Chicago Agency Proposes Changes to Fair Workweek Rules

The Chicago Office of Labor Standards (OLS) has proposed changes to the rules implementing the city’s Fair Workweek Ordinance.¹ The Ordinance requires covered employers to provide advance notice of work schedules to their covered employees, and to pay additional wages if posted schedules are changed within a certain time period. The Ordinance also requires employers to offer additional hours to existing employees before hiring new employees. Final rules implementing this ordinance were issued in 2020. OLS is accepting public comments on the proposed changes to these rules until Friday, April 3, 2026. These can be submitted online. A summary of the proposed changes can be found on the OLS website. It is unclear when the new rules will take effect. Employers planning ahead can anticipate these proposed changes:

• Replacing “calendar week” with “week” and defining “week” as seven consecutive 24-hour periods (consistent with the FLSA). It may begin on any day of the week and any hour of the day.
• Clarifying how to calculate employer size, which determines whether an employer is covered under the ordinance. Specifically, the city will count the average number of global employees and covered employees (as defined by the ordinance) during a 12-month period for existing employers and 90 days for new employers.
• Requiring that a work schedule be time-stamped with its date and time of posting.
• Adding additional requirements for a good-faith estimate, including the date it was provided to the covered employee and whether the covered employee is expected to work any on-call shifts.
• Requiring employers to record whether a covered employee receives tips or performs the duties of both tipped and non-tipped positions.
• For new covered employees at time of hire, or existing covered employees returning to work from a leave of absence, the employer may provide a written work schedule, with less than 14-days’ notice, that runs through the last date of the currently posted work schedule.
• For existing covered employees who are transferred, promoted, or assigned to a new job classification, the employer may provide a written work schedule that runs through the last date of the currently posted work schedule at time of the transfer, promotion, or assignment to a new job classification.
• For predictability pay purposes, regular rate does not include overtime, holiday pay, or other premium rates. However, if a covered employee’s regular rate of pay includes a differential meant to compensate the covered employee for work performed under differing conditions (for example, a shift differential for working weekends or at night), such a differential rate is not considered to be a premium.
• Predictability pay shall not be deemed as another hour of work. It shall not impact the accumulation of paid leave or paid sick leave.
• Pertaining to the access to hours requirement:
  • Predictability pay is not required for any shifts accepted through the access to hours process.
  • The access to hours requirement shall not apply to the hiring of new covered employees at a new location within the city.
• Right to rest consent: This written voluntary consent may be situational or provided on an ongoing basis so long as a covered employee may revoke consent at any time.

Compliance with predictable scheduling laws provides a host of structural and cultural challenges for covered employers. While the latest proposed changes are not final and are subject to revision, they provide insight as to what may come. Note that some of the proposed changes may have impact beyond the local workplace. Employers may want to contact their payroll vendors to see how they are currently calculating predictability pay and its relation to the regular rate and ensure the vendors are able to comply with the proposed changes, should they become final rules.