“You’re fired.” Most US employers don’t need a reason to utter those words, but New York City’s new legislation protecting fast-food workers is going into July 4, 2021. After this, employers will either need “just-cause” or layoffs for economic reasons to terminate a fast-food employee.
The controversial new rule singles out one sector of employees and favors them above all other employees, with job protections that most employees don’t have. It may be controversial (the New York State Restaurant Association has already filed a lawsuit), but it may be the start of a change in US employment law.
A solution in search of a problem.
At-will employment means that you can quit at any time with no notice. (Two week’s notice is merely customary, but absent a contract, you’re not required to even give five minutes’ notice.) At-will employment also means that your boss can fire you at any time with no notice for any reason or no reason as long as that reason doesn’t violate the law.
To keep reading, click here: Attention NYC Fast Food: At-Will Employment Changes July 4
The seniority thing is definitely not good. A lot of employers do this anyway—for example, manufacturers tend to lay off newer employees first. But it’s really disheartening to employees when Efficient Eddie keeps the dining room sparkling and all the customers love him, but he gets laid off and Slacker Sam, who spends half his shift lurking in the walk-in eating pickle chips, gets to stay only because he’s been there longer.
While I agree completely, the solution (that it’s not too late to implement) was to fire Slacker Sam at the first (or maybe the 2nd or 3rd) sign that he as, in fact, Slacker Sam. I have limited sympathy for a manager who is now complaining that the seniority rule means he can’t fire a bad employee that he hasn’t fired *for long enough that employee now has seniority*.
Great article which is not just confined to fast food workers but also retail workers including even grocery workers. Most of the problems listed by this article, write-ups, hours scheduled, seniority, etc. are covered in union jobs as givens but are also con benefits for productive workers who have to deal with non-productivity in their coworkers, while expected to compensate for the other non-effort.
I do agree that the right to work law has to be deleted because of the allowance for trivial firings and quitting, but this NYC liberal law is not looking at the full picture of protection to be fired or quit in reality. Amendments are needed to cover all the loopholes and also protect the good workers.
As for the individual issues listed, 1. The required paperwork that needs to be put into the HR file, most big businesses no longer have an HR person on site but do everything digitally. It is not that hard to fill out the needed form for repeat inconsistent job performance ( for example constant tardiness which is also proved by time clock punches). The second issue concerning scheduling based on seniority is based on an assumption that the senior employee is more productive, which is depending on whether job is physically demanding on the body, another glitch that needs addressing. Usually the senior person has become accustomed to getting the same amount of hours which creates an assumption that they will always get those number of hours scheduled. With big emphasis on keeping the labor hours to keep all employees in the part-time status, scheduling should be made based on yearly staffing needs rather than just the current needs because of seasonal fluctuations, which eliminates scheduling conflicts—again another glitch in the law.
These issues are not being addressed correctly because liberal thinkers fail to understand the full implications of application. Now here’s hoping that they will amend the law correctly sooner than later.