by admin | November 4, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, November 3, 2016 CONTACT: Matthew Hanson, DC Working Families; mhanson(at)workingfamilies.org or (202) 930-1489 Washington, DC – Earlier today, dozens of people testified at DC Councilmember Elissa Silverman’s public roundtable about work schedule issues and how they affect families and business owners across the District. Many who testified reiterated how unstable and fluctuating hours that profitable companies provide remain barriers for working people striving to make ends meet, an issue that led the Council to take up and recently table the Hours and Scheduling Stability Act. In addition to Councilmember Silverman, Councilmembers Robert White, Brianne Nadeau and Brandon Todd attended the hearing, as well as incoming Councilmember Trayon White. Chad Phillips, a Ward 7 resident, took a day off from working at the Dunkin Donuts on Minnesota Avenue to speak at the roundtable. Phillips shared during his testimony, “When I first started working at Dunkin Donuts, I was getting about 50 hours a week. After six months of working there, my hours were cut down to 12-16 hours a week. This makes it extremely hard to provide my family and forced me to have three jobs. I’ve tried to ask for more hours and was told that was all they could give me. Meanwhile, they reduced staff, hired new people and gave them more hours and less pay.” Phillips’ experience echoes findings from a 2015 survey examining schedules of people who work in the low-wage service industry in Washington, DC Survey respondents typically face a 13-hour range in weekly hours per month, receiving as little as 25 hours some weeks and a high of 38 hours...
by admin | September 20, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, September 20, 2016 CONTACT Elizabeth Falcon, Executive Director of DC Jobs With Justice; Elizabeth(at)dcjwj.org or 202-674-2872 D.C. Councilmembers Turn their Back on Residents, Punt Instead of Ensuring Full-time Jobs By tabling Just Hours legislation today, the D.C. Council is sending a message to thousands of people that they must keep waiting for livable jobs. WASHINGTON, D.C. – Elizabeth Falcon, Executive Director of DC Jobs With Justice, released the following statement after the D.C. Council tabled the Hours and Scheduling Stability Act at today’s Committee of the Whole meeting: “The D.C. Council should have kept Hours and Scheduling Stability Act on track to make sure our community has access to stable hours and work schedules. Workers in the District deserve access to full time hours and schedules in advance. Today the Council let down thousands of our neighbors who work in retail and food service and all of their families. By tabling this legislation, they gave into big business lobbyists instead of looking out for hard-working residents in our lowest paying industries. “We thank Councilmembers Mary Cheh, LaRuby May, Brianne Nadeau, and Elissa Silverman for standing with working people and voting to advance the bill forward today. “We’ve heard the narrative that it is too much at once to act on both Paid Family Leave and the Hours and Scheduling Stability Act, when these are in fact the basics of what people need to sustain their families. “Even with more D.C. residents living in poverty than before the recession and with many residents who want to work full-time only finding part-time work, the D.C. Council decided to ignore...
by admin | April 13, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 13, 2016 CONTACT: Bailey Dick, 419-260-6044, bailey@jwj.org Washington, D.C. – Attorneys General in Washington, D.C., and eight states announced today the launch of an inquiry into on-call shifts and other abusive scheduling practices used by a number of retail employers, adding yet another voice to the growing movement to end unsustainable work schedules. The nine attorneys general from New York, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. sent letters to 15 major retailers, including American Eagle, Aéropostale, Payless, Disney, Coach and Forever 21, asking each company about their use of on-call scheduling, which in the District, may be a violation of a decades-old law mandating at least four hours of pay for hourly employees reporting to work. In recent years, employers’ use of on-call schedules has grown. Complaints about this scheduling practice have proliferated because employers require the people who work for them to keep their schedules on hold for shifts they may never be assigned to or paid for. An earlier round of inquiries into Gap, L Brands and Abercrombie and Fitch from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resulted in six retail companies announcing they would end on-call shifts in their stores. Today’s announcement also puts increased pressure on D.C. councilmembers and Mayor Muriel Bowser to pass the Hours and Scheduling Sustainability Act, legislation that would make more predictable and secure work schedules a reality for people working in large restaurant and retail establishments in the District. Survey after survey has proven that the majority of Americans support the creation of rules that will allow women and men to...
