Transcript: Mayor De Blasio, Council Members, Advocates Announce Plan To Ensure New York City'S Fast Food Workers Are Protected By Fair Workweek Legislation

September 15, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you, Alvin. I have to tell you, it takes guts to stand in front of everyone and tell them about the challenges you’re facing, what your family’s going through. And, Alvin, it means a lot to us that you’re standing up, you’re telling all the people of New York City just how tough it is for people in the fast food industry, and the challenges they face, and the fact that there’s not a lot of fairness. So, I want to say, the way the world changes is when people stand up and speak out. So, to all my friends here, let’s give Alvin a big round of applause and thank him.

[Applause]

Alvin explains to us the reality that his life is at the mercy of his employer. The folks at KFC can change his schedule, turn his life upside down on a moment’s notice. There’s nothing he can do about it. And this is true for 65,000 fast food workers in this city – no rights to control their own schedule, regardless of everything else happening in their lives. 

Now, let me start with the fact that for so many people in this city who are struggling to make ends meet, they are not just dealing with one job. There are many, many New Yorkers who can’t survive in this city without two jobs, or even three jobs. So, think about what it means for them when an employer arbitrarily changes their schedule. It has an impact on everything else they have to do to support their family. Think about what it means for an employee who is struggling to take care of loved ones, and all the time and energy that goes into that, and a lot of the things they have to do for their family that can’t be rescheduled on late notice. Think about the fact that these companies – we’re talking about some of the biggest corporations in America – McDonald’s, KFC, so many others – some of the most profitable corporations in America, lead by some of the best compensated CEOs in America. If you want an example of the tale of two cities, if you want an example of how the one percent have gotten wealthier on the backs of working people, here you have it – the fast food industry. And we don’t believe that the way it is today is the only way to do things. This is part of a change that’s happened in our society. Corporate culture has treated workers with less and less respect. Workers just become cogs in the machine. And as corporations become bigger and more sophisticated, they have less and less regard for the lives of working people. 

Now, I remind you, those corporations couldn’t survive without their workers. Those wealthy CEOs would be nowhere but for the people who do the work every day. So, it’s time for us to change the rules. It’s time for us to use the power of City government to make sure that people are treated decently. And we know that it would be hypocritical to talk about our respect for families, and our desire for parents to be there for our children, and family members to support their loved ones, and, at the same time, allow this travesty of justice to occur where working people simply can’t spend time with their families, can’t be there for their children, can’t do the things that they know are right because a big corporation won’t allow them to. We have to act on our values. 

I want you to remember that this will be a fight, but it is a fight we can win because we have evidence of what happens when these workers stand up. Years ago – just a few years ago, these folks behind me, these good men and women started a movement. And I remember vividly what the critics said. I remember when the Fight for $15 got started and I heard more times than I could count that it was unrealistic, that it was impossible, that it was an overreach, that it couldn’t happen for years, and years, and years. They knew better. They believed the time was now. So, just a few years ago, it was an impossible dream, but they persisted. The Fight for $15 – you started to hear more and more about it, and then they made demands of elected officials and of people running for office, and, lo and behold, the Fight for $15 became a centerpiece of this national election. The $15 minimum wage became a part of the Democratic party platform because they fought that battle and won. God bless you all.

[Applause]

So, we’ve got to get this right. It fits with everything we’ve been doing in this administration, everything we’ve been doing with our colleagues in City government. Whether it’s paid sick leave, whether it’s our affordable housing plan, whether it’s our pre-K initiative – all of these things take burdens off the backs of hardworking New Yorkers. This is the next step. So, today – today, we being the fight for a fair workweek. 

[Applause] 

We’ll work with the elected officials. We’ll work with community leaders and advocates. And we’ll work with good people in the business community who know – who know that this wrong has to be righted. We’ll draft legislation that will require three key things of the companies that run these fast food restaurants. 

One, require that they set a full schedule for each worker two weeks in advance –

[Applause]

– And post it where everyone in the store can easily see it. 

