Fair Workweek laws (also called predictive scheduling or secure scheduling) are US city and state rules that require certain retail and food employers to give workers advance notice of their schedules, pay a premium when they change shifts late, and respect rest between shifts. This guide explains what they require and where they apply — and how Schedaddle now flags these issues right in your scheduler, for the city or state you operate in.
Predictive-scheduling laws exist to end the practice of giving hourly retail and food workers their schedules with little or no notice, changing them at the last minute, and scheduling back-to-back close-then-open shifts. They typically apply to larger retail and food-service employers above an employee or location threshold, and they create a small set of concrete obligations a store manager has to meet every single week.
The details differ by jurisdiction, but the recurring obligations are: give advance written notice of the schedule; pay a "predictability pay" premium when you change a posted shift; offer a good-faith estimate of hours at hire; give a right to rest between shifts (no forced clopens); offer extra hours to existing staff before hiring new people; and keep records that prove you did all of the above.
As of 2026, jurisdictions with predictive-scheduling laws covering retail and/or food service include Oregon (the only statewide law), and the cities of New York City, San Francisco, Berkeley, Emeryville, Los Angeles (city) and unincorporated Los Angeles County, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Evanston, Illinois. Coverage thresholds, covered industries, and premium amounts vary by location and change over time.
Treat this list as a starting point, not legal advice. If you operate in or near one of these areas, confirm the current ordinance and your coverage threshold with the local agency or your employment counsel before relying on any process — including this one.
Advance notice: post the written schedule a set number of days ahead (often 14). Predictability pay: when you add, move, or cancel a posted shift inside the notice window, you usually owe the employee extra pay. Right to rest: an employee can decline a shift that starts within a set number of hours (often 10–11) of their previous one — the "clopen" rule — and is owed a premium if they work it.
Good-faith estimate: at hire, give a written estimate of expected hours and shifts. Access to hours: before hiring or using a staffing agency, offer the extra hours to existing qualified employees. Recordkeeping: keep schedules, changes, and consent records (often for 2–3 years) so you can show what was posted and what changed.
Turn it on for your store. In Settings you pick your jurisdiction — Oregon, New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, or Los Angeles — and Schedaddle applies that location’s advance-notice window, rest-period threshold, and predictability-pay rules. Not over the legal employer-size threshold? You can still switch it on and offer the same protections to your team voluntarily.
See the issues as you build the week. The scheduler flags, live, the things these laws care about: a schedule posted with too little notice, close-then-open shifts under the required rest hours (with the premium owed), and the predictability pay you may owe when you change a posted shift inside the notice window — calculated from a version-stamped record of every edit. The auto-scheduler also de-prioritizes clopens and treats availability as a hard constraint, so the violations are fewer to begin with.
Capture what the law expects. Record a good-faith hours estimate at hire; and when an employee asks for more hours or declines a short-notice shift, it surfaces right in the scheduler so you can offer open shifts to existing staff first. Advance publishing with app + email notifications — the foundation of any advance-notice rule — and the change log give you the documentation trail, instead of a verbal “I told them.”
Schedaddle flags and estimates — it is not a substitute for legal advice. The premium amounts and notice windows are an authoritative-intent reference we keep current and re-verify on a schedule, but ordinances change and carry coverage tests (employer size, location count, industry) that we do not evaluate for you. Treat what you see as a heads-up to act on, not a final number to pay blindly.
You stay in control. Schedaddle surfaces the short-notice shift, the insufficient-rest pairing, and the predictability-pay estimate; you and your counsel confirm the exact obligation and decide what to pay. It does not auto-pay, auto-cancel a shift, or guarantee compliance — it makes the obligations visible, operable, and provable, which is the hard part of running these laws week to week.
Schedaddle ships built-in rules for every US jurisdiction below. Each guide breaks down that location’s advance-notice window, rest threshold, predictability pay, and coverage test — and how the scheduler flags it.
Yes. Pick your jurisdiction in Settings and the scheduler flags short-notice posting, close-then-open shifts under the required rest hours, and the predictability pay you may owe on changed shifts — for that city or state’s rules. These are estimates and flags to act on, not legal advice or guaranteed compliance.
When you edit a posted shift inside the notice window, Schedaddle estimates the predictability pay owed — extra pay for added or changed shifts, a fraction of lost hours for reductions or cancellations (or a city’s flat-dollar tiers, like NYC) — using your jurisdiction’s rules and a version-stamped log of every edit. It’s an estimate to verify, not an automatic payment.
As of 2026: Oregon statewide, plus New York City, San Francisco, Berkeley, Emeryville, Los Angeles city and county, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Evanston, IL. Schedaddle ships built-in rules for Oregon, NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Coverage thresholds vary and change — verify locally.
The scheduler flags any close-then-open pairing under your jurisdiction’s rest threshold and the premium it would owe, and the auto-scheduler de-prioritizes them in the first place. Availability is a hard constraint, so clopens become a deliberate exception, not an accidental default.
You’re not legally required to follow Fair Workweek, but you can still switch it on in Settings to offer the same protections — advance notice, rest between shifts, predictability — to your team as a voluntary, employee-friendly policy.
Yes. Schedules are published with version stamps and post-publish edits are kept in a change log, giving you a record of what was posted and what changed — the documentation predictive-scheduling laws expect.
This guide is general information, current as of 2026, and is not legal advice. Verify current rules with your jurisdiction or employment counsel.
Pick your jurisdiction and Schedaddle flags short-notice shifts, insufficient rest between shifts, and the predictability pay you may owe — right as you build the week.