NYC Enacts Fast Food Worker Protections

On May 30, 2017, NYC enacted a law aimed at improving working conditions related to employee work schedules. The law will go into effect on November 26, 2017. Under the regulation, no later than the date a new fast food employee receives their first work schedule, the employer must provide them with a good faith estimate in writing setting forth the number of hours a fast food employee can expect to work per week for the duration of the employee’s employment and the expected dates, times, and locations of those hours.

Fast food employers must also provide employees with written notices of a work schedule containing regular shifts and on-call shifts on or before the employee’s first day of work. For all subsequent work schedules, the fast food employer must provide such notice no later than 14 days before the first day of any new schedule, and schedules must span a period of no less than 7 days and contain all anticipated regular shifts and on-call shifts that the employee will work or will be required to be available to work during the work schedule. Schedules must be posted in a conspicuous place at the workplace that is readily accessible and visible to all employees, and must transmit the work schedule to each fast food employee, electronically if necessary.

Additionally, fast food employers must provide employees with schedule change premiums in addition to their regular shift pay to compensate the employee for changes the employer makes to the employee’s work schedule including canceling, shortening, or moving shifts to another date and time, on-call shifts, and adding hours to shifts already scheduled. Employers must pay the schedule change premiums when the employer pays the employee for wages owed for work performed during that week, and must be separately noted on a wage stub or other form of written documentation and provided to that employee within the same pay period.

Do you have questions about how to how these regulations could impact your business? Speak with one of our HR Business Partners today at 631.794.7400.