New statewide poll finds 63% of likely voters support secure scheduling, with only 15% opposed

Pierce County & Olympic Peninsula voters register especially strong support

A new statewide poll finds remarkably strong and broad support for secure scheduling, which would require large retail, hotel, and food service companies to provide advance notice of shifts, input into work schedules, and opportunities to work additional hours. The State Senate Labor Committee will hold a hearing on secure scheduling (SB 5717) at 8:00am tomorrow, Thursday, January 30th. 

Voters support secure scheduling by large margins all across Washington, with support especially strong in more working class areas of the state and areas which typically see more contested legislative races. Most notably, the poll finds:

• 63% - 15% support for secure scheduling statewide

• 75% - 8% support on the Olympic Peninsula

• 63% - 25% support in Pierce County

Secure scheduling also polls quite strong in Eastern Washington (54% support - 21% opposed), and even Republican voters express plurality support by a 41% - 34% margin. Support is consistent across gender and education, and each of the key components of secure scheduling policy are by themselves also extremely popular.

The full polling memo is available here. 

Unstable and unpredictable work schedules are a growing crisis for food & retail workers in Washington state. Seventy-eight percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and more & more people are working multiple part-time jobs just to get by. Hundreds of thousands of workers in our state only get a few days notice of their schedules, and more and more employers are requiring 24/7 availability, even for part-time jobs that don’t offer the hours you need to pay the rent.

A bill to establish secure scheduling for retail & hospitality workers (SB 5717 / HB 1491) is set for a hearing TOMORROW morning at 8:00am in the Senate Labor Committee.

Workers who struggle with unstable & unpredictable work schedules will be attending the hearing and are available for interview.

More information:

• Academic researchers at UC Berkeley have documented the state of scheduling practices in the service sector in Washington state.

• Vox recently dug into the national movement for predictable work schedules.

• An executive for scheduling software vendor Deputy recently spoke to Business Insider about the business case for better work schedules.

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Working Washington is the voice for workers in our state. Working Washington fast food strikers sparked the fight that won Seattle’s first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage. Working Washington baristas and fast food workers led the successful campaign for secure scheduling in Seattle, and our members across the state helped drive forward Initiative 1433 to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick days. We successfully drove Amazon to sever ties with the right-wing lobby group ALEC and improve conditions in their sweatshop warehouses, and got Starbucks to address inequities in their corporate parental leave policy. And we've continued to make history by organizing for the landmark statewide paid family leave law in 2017, winning the groundbreaking Seattle Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in summer 2018, and leading the fight last year to restore overtime protections to salaried workers. For more information, including our press kit, visit workingWA.org.