Does Congress need to schedule your time off? A proposed law aims to address the downsides of irregular work schedules, and is receiving support from a surprising group of voters.
A recent focus group organized by the Institute for Family Studies was asked to look at ways for government to make it easier for working parents to succeed. This particular focus group, based in a small town in southern Ohio, was composed of 10 white, working-class Millennials who mostly expressed support for President-elect Donald Trump.
Like every adult-age youngest generation before it, Millennials are the favorite target of older generations who like to tell them they don’t understand how the world works. But this focus group may be on to something. It has been coping with the way the world works for a while now, and has a diverse set of viewpoints despite their demographic similarities.
Their recent free-wheeling discussion suggests that while they backed the conservative presidential candidate, they are willing to explore a liberal lawmaker’s solution to problems they face. Gasp, could bipartisanship come back in vogue?
The group’s post-election conversation hit such heady topics as paid parental leave, payroll taxes, marriage penalties in public assistance programs, and other issues that tend to divide policy agendas in Washington. A common theme that emerged was that they are willing to work hard, and in exchange they want economic independence couched in fair treatment from employers and government.
The conversation spilled into the minimum wage debate , but a couple issues that struck a chord came down to adequate scheduling of work hours and promoting a “success sequence” for young people (finish school, get a job, get married, have children, in that order). The success sequence may be popular, albeit difficult to implement, but a proposed bill in Congress already captures what the Millennials said about adequate scheduling — they want the ability to plan their day-to-day lives.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, almost 10 percent of workers report that they have irregular schedules, which makes it harder for them to do typical activities like planning to attend functions at their kids’ schools or, as one couple in the focus group shared, scheduling their wedding. Another 7 percent of workers interviewed in the EPI study said they split or rotate shifts.
EPI reported that full-time employees in the retail and food service industries tend to have the most irregular shifts, but so do a significant proportion of workers in entertainment, repairs, transportation, and agricultural sectors.
What is concerning with the irregularity in scheduling, which inordinately hits lower income households, is the impact it has on the family. In essence, irregular schedules contribute to instability at home. For EPI, some of the solutions include implementing laws enabling workers the right to request changes and longer advance notice of what their schedules would be.
One bill on the table in Congress comes from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. It would do just what EPI supports. The legislation, called “The Schedules That Work Act,” would give workers in service industries the right to request changes to their schedules without fear of retaliation and would require employers to distribute schedules two weeks in advance.
It’s seems counter-intuitive that more law gives people greater freedom, but it has been done before. You’d be surprised what these Trump supporters in southern Ohio said about the idea.
Read the focus group’s response “The Schedules That Work Act.”
