The controversial form of scheduling locks staff into shifts that can be canceled at the last minute, with no pay. But a lawsuit in California, and investigation in New York, could lead to big changes.
Will Varner / BuzzFeed News
Until earlier this year, Erin Hurley worked part-time at a Bath & Body Works in Marietta, Georgia, often spending 12 hours a week smiling at shoppers and selling them body lotion and candles in scents like "Moonlight Path" and "Endless Weekend."
She would have liked more hours, and was regularly scheduled for at least twice as many. But most of those extra shifts came in the form of "call-in" work: days that an employee needs be available, often until hours before start time, with no guarantee of getting any work, or pay.
"I had to call one hour before," Hurley, 26, told BuzzFeed News in an interview. "I was about 25 to 30 minutes away, depending on traffic. They would either put me on hold or I would have to call a store several times before someone would pick up. I would be looking at my watch and starting to sweat because I would be late. They stressed to get there on time."
Hurley would work 30 hours on a good week. The next, she might clock in 10, even though still she had to be ready to come in within an hour of each call. That made it hard to find other part-time work to smooth out the unpredictable hours, and her income fluctuated wildly, although the payments for her car, student loans, credit cards, cell phone, and groceries stayed just the same.
Hurley's experience with call-in shifts has become a common tale in the retail industry. Chains keep employees on the hook up until the last minute, a move that costs them nothing and helps minimize labor costs. Software helps them understand staffing needs in real time, and evidence suggests a national chain can save tens of millions of dollars a year by keeping workers on call and canceling at the last minute, rather than paying for an hour or two of work by staffers sent home when business is slow.
This wreaks havoc on employees' lives. Staff who miss making a call in the window prior to a shift, or who do call but cannot make it to work on time, typically receive the same punishment as someone who skips a regularly scheduled shift. At Urban Outfitters, company policy says on-call shifts "are considered scheduled shifts, and the same attendance policy applies," according to a company handbook shared with BuzzFeed News.
Ray Mitchell, 28, who worked at an Urban Outfitters in Atlanta starting in 2013, said on-call scheduling "held you hostage for what you could do each day."
One can't secure other paid work or take classes during a scheduled call-in shift. But if it's canceled, the employee gets nothing in return, and they may have arranged for child care or elder care that's ultimately unnecessary. And it's far harder to budget when pay swings up and down based on a daily phone call. In some scenarios, the uncertainty can prevent people from claiming government benefits like food stamps and housing assistance because they can't accurately estimate their income.
"You lose an enormous amount of personal autonomy," said David Leimbach, a lawyer representing Victoria's Secret employees suing the company over its labor practices, including on-call scheduling.
The Victoria's Secret lawsuit, taking place in California, is happening in parallel to a probe into on-call scheduling by the New York State attorney general's office. Each could have a wide-reaching impact on how retailers treat their part-timers, and are being closely watched both by employers and the worker groups pushing them to change their ways.
The California lawsuit claims in part that companies that require workers to be available on-call should pay them if their shifts are canceled, just like they would have to under state law if the person physically showed up to work but was sent home.
Historically, working "on call" has been an accepted downside of the job for doctors, police officers, and other emergency responders. They're compensated for the hassle of such shifts, which typically involve unpredictable, urgent situations. Only recently have retailers ramped up the use of such shifts, without pay, for the less pressing need for a body on hand to ring up sweater purchases and unlock fitting rooms.
This type of scheduling appears to have become extremely common. The New York attorney general's labor bureau has sent letters to 13 retailers — naming 27 different national chains they operate — seeking information about their scheduling practices because the office had "reason to believe" they were using uncompensated on-call shifts. The chains in question, from J. Crew to Sears, are all household names; collectively they operate more than 16,000 stores in North America.
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