begin from a presumption that they made a correct decision that the burden of proof falls on the employer to show that olse was incorrect in that conclusion, that is a some what different process than the other ordinances of the similar type and other jurisdictions and i will talk about the differences between this legislation and some of the other legislation that is introduced in britain and ireland and new aoe land and vermont and other places that we looked at. >> i want to turn now to economic impact and legislation like this presents a different kind of challenge for us as economists this is not the thing that we have a lot of numbers that we can crunch, the impact of this whether it is positive or negative will be about employers and employees respond to it. but having said that there are guidelines that will help us understand and maximize the opportunity for a good out come and minimize the opportunity for a bad out come. >> i think that it is very important to stress the fact

that even before legislation like this was adopted, this is a practice that the employers having increasingly adopted in the united states and around the world and they have done it because it is good practice. and because it is beneficial for both sides and when you see the voluntary things happen in the economy they happen because it is good for both the employer and the employee. and the supervisor alluded to some of those benefits that it leads to higher female participation in the labor force. and it reduces, a care giver's chance that they may have to leave a job because they cannot make it work with their family obligations. and it allows the flexibility as the type of the ordinance suggests that allows the people to stay with the job when they otherwise might not be able to if it was not flexible. >> there are credible study and a higher sense of productivity

and loyalty and so those are the quek benefits of it and this is also true that the legislation in the recent years and starting with the british example has been popular around the world. in the uk, for example, the conservative led coalition has recently announced the plans to expand the legislation to apply to all employees, not merely employees that take care of parents or children, but any employee in britain can make a flexible work arrangement request and this will go into effect next year. what this means that if this legislation were made to operate in such a way that it was only about creating a request that could be denied after consideration, for a valid business reason. and then it is unlikely to really significantly harm the city's economy and indeed there is an increasing realization among the economists that the policies like that that are kind of a light touch and that kind of nudge the businesses

into doing something that the other businesses that are ahead of the curve are more beneficial and actually helps them learn or helps the economic agents learn about the opportunities for economic improvement that they might otherwise not have without the nudge and so this is not demanding that the businesses do anything and it is merely asking a business to accept a request and consider whether there is a valid business reason. and having said that, there are despite the significant changes that have happened in the legislation from the amend td version, there is still several features of it that depart from a simple requirement that businesses accept a request for a flexible work schedule. and there is several, differences remaining between this legislation and other legislation and other places on which it is broadly based. and some of these, do create greater uncertainty for business than a simple request,

for a flexible work schedule and they do potentially raise the spector of the challenges of meeting customers or rating the costs and i want to go through the negative economic impacts as well. >> and there really are five or six issues. >> the temporary worker and i touched on it before. the issue with the temporary worker is not so much that it is bad that the temporary workers should have a flexible working arrangement but the way that the ordinance is written and even in the amended version it could show up on day one and request a flexible work schedule of that employer without the employer having known about that right when they asked for the employee. and in other words, you can get your six months of tenure if you like to qualify as an employee simply by working for your agency and then make a request of the company at which your agency places you and then they have to respond, and then

the oness on them to respond. what that actually is, if you consider, two workers sitting, you know, starting on the same day, one is a temporary worker and one is not, the temporary worker might have a right to make a flexible work request and the other worker would not because they had not been there for six months, it is an issue of equity. >> and another difference between this legislation and the legislation that we examined in the other places is the scope of what may be asked for under a flexible work arrangement. mentioned earlier that work assignments could be requested, this is not something that you see in the british legislation, in the british it is limited to how many hours of work do you want to work a week? what time would you like to start and stop work and where would you like to work? and the scope of the request is much broader in this legislation. another difference between this

legislation and other legislation, is that the only requirement is that the employee making the request be a care giver, there is not any requirement for the request itself have anything to do with the provision of care. in the british legislation, they can ask the employee to demonstrate, or to argue, or to put in writing, how this change in schedule helped them meet their burden of providing care and that is not a requirement. in this case and so you could have a situation where an employee who happens to be the care giver is requesting changes to the work assignment and don't have anything to do with the care giving and they are defined as a care giver and that is not necessarily assisting the people to manage their or balance their work and family obligations. >> and the issue of the right of, again, some san francisco employees to have one week's

notice to change their before change in their work schedule, and it does create a tangible cause or can create a tangible cost for some businesses, and that seems far out of line with the costs of handling the requests about a flexible work schedule. so this is something that seems like a new right and it is almost a different policy, and it is not something that you see in the legislation in any other of the places that we examined. >> additionally something that is not, something that you see in the legislation, in other places is a clause that says this right can be waived as part of a collective bargaining agreement. in other places, it is made clear that in a collective bargaining agreement, this write can be built upon wha, it says is this right can be traded away in exchange or as part of a collecting bargaining agreement. if the intent of the policy is

