By Netsy Firestein
Executive Director, Labor Project for Working Families
Sally Wright, 67, a greeter at the Wal-Mart in Ponca City, Okla., says she quit last August after 22 years with the company when managers pushed her to make herself available to work any time, day or night. She asked to stay on the day shift, but her manager reduced her schedule from a 32-hour week to an eight-hour week and refused her pleas for more hours.
Unfortunately, this is only one example of “fake flex” policies that force workers to “flex” their lives to fit the job.
The latest profit-making strategy of many employers is to create a cheaper and more “flexible” workforce. In the interest of the bottom line, they cap wages, force more full-time workers to become part-time labor, and force them to work increasingly irregular work schedules, including working more nights and weekends. The demand that workers be available round the clock puts the company’s needs first and the needs of working families last. Such management-driven “fake flex” policies that penalize workers and give them little or no control have given flextime a bad name.
Unions can tell the difference between fake flex and real flex: Real flextime is worth fighting for.
If workers are expected to flex to the job, the job should flex back. Real flextime equals workers’ control over job time plus security. It is never forced on workers. It expands their choices by giving them the power to shape their work hours and schedules to achieve work family balance. Within negotiated limits, real flextime options do not cost workers their pay, benefits or job security.
Workers Locked in a Time Vise
More unions now are pushing for flextime. Changes in America’s labor force and economy mean that America’s working families are so stressed for time that flextime has a great deal of organizing appeal. Consider this:
- Americans work nearly nine weeks (350 hours) longer each year than Western Europeans.
- Two out of three unionized fathers report they are unhappy with the amount of time they can give their children. Half of mothers feel the same way.
- Nearly one-third of all unionized workers say that “not enough family and personal time” is their single biggest work-related concern.
- Surveys of union members suggest that they do not feel existing flextime programs offer sufficient job guarantees—a natural opportunity for unions to deliver a highly valued win.
More and more workers want more control over their work schedules without risking their wages, benefits or job security. Flextime is an opportunity for unions to respond to the most deeply felt needs of organized and unorganized workers alike.
Flextime and Work and Family Balance
Workers need support in the workplace so they can manage their families and their jobs. However, the workplace no longer reflects today’s working families. One in seven workers has responsibility for an older parent or relative. More than half the mothers with children under 18 years are in the workforce and many of these women have pre-school children. However, nearly 75 percent of all working adults have little or no control over their work schedules. It is no surprise that lower paid workers (especially lower income women) have the least control. Arriving or leaving even a few minutes late can cost them their jobs. In addition, many workers are forced to work overtime, presenting a huge problem for families. How can workers spend time with their families, give them what they need and still earn a living?
“Two words,” says Patricia Gonzales, office manager in a department of the federal government. “Flexible scheduling. Without flexibility, I couldn’t meet the needs of two children and still do my job. I value flexibility almost as much as my health benefits.”
Flextime recognizes workers play many life roles at once. It enables workers to have the precious time needed to take an elderly parent to the doctor, stay home with a sick child, or move to part-time work, with benefits, when children are out of school.
As balancing work and family becomes more difficult for working families, unions are starting to bargain for the power of working men and women to shape their work days and weekly shifts, and even to move deliberately between full- and part-time work.
For example, with a flexible schedule agreement, an employee might start work earlier and leave earlier to pick kids up from school. Another might compress 40 hours a week into four 10-hour shifts to get another full day off. Still others might choose to leave early when needed and make up the work later in the week.
The idea behind flexible scheduling, says Kris Rondeau, an organizer for the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers/AFSCME, is that schedules should adapt to the individual worker’s needs. “We negotiated language that allows for members to work out a schedule to fit their circumstances. There are so many options and life circumstances change so that schedules have to be renegotiated every year.”
Workplace Flexibility a Union Issue
Flexibility at the workplace always has been a union issue. Hours of work have been a collectively bargained issue. For instance, shift workers have often negotiated complicated work hours with creative solutions such as weekend workers receiving full time pay for less hours (36 hours work for 40 hours pay). Leaves for bereavement, maternity and education have long been standard in many contracts. In many industries, unions have regulated “flexibility” that is controlled by the employer and a burden on employees. Unions have negotiated for stability in shifts and input by the workers as to what flexibility works for them. Part-time work with benefits or part-time work for a defined period of time for new parents has been negotiated in recent years. Unions such as the UAW and CWA have been pioneers in regulating the problem of excessive mandatory overtime in their industries.
The Labor Project for Working Families has recently released a new resource, Flex Pack, that helps unions continue to push for workplace flexibility by offering tools for action. The Flex Pack is a toolkit on organizing, bargaining and legislating for worker controlled flexibility. It is organized in a user friendly, fact sheet format and contains FAQs, tips for organizers, legislative examples, case studies, contract language, as well as resources that help unions learn:
- Why union members want more job flexibility.
- How to tell genuine flextime from “fake flex” gimmicks.
- What specific flextime options are worth bargaining for.
- When flextime can be a powerhouse organizing tool.
The bottom line is that America's workplaces today no longer match the lived reality of our working families. The labor union movement fought for and won the eight-hour day. Now, however, compared to other advanced economies, our working families are locked in a time vise. The Flex Pack equips unions to take action.
To download a FREE copy or to purchase a hard copy ($5 each/bulk prices available) of the Flex Pack, please visit .
You may also place orders by e-mailing info@working-families.org or calling 510-643-7088.
The Flex Pack project was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Netsy Firestein is the executive director of the Labor Project for Working Families—a national nonprofit advocacy and policy organization providing education, resources and technical assistance to unions on family issues in the workplace.
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