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Improving Work-Life Fit in Hourly Jobs
The Center for WorkLife Law
when they were not scheduled to work. One study
found adjustments "rampant"--see, for example,
the schedule in Figure A, replete with handwritten
changes. A second aspect of just-in-time scheduling
is "full time flex," in which "full time" ranges from
26 to 40 hours a week in some firms, and from 32
to 40 hours a week in others; (workers maintain
benefits). (Lambert 2008) Another common
practice is assigning workers too few or no hours.
Managers typically keep a lot of people on the rolls
in an attempt to ensure that they have enough staff
to cover all shifts in a context where absenteeism
and turnover are constant. This can result in what is
known as "workloading"--replacing layoffs with the
practice of giving workers very few, or no, hours.
Not surprisingly, just-in-time scheduling creates
acute problems for workers who need to arrange for
child or other family care, as well as for students who
need to attend classes at specific times. This report
will devote considerable attention to exploring how
to improve work-life fit in the "just-in-time" sector
while still allowing employers to maintain a tight fit
between labor supply and labor demand.
Yet even for low-wage workers who do not work in
the just-in-time sector, schedule instability remains
an important factor. About 55% of men and 73% of
women work the regular day shift in families earning
less than $25,000. (Corporate Voices 2006, p. 32
Table 2) In these jobs, schedule instability typically
arises through the design of overtime, which rose
25% in the decade before 2002. Average overtime
escalated in manufacturing in the 1990s. (Golden
& Jorgensen 2002) A study of unionized employees
in six chiefly blue-collar industries found that
about one-third had worked compelled overtime in
the previous month. (Golden & Jorgensen 2002)
Mandatory overtime also is a major issue in some
low-wage jobs, notably among hotel housekeepers
and health care workers. (Lambert 2008)
Excessive rigidity in low-wage, hourly
jobs
Schedule effectiveness in both just-in-time jobs and
in the larger universe of hourly jobs is also impeded
by excessive and unnecessary rigidity. Most hourly
workers lack the autonomy afforded to professionals
to choose when to take breaks or to shift their
working time to accommodate a babysitter, take an
elder to a medical appointment, or attend a teacher's
conference. Hourly workers typically "punch in and
out" and are unable to leave except during lunch
and designated breaks.
Rigid schedules are often combined with "no fault"
progressive discipline systems, which give workers
points for lateness or absenteeism regardless of the
cause. A worker who garners a given number of
points is first disciplined and then fired, with no
consideration of the reasons for the absences in
question. This can create problems for workers with
caregiving responsibilities: in a flagship department
store, 80% of the associates in one sales department
were on probation because they had taken three or
more days off. One mother bemoaned to researchers
that if her preschool-age daughter got sick again,
she would be fired, and wondered out loud how
she would make it through the flu season. (Henly,
Shaefer & Waxman 2005)
Job rigidity is widespread in hourly jobs. Only 18%
of Americans with less than a high school education
and 23% of those with high school but no college
have access to flexible schedules. (Heymann 2010)
To discuss the full range of work-life issues among
low-wage workers, this report analyzes both the
just-in-time sector as well as more traditionally
structured hourly jobs, and addresses the schedule
instability and workplace rigidity that undermine
work-life fit.
One mother bemoaned that if her
preschool daughter got sick again,
she would be fired, and wondered
out loud how she would make it
through the flu season.