Two, if because of something within the control of the business, they need to change an employee’s hours on short notice, they will be provided – those employees will be provided extra compensation, extra pay for work on short notice.

[Applause]

Finally, I’m going to introduce a new word for many of you – it was a new word for me. We’re going to regulate practice that has become more common, makes no sense but has become increasingly common. It’s called a “clopening.” A clopening, that is when people require – an employee is required to work a closing shift followed by an opening shift. A lot of times that can happen in a way where that employee has only a few hours to get home, get a little bit of sleep, turn around, and come back. It’s not right. It’s not safe. It’s not healthy. So as part of that legislation we will regulate that practice and require that there be at least 10 hours between a closing shift and an opening shift that a worker has to perform.

[Applause]

Finally, I am certain we will hear the criticisms in the next few hours that once again because of progressive legislation we will undermine the private sector. We will make them less profitable, they’ll have to cut jobs – all of the classic accusations that are made and have been made time and again with any increase in minimum wage. And boy, the jury came back a long time ago. The increases in minimum age lead to a stronger economy, more spending by consumers, more jobs, but every single time we talk about minimum wage increase you will hear figures in the business community bring out the same old criticism even though it’s been dispelled. So you’ll hear it again on this one – I guarantee it. That somehow by giving people the basic fairness in their schedule – basic ability to take care of their families – that it’s going to undermine these vast profitable companies. Well, we also heard the same arguments about paid sick leave. And in the last few years in New York City we added a million more people in this city who got paid sick leave coverage, and we enforced it. So by this reasoning from some in the private sector of course our economy must’ve ground to a halt, and businesses must’ve been failing all around us. Well – no. In fact, in the last few years, exactly the same time as we have had more and more paid sick leave available to New Yorkers guess what’s happened? This city has added 290,000 private sector jobs.

[Applause]

There are over 4.3 million jobs in New York City today – the most we have ever had in our history. At the same time as we implement more and more protections for workers, because protections for workers work because it makes our society better, because workers who get decent pay, get decent benefits spend their money, help our economy thrive. So this is how we make our whole city stronger and we truly ensure that it’s a city for everyone. A few sentences in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

With that I want to bring up our Consumers Affairs Commissioner who has passionately fought for the rights of working people, Commissioner Lorelei Salas.

Commissioner Lorelei Salas, Department of Consumer Affairs: I was going to give some remarks in Spanish, but the Mayor stole my thunder. He did very well by the way.

[Laughter]

I’m just so proud to be a part of this administration, and I thank you Alvin and all of the workers that are here today who are speaking up bravely about abusive scheduling practices. I am a single mother of two teenage boys. When they were young I was able to work, go to school, plan for childcare – frankly I was taking that for granted. I had no idea how many other people cannot have that. I was able to follow my dreams, and I believe that every New Yorker has the right to chase their dreams. It should not be a privilege to get to know what hours you will be working two weeks from now. How is that fair? I am looking forward with DCA and our new Office of Labor Policy and Standards to work with advocates, with workers, with businesses to think about solutions for this problem. I think it’s everyone’s responsibility to think about this and to make sure that Alvin has a stable family life, and he can raise his kids the way he wants to. So thank you so much for being here today, and thank you. En Español –

[Commissioner Salas speaks in Spanish]

Mayor: The next speaker has been one of the champions of working people in this city and not just the members he represents who are many, but far beyond just his union he has fought for the basic things – for improved wages, for improved benefits, for all workers. He believes in a labor movement that reaches far beyond just to unionize, to lift up those who have not yet benefitted from unionization, to help everyone have a decent standard of living. And that is one of the reasons this city has changed in recent years, because Hector Figueroa believed we could go someplace different, and that is exactly where we’re going – the President of 32BJ-SEIU, Hector Figueroa.

[…]

Mayor: Thank you so much, Hector. So this legislation will go to the City Council, and we will work closely with the Council to achieve it. So I want you to hear from two members of the Council who are going to be in vanguard of getting this done, and we appreciate that they have been on the side of working people consistently. And with their help we will move this quickly through the legislative process. First, I want you to hear from Councilmember Brad Lander and then Councilmember Corey Johnson.

