A recently implemented law in New York City provides employees a wide-ranging right to demand “temporary” scheduling changes from employers for a variety of purposes, such as providing child care or dealing with a legal matter.

The bill, which was approved by the New York City Council in December and went into effect in January, mandates that employers grant employees two such requests a year. Requests can relate to using paid time off, working remotely, taking a short-term period of unpaid leave, swapping shifts with a co-worker or, more generally, a “limited alteration in the hours, times or locations where they work,” according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

The only exemptions will apply to employees who have worked less than four months for the employer, work less than 80 hours a year in the city, work in certain jobs in the film or TV industry or who are covered by a union contract that specifies another scheduling policy.

Employers can be fined up to $500 for each violation of the new law.

Employer groups, such as SHRM, are predicting that the new law will lead to increased costs for businesses.

“(T)he temporary schedule changes contemplated by this new regime compound the already onerous requirements of the city's scheduling laws,” says SHRM in a policy briefing.

The new law follows a series of other new rules in nation’s largest city aimed at providing workers with scheduling predictability and flexibility. A bill signed into law last year bars employers from canceling shifts less than 72 hours before it begins or requiring that an employee show up for a shift with less than 72 hours' notice.

What happens in New York often has national implications. In 2015, Abercrombie & Fitch ended on-call shifts nationally in response to an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman into the retailer’s policy, which may have run afoul of state laws requiring employers to pay workers at least four hours of wages everytime they are called into a shift – even if they’re sent home early.

Instant Insights /

New NYC law requires employers to grant schedule changes

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