to provide the workers with this right it is not clear what the purpose of this collective bargaining waiver is. and finally, and again, this is i think, less of an issue given the revised state of the legislation, the difference between the appeals process and the enforcement process in san francisco, and other places is something that is worth considering. and it is unlikely to be as many appeals or as potentially, a fact just as it is if you were trying to decide what a good faith business reason was, but still the fact that it instead of going to an employment tribunal which is where it goes in the british or the australia, it goes to someone who does not start from equally weighing both size but that osc made the correct determination, it is something that is unusual and does not

necessarily lead to the kind of just out come that could inspire the confidence in the business community and that this is something that is easy to handle. and so given those potential negative impacts and again, we are only talking about potential because the clarity here is again it is how it is going to be perceived and practiced. we would suggest that people consider the following six potential changes to the legislation. with respect to the temporary issue, to clarify that a request can be made to an employer for whom the employee has worked for six months. so, that employer would know basically the employee and have the ability to assess their performance before making that determination. consider along the lines of the legislation, and other places, making the request more specifically about scheduling. hours, timing, location of work, with the idea of making

this flexible as much as possible and keeping it focused on what the people need to provide the care. on that line, a requirement that the employee also say how this request furthers their need to provide care would be along the lines of that. and the issue about the one week's notice is different than the rest of the legislation, in fact, it is the only thing that i think that you could point to and say that is a clear potential tangible cost for some business and if you took that out and with these other ones, it is very hard to see how this could be a source of economic harm. but with this, this could clearly create some problems for some businesses. the ability to wave the right to request under collective bargaining, again, it is not something that other legislation has, if the desire is to have a kind of floor of rights that all san francisco workers have, with their or if their care givers that does not need to be in there and

potentially alternative appeals process perhaps using the states office of administrative hearings instead of a controller appointed person might lead to more confidence in the out come of the appeals process. so these are our initial reading and our initial shots on the economic impact of this legislation and i am happy to take your questions. >> thank you, ted. >> commissioners? question? >> commissioner dwight? >> actually i have a question for the supervisors. >> first? >> i actually, i had a couple of thoughts this besinger is the first time that i have seen the presentation and i would like to see the things that were proposed that i would be happy to do. >> it can wait. >> if we could go to, if sfgov, tv focus on the powerpoint

presentation and potential negative economic impacts and i know that all of you have read the series of ted's prop i economic analysis and i want to thank him for his work here, one thing that i want to note is that when there are policies that have negative impacts that usually refers to estimates of potential job loss or what the costs are to our local economy and none of the bullets are about that. i would point out that all of the issues that are raised are really differences between the legislation and the other jurisdictions and we can remove the possibility of negative impact. >> in the first bullet he pointed out that the legislation covers temporary workers, as you know they work for the temp agency and what he has pointed out would be that occasionally, if you had a temp worker working for a agency for

more than six months and they moved to another employer, through the temp agency they might qualify under the statute. i am happy to address that, to make sure that strange little bubble... the temporary employees for the agencies need to work at a particular place for 6 months, we can address that. >> the third bullet around the fact that there is no requirement that the request actually be connected to care giving only that the employee be a care giver, we want it drafted so that it applies to what he wants, individuals that are involved in care giving not just the fact that you are a parent. but that would be giving your reason to get this. to use the example just because you are a parent does not mean that you can ask to take the afternoon off to go golfing, you need to be a parent engaged of taking care of a kid or a spouse in order to benefit from that. we have made the change to that language and clarify that, in some parts of the ordinance,

but if there are other aspects that are not clear i am happy to do that. >> the issue around the predictbility is one that i have heard and continues to be an issue, and i want to hear on public comment on that and i am open to other approaches to how we handle the predictbility. and the issue that we are trying to get at is that we have employees who tell us that because they don't know what their work schedule is from week to week to day-to-day, it makes it harder for them to take care of the needs. if i get a call today on a monday, from an employer who says hey i need you to show up at work tomorrow and i have child care duties tomorrow or take care of my mother. there are real challenges around that and so we have placed provisions to require some level of predictbility. >> i think that what he is pointed out is that what we have proposed may not be the perfect fix but i am open and i would like to think of ideas and how to address that.

