DENVER — A group of Democratic state lawmakers want to give restaurant and retail workers better control of their work schedules.
Their bill, called "Fair Workweek Employment Standards," is moving through the state legislature now.
Some businesses said this would cost too much for them to keep businesses running and take away schedule flexibility for employees.
"Just like I know that a business has to schedule things, I have to schedule things, too," said Abby Vestecka, who's been working in retail for more than 10 years. "At this stage in my life it’s something that I absolutely cannot work with, just having flatly open availability and no agency over my life."
But for Vestecka, an unpredictable work schedule makes life difficult.
"It makes it difficult if you have to schedule any sort of doctor's appointments because you have to wait until essentially week of to get those scheduled because you don't know when you're going to be working," they said.
Vestecka said they got a herniated disc from labor that required heavy lifting at a grocery store job.
"I couldn't get the time off that I was asking for," they said.
Often Abby would get their schedule a day and a half in advance, allowing no time to secure a doctor's appointment.
"You can get a doctor's note but then you still have your management being upset that you did that," said Vestecka.
The bill would require companies with 250 workers or more to provide schedules 14 days in advance, 12 hours of rest between shifts and additional pay for late schedule changes, among other things.
Kristie Mansur, director of operations at Ted's Montana Grill, said the bill would take away schedule flexibility for workers.
"Whether it be someone who only can work two days a week because they're caring for a family member and so they want to work as much as possible during those two days," she said. "The bill would make it very difficult for us to allow that flexibility because we would have to pay time and a half for that second shift.
"We would also have to have more team members because if our team members are no longer able to work double shifts, we would have to, in a very difficult labor market as is, try to employ more people," she said.
According to the Colorado Restaurant Association, if passed the bill would cost restaurants an average of $70,000 per year, per location.
Sonia Riggs, president and CEO of the Colorado Restaurant Association, released the following statement:
"The restaurant industry in Colorado spoke up loud and clear during the February 16 House Business Affairs & Labor Committee hearing, explaining how restaurant employees come to the industry for the very flexibility this bill eliminates. Don't forget: Restaurant owners are nowhere near recovered from three years of pandemic-related hardship, debt, and soaring inflation. Now is not the time to add to employees’ stress levels by restricting their scheduling flexibility or to detract from local operators’ razor-thin bottom lines with predictability and retention pay.”
There was a seven-hour hearing on the bill earlier this week, where lawmakers heard a great deal of testimony from both sides. So for now, the bill has been laid over without a vote, but will be eventually taken back up again in the House committee.
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