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General Assembly Committee Bill No. 764
January Session, 2019
LCO No. 4943
Referred to Committee on LABOR AND PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
Introduced by:
(LAB)
AN ACT PROHIBITING "ON-CALL" SHIFT SCHEDULING.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General
Assembly convened:
Section 1. (NEW) (Effective October 1, 2019) (a) For the purposes of 1
this section: (1) "Employee" means any person (A) paid on an hourly 2
basis, (B) not exempt from the minimum wage and overtime 3
compensation requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 4
and the regulations promulgated thereunder, as amended from time to 5
time, and (C) suffered or permitted to work by an employer in: 6
(i) Any occupation in the mercantile trade, meaning the trade of 7
wholesale or retail selling of commodities and any operation 8
supplemental or incidental thereto, including, but not limited to, 9
buying, delivery, maintenance, office, stock and clerical work, except 10
repair and service employees having the major portion of their duties 11
unrelated to the mercantile trade; 12
(ii) A restaurant occupation, including any person engaged in the 13
preparation and serving of food for human consumption or in any 14
operation incidental or supplemental thereto, whether the food is 15
served at or away from the point of preparation, or whether the 16
preparation and serving of food is the sole business of the employing 17
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establishment or enterprise, but does not include the preparation and 18
serving of food in a nonprofit educational, charitable or religious 19
organization where the food service is not regularly available to the 20
general public, or the preparation and serving of food in hospitals, 21
convalescent homes or homes for the elderly where the food service is 22
not regularly available to the general public and is incidental to the 23
care of the patient. Restaurant occupation includes, but is not limited 24
to, employees of restaurants, cafeterias, that portion of hotel business 25
involving the preparation and serving of food, commissaries, fast food 26
outlets, grills, coffee shops, luncheonettes, sandwich shops, tearooms, 27
nightclubs, cabarets, automats, caterers, frankfurter stands, operators 28
of food vending machines, and that portion of a business involving the 29
serving of food in department stores, drugstores, candy stores, 30
bakeries, pizzerias, delicatessens, places of amusement and recreation, 31
commercial and industrial establishments and social, recreational, 32
fraternal and professional clubs which either regularly or 33
intermittently serve food; 34
(iii) An occupation within a hotel, motel or resort with one of the 35
following broad or detailed occupation code numbers and titles, as 36
defined by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard 37
Occupational Classification system or any successor system: 35-3010 38
Bartenders; 35-9020 Dishwashers; 35-9030 Hosts and Hostesses, 39
Restaurant, Lounge and Coffee Shop; 37-2010 Building Cleaning 40
Workers; 37-3010 Grounds Maintenance Workers; 39-3030 Ushers, 41
Lobby Attendants and Ticket Takers; 39-6010 Baggage Porters, 42
Bellhops and Concierges; 43-4080 Hotel, Motel and Resort Desk Clerks; 43
43-4170 Receptionists and Information Clerks; or 44
(iv) An occupation within a nursing or residential care facility 45
defined by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard 46
Occupational Classification system or any successor system: 31-1130 47
Nursing Assistants, Orderlies, and Psychiatric Aides; 48
(2) "Employer" means an employer, as defined in section 31-71a of 49
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the general statutes, who employs not less than twenty-five employees; 50
(3) "Regular rate" has the same meaning as provided in section 31-51
76b of the general statutes; 52
(4) "Scheduled work hours" means the hours an employee is 53
scheduled to work pursuant to a work schedule; 54
(5) "Shift" means the consecutive hours an employer schedules an 55
employee to work, or to be available to report to work at the request or 56
permission of the employer, except that a break of not more than one 57
hour shall not be considered an interruption of consecutive hours; and 58
(6) "Work schedule" means a written notice of an employee's regular 59
and on-call hours during a consecutive seven-day period. 60
(b) An employer shall pay an employee one-half of the employee's 61
regular rate for any scheduled work hours the employee does not 62
work due to the employer cancelling or reducing the employee's 63
scheduled work hours: 64
(1) After the employee reports to work such scheduled work hours, 65
or 66
(2) Less than seventy-two hours prior to the commencement of such 67
scheduled work hours. 68
(c) An employer shall not owe an employee pay pursuant to 69
subsection (b) of this section if the employee's scheduled work hours 70
are canceled or reduced due to: 71
(1) The employee's written request, including, but not limited to, a 72
request to use sick leave, vacation leave or other leave pursuant to 73
employer policy; 74
(2) A mutually agreed upon shift trade or coverage arrangement 75
between employees, subject to an existing employer policy regarding 76
such shift trade or coverage arrangement; or 77
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(3) The inability of the employer's operations to begin or continue 78
due to (A) threats to the employer's employees or to the employer's 79
property, (B) the failure of a public utility or the shutdown of public 80
transportation, (C) fire, flood or other natural disaster, (D) a state of 81
emergency declared by the President of the United States or the 82
Governor of this state, or (E) severe weather conditions that pose a 83
threat to employee safety. 84
(d) (1) An employee may decline to work a shift that begins less 85
than eleven hours after the end of the employee's previous day's shift 86
or during the eleven-hour period following the end of the employee's 87
shift that spanned two days. 88
(2) If an employee consents to work a shift described in subdivision 89
(1) of this subsection, such consent shall be in writing. 90
(3) An employee who works a shift described in subdivision (1) of 91
this subsection shall be compensated at one and one-half times the 92
employee's regular rate of pay for any hours worked during such shift. 93
(e) Nothing in this section shall prohibit an employer from adopting 94
policies related to employee scheduling that are more beneficial to an 95
employee than those required by this section. 96
(f) Nothing in this section shall be construed to diminish the 97
obligation of an employer to comply with any contract, collective 98
bargaining agreement, employment benefit plan or other agreement, 99
provided such compliance by the employer is more beneficial to an 100
employee than complying with the provisions of this section. 101
(g) Nothing in this section shall prohibit an employer from 102
scheduling an employee for a shift with less than seventy-two hours' 103
notice, provided such scheduling is mutually agreed upon in writing 104
by the employee and employer. 105
(h) Each employer subject to the provisions of this section, unless 106
exempted by regulations adopted by the Labor Commissioner 107
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pursuant to subsection (i) of this section, shall keep a true and accurate 108
record for not less than three years of: (1) The shifts worked each day 109
and each week by each employee, (2) each employee's work schedule, 110
and (3) any revisions to such work schedule. 111
(i) The Labor Commissioner may adopt regulations, in accordance 112
with the provisions of chapter 54 of the general statutes, to provide for 113
the implementation and enforcement of the provisions of this section. 114
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following
sections:
Section 1 October 1, 2019 New section
Statement of Purpose:
To prohibit the practice of on-call shift scheduling.
[Proposed deletions are enclosed in brackets. Proposed additions are indicated by underline,
except that when the entire text of a bill or resolution or a section of a bill or resolution is new, it is
not underlined.]
Co-Sponsors: SEN. LOONEY, 11th Dist.; SEN. DUFF, 25th Dist.
SEN. FONFARA, 1st Dist.; SEN. MCCRORY, 2nd Dist.
SEN. CASSANO, 4th Dist.; SEN. LESSER, 9th Dist.
SEN. WINFIELD, 10th Dist.; SEN. COHEN, 12th Dist.
SEN. ABRAMS, 13th Dist.; SEN. MOORE, 22nd Dist.
SEN. BRADLEY, 23rd Dist.; SEN. KUSHNER, 24th Dist.
SEN. LEONE, 27th Dist.; SEN. FLEXER, 29th Dist.
REP. ELLIOTT, 88th Dist.
S.B. 764