[…]

Mayor: Finally, Tish James’s formal title is Public Advocate, but she has been a worker advocate throughout her career and was one of the people who believed these changes needed to happen and could happen. So she saw where things were going and what we had to make these changes, and she’s been in the forefront – our Public Advocate, Tish James.

[…]

Mayor: I want to say we’re joined not only by the folks who have spoken – and I think it’s quite evident that 32BJ is here. They’ve made their presence known. But we’ve also been joined by other crucial organizations who have been part of these fights for fairness for a long time. New York Communities for Change, we thank you, and we are very, very appreciative for the history of that organization that Jon Kest played in this movement. Make The Road, we thank you. A Better Balance, we thank you. And the Center for Popular Democracy, we thank you.

[Applause]

Alright we are going to be taking questions on today’s announcement. Questions? Yes?

Question: So this is just City Council legislation, you don’t envision any State legislation being required? Can you give a sense of what the timeline is for releasing that legislation and when you hope to have it passed by?

Mayor: Alright, let me take the first pieces and then I want my colleagues from the City Council to talk about their timeline. But on the first – obviously we want to move very quickly, and we’ll do everything working with Speaker Mark-Viverito and the members of the Council to move quickly. On the question of the State, we are firmly within our legal rights to move on these issues, and we have to move on them. It’s something that has to be addressed. I think it’s also clear that in the past whether it’s minimum age issues or a lot of other issues related to workers’ rights, there have often been long delays when the state legislature – particularly the State Senate – gets involved. So we want action now, and action that will help 65,000 fast food workers in New York City. We should do it with municipal legislation and everyone in New York City is ready to do that. Brad or Corey?

Councilmember Brad Lander: So the Council’s lawyers have been looking at this for a little while and our whole-hearted agreement that the City has the power to enact this legislation without any State action. And we’ll be bringing that legislation forward soon. It will be introduced at one of the next couple of stated meetings. We’ll have a hearing shortly thereafter and are eager to move forward, and the Speaker is eager to move forward.

Mayor: Thank you. Yes?

Question: What prompted the timing for this now? I mean, you’ve been working on workers’ rights issues since you came into office. Why this legislation now?

Mayor: Look, it’s the next thing that has to be addressed. I mean obviously we listed a number of the things we focused on previously whether it was paid sick leave or parental leave in the case in New York City at the state level, the minimum wage change, paid family leave. All these things were central and had to be addressed, but this is an issue that is affecting so many people negatively, and we had to ensure that we had a pathway to address it. We are convinced we do. And the time is now. It’s literally – it was, we were able to get a lot of other important things done, and we needed to get this one done next.

Question: Will the legislation go beyond fast food workers in any way, certainly they’re not the only ones who are struggling with changing schedules [inaudible] retail workers [inaudible]?

Mayor: I’ll start, and then if my colleagues from the Council want to add. Look, I think what happens in the fast food industry is you have the combination of some of the greatest abuses in terms of scheduling with abject lack of unionization, and when you look at some of the other sectors where there are real scheduling issues, more of them have unions that can fight for the workers and address some of those issues or the chance of unionization spreading more rapidly. That’s one of the differences here, and obviously these are some of the lowest paid workers in the city on top of everything else. So that’s we thought this was the sector that needed the attention the most. We’re certainly going to keep the option open of doing other actions in the future, but this is the one we thought was the most dire and necessary situation.

Councilmember Corey Johnson: So, we’re going to have a hearing, hopefully this fall and as Councilmember Lander said we assume that this bill and a few other bills will be introduced over the next two stated meetings of the City Council. And the hope is to have a hearing this fall on a series of changes we think could be made to make there be a more fair workweek for New Yorkers in all types of sectors. There’s a lot of Councilmembers – maybe 10 – who have different bills, and we’re trying to sort out who has which bills and how we’re going to handle that. So our hope is to go beyond fast food workers, but we’re still sort of sorting out the mechanics of that and understanding how far we can go.

