“Then one of my associates explained to me that it wasn’t correct what they were doing and said I should reach out to a lawyer to figure out what’s going on. That was my main priority: to take care of my son,” he said. “I didn’t know what they were doing wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t until he spoke with an associate that he learned his schedule might have legal protection. But his complaints went unheeded, he said, and he continued to put up with the situation because he needed to provide for his son. Washington told his manager at Walmart several times that he needed a schedule that wasn’t so erratic and that it was becoming difficult for him to balance his home life and plan ahead. Child care is impossible to schedule when you don’t know what your regular schedule is.” Washington gives a perfect example of that. For example, in a rotating shift schedule, one group of workers handles the day. Shift work scheduling is a type of forward scheduling that was created to keep a member of a team available whenever a job needs to be done, 24/7. “As the minimum wage stays nationwide very low, a lot of studies on what issues are barriers from getting out of poverty and one of the big things is inconsistent schedules” said Sally Abrahamson, a co-counsel on the suit. A shift work schedule is a schedule for employees to work in timed blocks throughout specified days of the workweek. “I didn’t know what they were doing wasn’t the right thing to do.” Donald Washington The city ordered Target to pay 70 employees a total of more than $22,000 last year in response to similar complaints. Walmart isn’t the first large company to be challenged under Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek law, which took effect in 2020 and protects retail, hospitality and fast food workers’ rights to consistent hours. » READ MORE: Retail and fast-food workers: These are your rights under Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek law Washington worked at the Walmart from May 2021 to last month, while Wilder worked there from April 2018 to last September, Huang said. We will respond to the lawsuit as appropriate once we are served with the complaint,” Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesperson, said in a statement. “We take the requirements of the Philadelphia Fair Workweek ordinance seriously and have policies in place to comply with it. Washington and Wilder are filing the suit on behalf of what could potentially be “thousands” of hourly, nonexempt Walmart employees in the city, said David Huang, a lawyer on the suit who works at Community Legal Services. Two former Walmart employees filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the retail giant, claiming the company violated their rights to a predictable and regular schedule.ĭonald Washington and Symone Wilder, both former employees at the Bustleton Walmart on Roosevelt Boulevard, filed a suit against Walmart on Tuesday, claiming the company regularly violated Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek ordinance.