Understanding Los Angeles County’s New Fair Workweek Law

Los Angeles County recently joined the cities of Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Francisco, San Jose, and Emeryville, Calif.; New York City; Philadelphia; Chicago; Seattle; and Oregon as jurisdictions that have enacted “fair workweek” legislation, also referred to as predictive scheduling. 

Similar to the City of Los Angeles’s Fair Work Week Ordinance, the county’s ordinance will apply only to retail businesses that have at least 300 employees worldwide (including franchises and those employed through temporary staffing agencies). Employees of such businesses who qualify for minimum wage and perform at least two hours of work in a workweek in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County will be covered by the ordinance, which contains a host of scheduling and recordkeeping requirements. It is scheduled to go into effect on July 1. 

Good-Faith Estimate

Employers will be required to provide workers with a written, good-faith estimate of their work schedule before hiring and within 10 days of a current employee’s request. The ordinance specifies that while the good-faith estimate is not a binding contract, “if a retail employee’s actual hours, days, location, or shifts worked substantially deviate from the good-faith estimate of work schedule, the retail employer must have a documented, legitimate business reason, unknown at the time of providing the good-faith estimate of work schedule, to substantiate the deviation.” Further, the ordinance defines substantial deviation as when any of the following occurs in six workweeks out of 12 consecutive workweeks, and the occurrence is not due to documented retail employee-initiated or retail employee-approved changes:

• The number of actual hours worked differs by 20% or more from the expected hours in the good-faith estimate of work schedule.
• The actual days of the week worked differ from the expected days of the week indicated in the good-faith estimate of work schedule.
• The actual work location differs from the expected work location in the good-faith estimate of work schedule.
• At least one actual shift per week is outside of the potential shifts indicated in the good-faith estimate of work schedule.

Right to Request Changes to Work Schedule

The ordinance provides covered employees with the right to request certain work hours, work times, or locations of work. Covered employers may accept or decline the request if they notify the employee, in writing, of the reason for any denial.

Advance Notice of Work Schedule

Employers will be required to provide employees with advance notice of their work schedules at least 14 calendar days before the first day of the schedule. Notice may be provided electronically, in person, or by posting the schedule in the workplace. Any employer-initiated schedule changes, including changes to date, time, or location, that occur after notice is given must be made in writing. Employees have the right to decline any changes that would add work hours or additional shifts that were not included in the original schedule. If a worker accepts a schedule change made less than 14 calendar days before the work period, the acceptance must be in writing.

Access to Hours for Current Employees

The ordinance prohibits covered employers from hiring new employees (including contractors and temporary employees) unless they have first offered additional work hours and shifts to current employees. Covered employers need only offer these open shifts or hours to employees that the employer reasonably determines are qualified to perform the available work. For example, if a covered employer needs a new cashier, the employer would not need to offer cashier hours to employees who have not been trained in cash handling or in the use of the employer’s point-of-sale system.

The ordinance requires employers to post a notice of available or open shifts at least 72 hours before hiring a new employee; existing employees have 48 hours following their receipt of the offer to work additional hours to accept the offer.

Employers may only hire new employees to meet increased demand if no current employees are qualified, if none volunteer, or if allowing current employees to take on the additional work would require the payment of overtime (or other premium pay) to current employees.

An employee who accepts additional hours pursuant to this “access to hours” rule is not entitled to premium pay for those additional hours.

Premium Pay for Work Schedule Changes

The ordinance requires covered employers to issue premium pay whenever they change an employee’s schedule. When the schedule changes result in no loss of time or additional work time exceeding 15 minutes, the employer owes the employee one additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of pay. 

Changes that result in a loss of work time require the employer to compensate the employee at half of the employee’s regular rate of pay for the lost work time. For example, if an employee was scheduled to work eight hours and the employer reduces this to four hours, the employee is owed premium pay equal to two hours of work.

Premium pay is not required if:

• An employee initiates the requested schedule change.
• An employee voluntarily accepts a schedule change initiated by an employer due to another employee’s scheduled absence.
• An employee accepts additional hours that were offered by the employer pursuant to the access to hours provision of the ordinance.
• An employee’s hours are reduced due to the employee’s violation of law or of the employer’s policies.
• The employer’s operations are compromised pursuant to law.
• Extra hours worked require the payment of overtime.

Notably, an employee simply agreeing or consenting to work additional hours or shifts does not exempt a covered employer from having to pay the employee schedule-change premium pay. Additionally, like under the city ordinance, employers are prohibited from requiring an employee to find coverage for a shift if they cannot work due to protected reasons.

Rest Time Between Shifts

Employers are required to give employees at least 10 hours of rest between shifts unless the employee gives written consent to be scheduled for a shift that begins less than 10 hours after the conclusion of the previous shift. When an employee consents to work a shift that starts less than 10 hours after their previous shift, they are entitled to time and a half “for each hour of the second shift not separated by at least 10 hours.” This is different from the City of Los Angeles’ ordinance, which currently mandates time-and-a-half premium pay for the entire second shift.

In Los Angeles County, for example, if an employee works 4 p.m. to midnight on Saturday and then accepts a shift from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, the employee would earn time and a half only for the first two hours of the Sunday shift and not for the entire shift on Sunday.

Penalties and Enforcement

The ordinance includes penalties paid both to the employee and to the county for violations of its rules. A prevailing employee will be entitled to such legal or equitable relief as may be appropriate to remedy the violation, including, without limitation, the payment of any minimum wages, the payment of penalties, reinstatement in employment and/or injunctive relief, and reasonable attorney fees and costs. Additionally, a “one-time penalty for each violation,” which does not accrue daily, is allowed up to $500 per violation of each section of the ordinance.

Further, the employer will be liable to the county for administrative fines, which may be assessed for each violation, up to $500 (and up to $1,000 for retaliation against an employee for exercising their rights under the ordinance).

Next Steps

Compliance with predictable scheduling laws provides a host of structural and cultural challenges for covered employers. For example, managers need to be trained that they are obligated to finalize, publish, and distribute schedules with far more advance notice than they may be used to. 

Similarly, managers need to be reminded that predictable scheduling laws prohibit even minor schedule deviations. Managers who may be used to texting with employees and asking employees to cover shifts are no longer permitted to do so without first getting an employee’s written consent. 

Likewise, managers must ensure that employees leave right at the scheduled end time of their shift, even if they are busy. Allowing an employee to stay more than 15 minutes after the scheduled end time, without the employee’s consent, would constitute a violation, and schedule-change premium pay would be owed (unless such extra hours worked require the payment of overtime).

Perhaps most difficult, managers need to understand that they simply cannot hire new employees to meet anticipated demand. Instead, they need to comply with the access-to-hours process or risk incurring heavy fines and penalties.

Andrew Klaben-Finegold is an attorney with Littler in Columbus, Ohio. Joy C. Rosenquist is an attorney with Littler in Sacramento, Calif. © 2025 Littler. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.