Councilmember Lander: Let me just say one more little thing here.

Mayor: Please.

Councilmember Lander: One other thing I think it’s important to add here, we’re talking about chain fast food. So these are franchises, almost all of whom have scheduling software that are provided by the franchiser, and who have already shown it’s possible to change their scheduling practices. So someday we’d love to go further. This is a great place to start, both because it’s a place where the abuses are concentrated, but it’s also a place where the changes are actually the easiest to make. These are employers who can make those changes.

Mayor: Grace?

Question: Are there similar protections in place for City employees where City employees are guaranteed you get two weeks’ notice of the schedule or extra pay if their schedule changes, and if not are you going to implement anything?

Mayor: The City employees experience an entirely different reality because all of our employees in hourly work – which would be the parallel here – are all unionized, so obviously one of the central things that unions work on for the members is fair scheduling. So we don’t have the parallel problem among City hourly employees.

Question: For salaried employees – this is in industries outside of the fast food industry – schedules are also an issue. Can you explain sort of the difference you see between an hourly employee and someone who’s salaried?

Mayor: Yes, absolutely. I think there’s a bigger challenge in our society to strike a work-life balance. And this is becoming more and more central to the national discussion, and certainly here in the city as well. But I think it’s also fair to say the biggest challenges occur for folks who are in hourly employment who don’t have unions and have very thin margins in terms of their economic reality. Salaried folks – thank god – have a little more cushion and a little more freedom in different ways. But I think it’s fair to say that when we achieve this – and we will achieve it – it is going to start to put pressure on all sorts of corporations to start to amend their practices and be more consistent and fair with working people. I think that’s true for salaried people as well.

Question: Mr. Mayor, can you comment on phone call that Jona Rechnitz –

Mayor: We’re talking about this topic. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: We’re just talking about this topic. Have a nice day. 

Question: I know that different Attorney Generals have achieved sort of scattered results in changing scheduling practices across the country, but I don’t know of any other cities of states that passed legislation similar to what you’re proposing already –

Mayor: So, I’m going to look to Hector, Lorelei – I’m not an expert on the other cities and states. Does anyone else want to speak to it?

Hector Figueroa: Yeah, there are other efforts, obviously not that many. As the movement has been growing, we have seen efforts in San Fransisco, there are efforts in Seattle. We are in discussions – our union – in other cities because SEIU has been in the forefront of the Fight for $15, and we see the Fight for $15 being very tied for the fight for regular hours and predictable schedules. It’s a total package. It’s how we make the life of workers better by paying them more and having enough hours of income. The [inaudible] in those other places – San Francisco, Seattle – is something we’d be would be happy to share with you. Seattle is introducing it now. San Fransisco – it’s already in place. But we’ll be happy to talk to anybody who is interested. This is going to be part of the national movement, and we believe that, just like the addressing of income inequality associated with the Fight for $15, we gather [inaudible] that wages are beginning to show some movement upwards. Steven Greenhouse even indicated in the lower bottom of, you know, the income scale we’re seeing movement upwards. We see the lifting of low-wage workers as the path to improve the lives of all workers, including middle class workers, salary workers, and this is going to be a part of our agenda. 

Commissioner Salas: Just to add quickly, with San Fransisco, they have scheduling legislation in place, and we definitely have been talking to them. We want to learn from them – what works, what doesn’t work, any improvements that can be made in our legislation. Thank you. 

Mayor: Okay, last call. Any other questions on this? David?

Question: Mayor, do you anticipate that [inaudible] bill passed before the election next year as part of your campaign for reelection?

Mayor: I think – you heard from the Council members – I think we all anticipate this is something that could be done in a matter of a few months ideally. There will be a legislative process and, as we indicated, there’s going to be a real discussion because there are things that have to be worked through. We want to hear from employees and we want to hear from employers. But I think there’s a very good likelihood that this gets passed this year. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, in past, you’ve announced big initiatives like this that are centerpieces of your agenda. You have set up – or, coordinated with an outside not-for-profit or an outside [inaudible] that pays for ads or [inaudible]. Are you planning to do anything like that for this? 

