NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
May 29, 2017
ALBANY - The Cuomo administration could be getting ready to bigfoot the city again — this time over worker scheduling rules.
The state Labor Department is preparing a set of regulations that sources say will preempt provisions recently approved by the City Council and expected to be signed into law by Mayor de Blasio this week.
In some cases, the state regulations being developed will go further than the City Council bills, while in others they will be weaker, sources briefed on the matter said.
“It’s great for the state to do something on this, but it has to be at least as good as what was done in the city and hopefully even better,” one source said.
Cuomo’s regulations, which are still being worked on, would actually cover all minimum-wage workers whereas the City Council bills focus just on fast food and retail employees, the source said.
The state regs would expand the current requirement that some employees who show up for work be paid a certain amount of money if they are sent home.
Like with the city bills, the state rules being considered would guarantee employees extra money if shifts are canceled within a two-week period. But unlike with the city bills, the extra pay would not be attached to shifts added to someone’s schedule during that time, the source said.
Unlike the City Council bills that would mandate that retail stores give employees at least three days’ notice of their schedules, the state regulations under development would not bar the practice that requires employees to be on call until they are told whether they are needed that day, sources said.
Also unlike the City Council plan, the emerging state rules would not require that existing part-time employees be offered hours before a business seeks help from the outside.
Cuomo officials, according to one source, said that the state regs would “preempt” whatever the city is set to put in place, something that has workplace fairness advocates worried. They say the regulations should be a baseline and allow localities like the city to impose tougher requirements if they want.
“They’re done; they’re real,” the advocate said of the city rules. “We’re very anxious to see them go into effect. They’re very broad protections for the workers who are covered.”
Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said that the state regulations stem from an exploited workers task force the governor created last summer.
“They’ve been coordinating with stakeholders and regulations will be comprehensive and tailored to address the problems associated with on-call scheduling across New York and will be available for public comment shortly,” he said.
Ted Potrikus, president of the Retail Council of New York State, said he hasn’t been briefed on what is currently under discussion, but “I would welcome statewide regulations.
“There’s clearly room for improvement, but the last thing we need is New York City doing something and then Westchester County doing something different and then Nassau County,” he said.
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