If an employer denies an employee’s request for a schedule change, the employer must inform the employee of the reasons for denial, including whether any of the reasons is a bona fide business reason as defined in the bill.

The bill requires an employer that employs an employee in certain service industry occupations, including retail, food service, and cleaning occupations to provide the service employee a written copy of the employee’s work schedule on or before the service employee’s first day of work. With certain exceptions, if an employer changes the service employee’s work schedule, the employer must provide the new work schedule to the employee at least 14 days in advance.

The bill also requires that if an employer changes a service employee’s work schedule with fewer than 14 days’ notice, the employer must pay the service employee an amount equal to the employee’s regular rate of pay for one hour of work. Exceptions to this requirement include when the employee consents to the change or when the employer requires the service employee to work additional time because another employee was scheduled to work that time and is unexpectedly unavailable to work.

The bill also requires the following for employers that use certain scheduling practices:

1. If the service employee reports to work and the employer does not allow the employee to work all time scheduled, the employer must provide the employee with: 1) full compensation as if the employee had worked the full shift; or 2) if the employee is scheduled to work more than four hours and works less than four hours, an amount equal to the employee’s regular rate of pay for the difference between four hours and the amount of time the employee actually works.

2. If the employer requires the service employee to contact the employer, or wait to be contacted by the employer less than 24 hours before a work shift to determine whether the employee must report to work, the employer must pay the employee an amount equal to the employee’s regular rate of pay for one hour of work.

3. If the employer requires the service employee to work a split shift, the employer must pay the employee an amount equal to the employee’s regular rate of pay for one hour of work.

If a service employee experiences more than one type of these scheduling practices with respect to a particular work shift, the employer must pay only one type of compensation, whichever is greatest.

The bill also provides that, during any period in which the employer’s regular operations are suspended due to an event outside of the employer’s control, the employer is not required to comply with the service employee work scheduling requirements created in the bill.

The bill authorizes DWD to promulgate rules to apply the protections afforded under the bill to additional occupations if DWD determines that at least 10 percent of the individuals employed in an occupation either typically receive notice of changes to their work schedules less than 14 days before the changes take effect or regularly experience fluctuations in the number of hours the individuals are scheduled to work on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

The bill provides that an employer may not interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of the right of an employee created in the bill and may not discharge or discriminate against an employee for enforcing the employee’s rights under the bill. An employee whose rights are violated may file a complaint with DWD, and DWD must process the complaint in the same manner that employment discrimination complaints are processed under current law. That processing may include the ordering of back pay, reinstatement, compensation in lieu of reinstatement, and costs and attorney fees.

The bill also provides that DWD or an employee whose rights are violated may bring an action in circuit court against the employer without regard to exhaustion of any administrative remedy. If the circuit court finds that a violation has occurred, the employer may be liable to the employee for compensatory damages, reasonable attorney fees and costs, and, under certain circumstances, liquidated damages equal to 100 percent of the amount of compensatory damages awarded to the employee. In addition to any damages imposed on an employer in an administrative proceeding or circuit court action, an employer that willfully violates the protections created in the bill may be required to forfeit not more than $1,000 for each violation.

AB583,,77(a) “Bona fide business reason” means a reason that justifies an employer’s action and that is based on the employer’s determination that taking a different action would have any of the following results:

AB583,,881. Additional costs to the employer, including costs of lost employee productivity, retaining or hiring employees, or transferring employees between work locations.

AB583,,13136. Unfairness to other employees who request changes to work schedules if granting all requests would have a significant detrimental effect on the employer’s ability to meet organizational needs.