Mayor: No.

Question: Why not?

Mayor: Because I think we’re in a very clear position to win here. 

Question: [Inaudible] calculate the total economic cost of this and what’s the threshold for a fast food restaurant qualifying [inaudible]?

Mayor: Say again? Couldn’t hear you well enough.

Question: First question was, have you tabulated the total economic cost to businesses for [inaudible] legislation? The second thing is, what is the threshold for restaurants to need to qualify for this legislation? 

Mayor: I’ll let Lorelei talk about the threshold for qualification and why it reaches 65,000 employees. On the first point, well, I think you heard from Brad and Corey that one of the interesting things here is that these corporations have the capacity right now to get this right. It’s not the hardest managerial task in the world and they have the computer programs and other methodologies to allow them to do it. So, done right, there will be very, very little cost. I think it is a culture change. I think it says to the corporations that they have to treat their workers with respect. That has not been the reality of these giant fast food corporations, and this will make them do it. And the point that Brad made, you see some other very substantial American corporations, like Starbucks, that have made these reforms on their own. And I think you’ve all been to Starbucks lately, their operations have not ground to a halt and their profitability is fine. So, I don’t think it has to cost much at all. In some cases, because there would be extra compensation for last-minute shifts – yes, that is an issue and we’ll evaluate that during the legislative process. But I think the central issue is not those last-minute, unexpected things, it’s the scheduling that could have been done anyway, but there was such a negative and abusive attitude toward workers, they didn’t even bother to do it. On the definition –

Commissioner Salas: So, if you are a fast food establishment, under New York State labor law – right – you are also a fast food establishment under this law. So, it includes establishments with 30 or more locations nationwide that share the same name, menu, and provide counter service. Just one quick thing to add to the Mayor’s answer on how difficult this is going to be for businesses – my agency has been working really hard to provide tools to employers to make sure that these legislations are easy to implement. We did so with the paid sick leave – we have spreadsheets that we make available to the businesses so they have it easy. It doesn’t cost them anything. And we anticipate doing the same thing here. 

Question: [Inaudible] how can you scheduling your workers flexibly, you know? Is there not any cost to that?

Commissioner Salas: Look, I mean, we’ve seen paid sick leave studies. The most recent study about, like, a week ago or so, showing that about 85 percent of businesses show no increase in costs. I think that speaks for itself. Thank you.

Mayor: Yes?

Question: Mr. Mayor, given that you have said that you do expect to fast-track this, just to follow up on David’s question, is this going to be a theme in your campaign?

Mayor: Is this particular legislation? 

Question: Right.

Mayor: We will obviously unveil very soon because the campaign will be starting to heat up quite soon. We’re just about a year away from the primary right this minute. But we will be unveiling a vision for the next four years of this city. But one thing I can tell you upfront is the same basic values that animated the last campaign will animate the next campaign. It is going to be about addressing income inequality. It’s going to be about how we take further steps to end the tale of two cities. There’s no question that mission continues. And the OneNYC plan – one of the differences now is that we have not just a platform, which we had in 2013, we have a governing document – the OneNYC vision, which we’re going to present to the people in a very detailed manner, which there really hasn’t been a lot of discussion on in this city and the campaign year will give us the chance to do that, which I look forward to. 

Last call on this issue – going once – going twice.

Thanks, everyone. 

“This is a simple step that will make a huge difference in the lives of tens of thousands of workers. Workers need to make plan their day around their work and family needs. This is an impossible task if employers can change work times without warning,” said Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Dean Baker.

Feminist activist and organizer Gloria Steinem said, “Today’s women are working hourly jobs and raising families, but they’re often caught between a rock and hard place. Such workers in New York City have no presumed right to determine their schedule, or advance notice of their hours. This means they’re are often forced to miss their child’s school play, or find a last-minute caregiver for a child or an aging parent. Today, Mayor de Blasio announced his commitment to mandating that workers receive advance notice of their schedules – something most people take for granted. We must build a New York where all of our workers can succeed.”