>> we don't want this ordinance to supercede what has been bargained for as those two parties. but the intent again was to honor the agreements reached between labor and management as part of collective bargaining agreements and the last point that i want to make is the suggestion that there is an unusual degree of ajudicatory power in olc. when it comes to the paid sick leave and the leaving wage and the healthcare has similar powers and so what we did here is we simply adopted a similar approach and if there are creative ideas in that area, we are happy to consider that. i want to make it clear that these so-called potential negative economic impacts, one, don't necessarily suggest that there is going to be job loss,

and two, are relatively easily address and my hope is, and my hope over the next day or two and that we will address it in a way that before the final report comes out, that you will have better clarity on how we hope to do that. the last thing that i want to do is again, go back to the positive economic impacts, and i have brought with us, a fact sheet that i don't think that the small business commission got and i would like to give it to your secretary. these show that how the reason that i am promoting this is that they have led in many instances to the economic benefits to the employees and to employers and as he said in the fourth bullet not only is this unlikely to harm the city's economy, but this kind of a policy is known in the policy literature as soft-touch

policies, it is the nudge effect and it is suggesting that employers do this, and if they do, they could better realize the economic impacts in a positive way, than he referred to and i want to end with that note and with that happy to answer any questions. commissioner dwight? >> great. thank you. >> actually before we get into the specifics, which there are a number of, i am curious, first of all about the motivation for putting this on the ballot, rather than working it through the regular process which would have a little more time and consideration, that i think it has pointed out to you significant flaws in the initial draft and you have made a great effort to address some of those. there are even more things, that we have put nr egan under

the gun to get his office in order, and probably put off other things that were on his legislative calendar, and so, i'm just curious why the rush to take this to the ballot? >> sure, as i said before, i do wish that we had a little bit more time and we still do have time with regards to amendments to this and again, based on the feedback of the commission today it is my intention to offer the amendments when it is at the board of supervisors for the first time and as we consider this measure, part of the reason why we wanted to move forward with this as a ballot measure is that we wanted to have a more public conversation and a public education effort around these very issues. this is a policy that i think is worthy of adoption here in san francisco, and it is a policy that at a national level has already been attempted. but, because there have not been local or state jurisdictions that have adopted this, it has been harder to have a conversation about how

we should accommodate and be more flexible to our working family and so i was asked by the national and state advocates to consider moving this forward as a ballot measure in order to have this public dialogue in san francisco. and as i said before, given how many employers already are doing this not all employers, but many are. i think that it is an opportunity for us to celebrate what many employers are doing and make sure that all employers are doing it and be an example to others in how we ought to do it. >> unfortunately because of the timing of the ballot, calendar, and if we had receive a draft on a monday and i needed to introduce it the next day and rather than wait a week. if i waited a week i not would have had the opportunity under the calendar to actually amend this ordinance and so i had to actually rush to introduce it so that we could change it if there issues that came up that led to the controversy that we are talking about right now.

>> commissioner dooley? >> i wanted to ask about the minimum employees size? it seems like from the business community point of view, it is better to line this up with other states, city requirements and make it like with the healthcare an ordinance. 20 employees? would you consider that changed? >> so as i have told the small business leaders, i am very willing to consider that, if that is of import to this commission. we have chosen the ten employees threshold in part because as he pointed out, that threshold allows us to exempt the 85 percent to small businesses in san francisco that fall beyond that, or below that and it actually captures the vast majority of the employees and just so happens that threshold of ten employees does not capture the ten of the smaller businesses but it does

capture 85 percent of the employees, that being said, i have heard the argument that we need to make it more consistent with the ordinance and i am willing to entertain that. >> that is what i wondered. when someone is granted this request, to have it schedule change, what is there some length of time or is it just open-ended? >> so, the legislation says that the request for flexible working arrangement would delean ate what you are asking to change and the length of time that you are asking to change for, but i will note two other things, we included language with the newest set of amendments that the change can be asked for twice a year and of course if they want to do it more often that is fine, but the requirement is at least twice a year unless there are major life events and the other thing that i will note is that there is a suggestion that what if the employer agreed and it is not work and there is language here tha, allows

either the employee or the employer to terminate that flexible working arrangement within a few weeks if it is not working and then to restart the conversation again. >> so we really try to accommodate that. >> one more question. which is why such a throw threshold to permit these requests to eight hours a week seems very small to me. >> that is a standard that was actually proposed by i believe a meeting that we had with the small business advocates that came out of the healthcare and i believe that it came out of the healthcare security ordinance as a minimum for the workers to benefit from that law. >> commissioner riley? >> yes. as some say that we pointed out earlier that many of the employers already are doing this because it is a good practice, it is a win/win situation. >> so do you have a number, like a percentage of the employers that are not doing this? >> you know, it is really hard

to say, i will tell you that in many of the meetings that many of the employers say that we already do it. what i think that we know nationally is that about a third of all of the employers are engaged in this type of an arrangement already but it has not permeated to the entire, to all employers, but we also know though that many who are appear are workers that are intimidated. and don't feel good about asking that of your boss or worried about keeping your job or a young law firm associate and you are worried about the promotions we have heard from folks who don't feel comfortable with that.

