a predictable working arrangement. from a certain set of employers in san francisco. now a qualified employee is anyone who is responsible for the care of a child, or a serious medical condition or taking care of a parent over the age of 65 and has to have worked for the employer over 6 months and work eight or more hours a week, it is important to consider that temporary workers are included. so a temporary worker as the way to legislation is written now may make a request to the agency that employs them or to the client in which they are placed and show up and work during the day, as the supervisor said two requests may be made during the 12 month period unless there is a major event occurring. the covered employees are really two sets, and every private employer, in san francisco who rights ten or more employees as well as the city and county of san francisco, itself, to put into context on that, about 15

percent of the private businesses in san francisco, fall into that category of having ten or more employees. and they account for about 85 percent of the private sector jobs? the city. >> what gets potentially covered under the request is a fairly broad range of terms and conditions of employment. and including, changed to the hours that the employee works and the time where they start and end work and where they work and whether at home or at a place of business the assignment and what they actually do on the job or really any other term or condition of their employment. for example, a part time employee could request a increase in their hours under this legislation and request to be full time, for example. >> and the only difference in the legislation as far as we can tell, between a flexible and a predictable working arrangement is enforcement and i will talk to you on that in a few moments. >> so the process is the

initial request must be made in writing by the employee. if your initial request is made orally, the employer is required to tell the employee that the request must be made in writing. the employer may, deny the request, and the legislation does mention but not limit what good faith business reasons are. and they include things like cost and impact on the ability to serve the customers insufficient work, to respond to the request that is being made. and if the request is denied, the employer does have to provide in writing that reason. an employee who is denied has the right to request a rehearing of that and if that request is made, then a meeting must be held within a certain period of time and if the employer must again state and bases state in writing, if the request is denied. >> there is an enforcement element of this, but as the supervisor indicated the scope of enforcement is less than it

was in the original legislation, it is empowered to investigate the potential violations and impose the penalties, they may not find a violation on the basis of the good faith business reason, but only on whether an employee fails to comply with either the noticing and other procedural requirements of the legislation, or if an employee's rights are violated. one of the rights that an employee has, under the legislation, is if their request for a predictable work arrangement is denied, they have the right to refuse to work a changed business schedule with less than one week's notice. >> and so, this is actually a write that is not currently available to workers in san francisco. this would be a new right that would only apply to workers whose request for a predik able working arrangement was denied and that would be the basis for an osc investigation and potential penalties. and another aspect of this

enforcement which is some what less significant given the amended version of the legislation, olse has the power to find violations, not really investigate, but basically to determine whether a violation takes place and the next step in that process, if an employer is unhappy with that, and it is an appeals process in which the controller appoints a hearing officer. and that hearing officer must 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 harmont and other plact 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 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