Erratic work schedules take big toll on families
Jesus Manuel Gomez quit his restaurant dishwashing job when he saw the effect his long work days had on his 10yearold son with special needs.
Although he was scheduled to work from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., the Honduran native said through a Spanishspeaking interpreter that he would get out between midnight and 1 a.m. and then still be asleep when his son left for school the next morning.
“He takes medication so he can concentrate and gets treatment at school,” Gomez said of his son. “But when I saw what was happening with my schedule, that it was impacting his ability to focus even though he was getting treatment, I only worked there a couple of weeks.”
More than onefourth of the state’s 885,000 hourly employees who potentially face wide swings in work schedules are parents of children under the age of 18, putting their kids at risk for behavioral issues, a newly released report by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth concluded.
Women and men of color are more likely not to have any input on their schedules and people of color, particularly black and Latina women, are more likely to have unstable work schedules including extended shifts, last minute “oncall” shifts, and shifts canceled after they have arrived at work, compared to their white counterparts, the report found based on data from the national Shift Project.
Their children are paying the price, said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D3rd District.
“It’s really unbelievable that women of color have no input into their schedules,” DeLauro said. “How do you plan for child care or family care? What if you want to go to school? It takes a toll on kids.”
DeLauro and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMassachusetts, a Democratic presidential candidate, are again introducing the Schedules That Work Act aimed at reducing work scheduling inequalities by requiring companies in the retail, hospitality, cleaning, restaurants and warehousing industries to provide work schedules two weeks in advance.
The bill, which has failed to pass twice in recent years, includes provisions to protect hourly workers who ask for shift changes from retaliation and protect employees from being forced to work a closing shift at night and an opening shift the next morning, commonly called a “clopen,” less than 11 hours later.
“What happens if your kid is sick?” DeLauro said. “This has very serious implications for families. We’re dealing mostly with women. This is a lack of respect and lack of dignity for their lives or their family’s lives.”
It’s common for lowwage workers with oncall or “justintime” schedules to choose between paying bills or going without something they need, said Norma Martinez Hosang, Organizing Director for Make The Road, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants and lowincome residents in Bridgeport.
“People don’t get a schedule week by week so they can’t plan,” Martinez Hosang said. “Getting called off from work is another problem. You’re expecting to go to work and you get there and you get sent home. They were counting on that money. You can imagine in terms of budgeting what that does. Families who are making minimum wage are already struggling.”
But the impact of scheduling inequality extends far beyond a paycheck, experts said. Nationally, parents who work oncall or experience last minute shift changes have 15 days annually when their children are in the care of a sibling younger than age 10 or have no childcare at all compared to parents with better work schedules who average nine days annually with no suitable childcare, the study found.