A U.S. Senate Bill and
Massachusetts-specific legislation are pushing the same concept of restricting
employers’ control of work schedules, a move that could be burdensome for the
state’s small business owners and actually harm the people the measure is
trying to help: low-wage earners.
Strict scheduling would limit
changes in work schedules and any changes could be costly to employers. For
instance, a pending piece of state legislation would require 21-day advance
written notice of an employee’s work schedule. For any changes made to the
schedule within 21 days, workers would be entitled to one hour of additional
“predictability pay.”
At the federal level, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, is pushing a similar approach that “calls for compensating an employee for being “on call” and protecting employees from being fired after asking for a schedule change,” according to MassLive.com.
“Small businesses are not the problem and should not be legally required to suffer more red tape and even financial penalties for necessary scheduling changes,” said NFIB/Massachusetts State Director Bill Vernon. “I would hope that some people in government know how small business works – that small businesses need flexibility to complete a project or push the work out to meet the needs of the customer. Strict scheduling legislation is one more time consuming burden that, not only adds costs, but also goes to the very heart of a small business owner’s right to operate their own business.”
