Home Issues Flexible Work Week

March 19, 2008

The Ontario Chamber supports AB 2127 which will allow small businesses to agree to provide scheduling options for their employees. AB 2127 accommodates employees' diverse family obligations, personal pursuits, commuting issues and environmental concerns. This proposed new law will apply exclusively to small businesses with 25 or fewer employees.
 

Click here to take action now!

AB 510 establishes a voluntary, employee-driven process where the employee of a small business can request, and their employer may mutually agree, to a 4-day compressed workweek schedule. Working a compressed four-day workweek provides for up to 50 extra days each year for the average full-time employee. As the law stands today, individual employees do not have the right to seek and arrange individual flexible schedules with their employers.

“Increasingly long commutes at peak hours diminish quality of life,” stated Bob Cruz, Chairman of the Ontario Chamber’s Government Affairs Council. “Ontario’s long commutes at peak drive time hours add to the pressure of balancing work and family. Several reports, including one released in 2005 by the state Department of Health Services, show that employees in the state spend up to 100 hours per year commuting. Flexibility work schedules will give Ontario workers and businesses the flexibly to work around traffic and other delays,” continued Cruz.

It is a policy priority of the Ontario Chamber to review and consider policies that relieve congestion on freeways, streets and roads, and ensure mobility within the Ontario region.

Furthermore, fewer trips to the workplace result in lower carbon emissions. The California Air Resources Board Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee (ETAAC) draft report suggests that flexible working hours would result in a 10 percent reduction in emissions with 10 percent of employees using the schedule.

Traffic congestion would be reduced and emissions of priority air pollutants. Allowing a compressed work week schedule would reduce traffic congestion at peak hours and reduce emissions through less idling and 20 percent less commute time per week per employee.

Employers who make missteps in using current process can end up in court. Current law covering alternative schedules are rigid. Under current (and very detailed) Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders, employers may institute alternative work schedules only if a supermajority of affected employees agree to the arrangement in writing and by secret ballot, and then all employees are subject to the alternative scheduling.

Employers must hold discussion meetings at least fourteen days before secret ballot voting. Two thirds of the company’s employees must agree to the change. Any deviation from the rigidly controlled process voids the election and subjects the employer to potential lawsuits that can seek up to three years of back overtime pay for affected workers, along with huge penalties and fines.

Variances in schedules or the use of more than one schedule is prohibited without repeating the voting process. This effectively eliminates most employers and employees from choosing schedule options such as flextime, part-time, job sharing, telecommuting, and compressed workweeks.

Finally, AB 510 does not affect workers covered by collective bargaining agreements. Employees covered by collective bargaining agreements in both the private and public sector are exempt from daily overtime--these include all state, county, and city employees such as those employed by school districts, water districts and a multitude of other governmental agencies.