Beacon Hill is bad for business
Small businesses can’t catch a break. Between overbearing regulations and minimum wage hikes, it is getting harder and harder to keep the lights on, never mind competing with Walmart and Amazon.
Now, lawmakers on Beacon Hill are looking to make things even tougher on America’s economic engine by passing Fair Workweek Act legislation that would put stringent employee-scheduling requirements on business owners.
As the Herald’s Jaclyn Cashman reported, a bill by state Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton) would force businesses in the hospitality, retail or food service sectors that employ more than 50 people to give their workers a schedule 14 days in advance. Business owners who failed to do so on time would face fines of $75 for each day that the schedule is not posted. Another bill circulating on the Hill would require all employers to schedule seven days in advance, with similar penalties.
This measure would be deleterious to those in the food service industry because the demands on a restaurant or caterer are fluid and often unpredictable. Restaurants must meet the demands of their customers, so they must be flexible. There are “pop-up” events in banquet facilities all the time and demands fluctuate.
George Montilio, who owns Montilio’s Bakery in Brockton, explained to the Herald that if one of these bills were to become law, it would cripple his business.
“My concern is this is just one more thing we will be penalized with while trying to run our business in a normal fashion,” Montilio said. “Why do we need to get the government involved? We respect our employees and do our best to give them a schedule in advance but people call out sick all the time and we must be able to adjust. We also can get slammed with lastminute massive orders that would require extra employees.”
If the Fair Workweek Act is passed into law as currently constituted, it would undoubtedly lead to similar legislation in other industries. That would be disastrous for many.
Jay Kennedy, who owns Kennedy Carpets in East Weymouth, told the Herald that this kind of legislation would be a big problem for him.
“This is impossible,” he said. “We don’t book our work 14 days in advance. I can’t tell the guys two days in advance where they are working. We book jobs today that have to be done tomorrow. This is obscene … then add this onto the family leave act … how are small businesses able to adjust? The government is too involved in small business. … You need flexibility in a small business and this bill will take that away.”
“Employees deserve to know their work schedules with a reasonable amount of advance notice,” Pacheco said in a statement. “The bill I filed would provide a fair and transparent process in the Commonwealth for people employed by large food service, retail, and hospitality businesses and franchises. Many of the hardworking Massachusetts employees that would be covered are lowwage, hourly workers with families and children and other responsibilities in their lives beyond the workplace that they need the ability to schedule around.”
The spirit of the initiative is laudable: to give workers more stability in their work schedules and thus more stability in their lives. Unfortunately it is completely impractical. Though there are exceptions given to employers for things like severe weather, public transportation failures or other emergencies, the effect of this would be to destabilize and ultimately damage many businesses.