I’ve been a server at Olive Garden on and off for 7 or 8 years now. We have never, since I started at Olive Garden, had reliable schedules. We get our schedule 4 days in advance. We get it on Thursday night for the Monday following.
I have two children. As a mom, childcare is a huge issue for me. I literally have to scramble on Thursday night to make sure my kids are taken care of because my husband works day shift and I work night shift. Plus, my kids are in swimming and dance, so we need to plan around that as well. If there is a gap in between my husband getting home and me having to go to work and I can’t find somebody to watch my kids, I need to go in late or call out, period. I lose that amount of tips and those hours. Then there are the financial issues that come with not knowing how many hours you are going to work each week. Everyone has their own life they need to plan around, and we can’t do that if we are just getting a few days notice like we are now. It would be so much easier if we got our schedule in advance to be able to plan for our family and make sure we can cover the bills.
Why is this important?
Some cities and states have already passed legislation requiring large food and retail corporations to have better scheduling practices. The main parts of these laws are:
-Advanced notice of our schedules
-Additional compensation for when our schedules get changed after they’re posted
-The right to have input in our schedules for better flexibility
-Access to more hours for those that want them
-The right to rest between closing and opening shifts
Where these laws exist, Darden is already following them! With these laws, shift swaps between employees and requests made by employees would still work the way they do now, and Darden already has software that lets us do this. There’s no reason they can’t follow these basic things to give us more stability and flexibility to live our lives, whether that’s taking care of kids, going to college, or anything else.
Please sign the petition to demand that Darden implement secure schedules in ALL of their restaurants!
Working Washington
