schedule is
posted, workers could voluntar-
ily agree to changes, but any
mandatory changes would re-
quire payment of “predictability
pay” of one hour’s wages. Em-
ployers would have to provide a
good faith estimate of expected
hours when a worker is hired.
And they’d be required to give
current employees notice of
new, additional hours available
— before hiring additional staff.
The ordinance would also crack
down on the practice of
“clopening” — workers would
have to be given at least 10
hours of rest between late-night
closing and early-morning
opening shifts. And workers
would be entitled to half-time
pay for any shift they are re-
quired to be on-call but don’t get
called into work.
The ordinance is a response
to increasingly unpredictable
schedules at retail and restaurant
chains. Firms are using com-
puter software to predict cus-
tomer volume based on things
like weather forecasts, and then
making last-minute schedule
changes — or requiring workers
to be “on-call.” Such practices
trim labor costs by dumping
business risk onto workers.
A study commissioned by
Seattle City Council found that
scheduling practices like those
are creating financial hardships
for Seattle workers and interfer-
ing with parenting responsibili-
ties. Workers at giant national
chains often don’t know their
schedule from one week to the
next, and suffer from unreliable
incomes.
Backers of the ordinance are
aiming for final passage by the
end of September. San Fran-
cisco passed a similar piece of
legislation, known as the Retail
Workers Bill of Rights, in 2014.
Could Portland be next? Port-
land City Commissioner Steve
Novick says he wants to pass a
fair scheduling ordinance like
Seattle’s, but he may have to
wait until next July, because last
year the Oregon Legislature
temporarily barred local juris-
dictions from passing schedul-
ing ordinances. The moratorium
was conceived by State Sen.
Michael Dembrow (D-Portland)
as part of a compromise to get
votes for the Oregon paid sick
leave law from Sen. Chris Ed-
wards (D-Eugene) and other
corporate Democrats in the Sen-
ate.
The good news, Dembrow
says, is that the moratorium
gave the Legislature more time
to craft a good statewide policy.
Dembrow has been co-chairing
a legislative work group on
scheduling, along with state
Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene).
Initially, the work group in-
cluded representatives of big
business groups as well as labor
and other stakeholders. But As-
sociated Oregon Industries vice
president Betsy Earls emailed
Dembrow and Holvey on June
1 to announce that she and her
counterparts at five other busi-
ness groups were withdrawing
from the work group and that
they’ll pursue an extension of
the Legislature’s moratorium on
local scheduling ordinances.
Undeterred, Dembrow said
the work group has continued to
meet and will issue recommen-
dations later this year — proba-
bly something resembling the
Seattle ordinance.
“I want to see us pass some-
thing at the Legislature,” Dem-
brow said. “This is clearly a
statewide problem, not a Port-
land or Eugene problem.”
IN MEMORIAM
David Surridge
Oct. 4, 1961 - Aug. 27, 2016
David Surridge, a
union sales ac-
count manager for
Bright Now Den-
tal, and a familiar
face at union
events, died Aug.
27. He was 54.
Surridge grad-
uated from Franklin High
School in Portland. He attended
Mt. Hood Community College
and Portland State University.
Prior to joining Bright Now
Dental in 2014, Surridge worked
as a sales rep for Access Dental.
“Access was the first com-
petitor we encountered in this
market, which put me in a posi-
tion to not like Dave right out of
the gate,” said Rob Etulain, na-
tional sales director for Smile
Branks Inc, which operates
Bright Now Dental. “It didn’t
take long for me to see that
Dave was the kindest, most
humble and ethical individual
you would ever want to com-
pete with.”
Surridge is survived by his fa-
ther, two sisters, and a brother.
No service will be held.
CORRECTION
In the Sept. 2 issue, the article
“You Saved My Town” incor-
rectly reported that Google had
a data center in Prineville, Ore-
gon. Facebook and Apple have
large data centers in Prineville, as
was reported. Google’s large data
center is in The Dalles, Oregon.