Kristen Harknett (@KristenHarknett), Professor of Sociology at the University of California San Francisco and co-director of The Shift Project (a large-scale survey and research study of low-wage workers in the service sector) joins us to discuss the so-called “Great Resignation.”
New first-time weekly unemployment claims sit at 898,000 as of mid-October. Various studies examine the economic hardships experienced as a result of the COVID pandemic and the effects that access, or lack of access, to benefits has on unemployed workers.
Daniel Schneider recommends the book "Despotism on Demand: How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace" by Alex J. Wood, to better understand how precarious scheduling takes advantage of low-wage workers at some the largest firms in the US.
Many employers are putting an end to the bonus hourly pay ("hero pay") they had been providing workers going back to March. Congress has considered increasing frontline workers' pay, but no additional laws have yet passed.
Brookings outlines what "just-in-time" scheduling practices are, which groups they affect, across which industries, the consequences on personal and family life, and what is being done across cities, states, and companies create more fair scheduling.
Violet Moya, a Texas resident, describes her spontaneous firing from Sephora and how, from her point of view, the incident exemplifies that Sephora never really cared about employees like her. She describes herself as one of the hourly service sector workers that wanted more hours, but instead was given unstable schedules and few benefits.
This research brief is part of a series designed to advance our understanding of working conditions in the service sector—in particular, schedule instability and unpredictability—in cities and states across the country.
SACRAMENTO – California lawmakers are considering a bill to curtail unstable and unpredictable schedules for hourly workers. State Senator Connie Leyva (D-Chino) introduced SB 850, also called the "Fair Scheduling Act of 2020," which would compensate workers for on-call shifts and for shift cancellation without notice. Shift Co-Director Daniel Schneider points to the gap in scheduling practices for workers of color (particularly women of color) compared to their white counterparts as a particularly concerning aspect of just-in-time scheduling.