whether you are a father wanting to spend more time with your kids or a mother trying to take care of your own mother who may be very sick, there are pressures and a little bit of a stigma when it comes to workplace flexibility, this is something that hillary clinton recently addressed in her first major domestic policy, this is partly why the members of congress have pushed this because within the issue of the workplaces this is becoming a bigger issue that the folks are trying to deal with and again, it is my hope that in san francisco, we can stand up as a model of how to do this and really celebrate how far a lot of our businesses have come. >> okay. >> any other commissioner questions before we go into public comment? >> you know, i have want to...

>> commissioner o'brien? >> the count is to a year unless a major life event has occurred. and so, if a major life event has not occurred, can you give me an example of what a request will be based on? >> sure, what we said was that you can make a requests and you can make at least two requests during the year and the idea around the two is that we know that a lot of parents deal with the school time and schedules and have to deal with a different summer schedules and so we want to give them the opportunity to make those shifts. and the major life event, is defined in the ordinance, so again, if you have a child, if someone in your family goes sick, that could be a opportunity for you to go to your employer and say hey, i know that four months ago we asked for a schedule based on the school situation of our kids, but my dad just moved in with us and he is dying of cancer and we have to be able

to take care of him. >> that was the rationale behind the numbers but again, open to feedback. >> i was just kind of trying to visualize the myriad of justified reasons for somebody requesting. >> i see. >> changing the schedule. >> i thought, okay, we have a major life event, which i understand is a birth or someone dying. and then i am just thinking, okay, outside of that, could you give me one, one would be a child schedule at school or something? >> so, again the ordinance defines care giving, and says that if you are parent that has a child or children for which you have responsibilities and if there is someone in your life for whom, or is an independent relationship with you and a serious medical condition or if you have an elderly parent over the age of 65, these constitute sort of

care giving situations that you could use as a basis to ask your employers. >> so, you know, one of the flags that i have immediately is the potential for abuse. so, if the parent came and said that my son's school has changed their soccer training it is going to be on thursday instead of friday evenings >> maybe this is too specific for you to give an answer to. just to fashion this out. and could would that conceivablely be a care giving qualification that would make the employer have to adhere to that request? >> let me be clear, it could be the basis of a request. but it is not necessarily the basis for you to grant that request. so if you have an employee who

kids are playing soccer and because of the schedules and the parents needing to drive around after work and need to leave early one day and able to stay later another day that could make that request of you. yes. and as they could if they need to take their kids to child care or daycare or to the medical or the doctor's apointment etc.. but you as the employer, if it turns out that you can't cover a shift or your customers and you have customer needs that you can't fill and if it turns out that it adds to your bottle line in any way you can actually deny that request. the whole point of this is to create a space for them to ask and have that conversation without the fear of discrimination or retaliation. >> okay. >> thank you. >> commissioner dooley? >> i have a question about the definition of familial relationship. i find that to be really broad. i mean does that include, you

know, some families all live in a larger group. and so that would be allowed to request if you your aunt or your uncle or your cousin, i think that we should consider limiting it to just the spouse, the children and perhaps the parents. >> so i appreciate that question and that has been raised over the last few days and that is something that we will be discussing with the city attorney of how to tighten that, i think that the common sense definition of the nuclear family makes sense and by that i will refer to an individual and his or her spouse, siblings if they are living in that household, children or parents and i think that either grandkids and grand parents if that happens to be in that situation. again, i would like feedback on that but those definitions feel fairly, you know, people understand that sort of a layperson's understanding of one's close family. >> commissioner ortiz? >> president chiu, i want to

say that i understand where the heart of this legislation and you passed many legislations that has the best feel for the city. so i want to thank you for that. i did have a question, coming in from my small business owner cap. and a this legislation ordinance and the measure passes and it works as intended is there any studies in jurisdictions where it is implemented of the administrative costs just the paperwork of you know everything works out and there is just a continual denying request because the people views and the business needs and especially a small business don't fit but the administrative costs don't have a department so it is probably the manager or the owner of the business and do to all of these requests and all of this paperwork. >> let me just say a couple of things that i have circulated to the fact sheet. there are studies of