Fair Workweek is different. Your system has to track when you posted the schedule, what you changed afterward, and what each change costs. I wrote this guide because seeing this and then configuring it in a real site can be challenging.
These laws don't only tell you what to pay. They tell you when you're allowed to set the schedule at all. If you're covered, you publish the schedule a fixed number of days ahead and then stick to it. Change anything after that deadline and you may owe the employee extra. Almost every ordinance includes four obligations:
| Requirement | What it means | What the system must do |
|---|---|---|
| Advance notice | Post the schedule a set number of days ahead. Most ordinances use 14. | Stamp every schedule with its publication time and lock the deadline per worksite. |
| Predictability pay | Extra pay owed when you add, cut, move, or cancel a posted shift after the deadline. | Compare each change against the publication timestamp and calculate the premium automatically. |
| Clopening rest | A minimum gap, often 10 to 11 hours, between a closing shift and the next opening. | Flag short-rest pairings before they're published, and apply the premium if the employee works one. |
| Good faith estimate | A written estimate of expected hours, days, and locations, given at hire. Full guide → | Generate and keep a GFE for each new hire, then track actual hours against it. |
Two more that come up. You usually have to offer extra hours to your existing part-timers before hiring anyone new or bringing in subcontractors, and employees can turn down last-minute shifts without being punished for it.
Right now one state and about eleven cities or counties enforce predictive scheduling laws. Each one sets its own rules on employee count, industry, and location, so a single company-wide policy won't keep you compliant. You have to look at it site by site, and most companies implementing the rules have their own interpretations.
| Jurisdiction | Scope | Primarily covers |
|---|---|---|
| Oregon | Statewide | Retail, hospitality, and food service (large employers) |
| New York City, NY | Local | Fast food and retail |
| Chicago, IL | Local | Retail, hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing, warehouse |
| Philadelphia, PA | Local | Retail, hospitality, and food service |
| Seattle, WA | Local | Retail and food service |
| Los Angeles, CA (city) | Local | Retail |
| Los Angeles County, CA (unincorporated) | Local | Retail (effective July 1, 2025) |
| San Francisco, CA | Local | Formula (chain) retail |
| Emeryville, CA | Local | Retail and fast food |
| Berkeley, CA | Local | Multiple industries (effective Jan 12, 2024) |
| Evanston, IL | Local | Retail, hospitality, manufacturing, warehouse |
You can check almost any other compliance rule against a finished schedule. These violations happen at the moment of the change, like when a manager moves a Tuesday shift to Wednesday three days before it starts. If your system isn't recording when the schedule was posted and comparing every later change against that point, you can't prove you complied and you can't work out what you owe. Three questions tell you whether your system can handle it:
| Capability | The question to ask |
|---|---|
| Publication timestamp | Can it tell you the exact moment a schedule became official, per location? |
| Change attribution | For any edit, does it know whether you made the change or the employee asked for it? Only one triggers pay. |
| Premium calculation | Does it calculate predictability pay automatically, by ordinance, or is someone doing it in a spreadsheet afterward? |
Start with the worksite, not the policy. Go location by location. Work out which ordinance applies, then compare the four obligations above against what your system enforces today. The compliance grid shows Fair Workweek status for all 52 jurisdictions, and each state profile breaks down what it means for your system. When a new ordinance passes or a threshold changes, the change log records it with the date we checked.